Concerted Cultivation and Natural Growth Parenting Models - Essay Example

Concerted Cultivation and Natural Growth Parenting Models By Author’s Name Name of Class Name of Professor Name of School City/State 16th April 2017 Concerted Cultivation and Natural Growth Models Introduction Middle-class children are brought up differently to those from working class and poor families, the child-rearing style greatly influences the child’s confidence and life after school. Concerted cultivation is a technique that is used by middle-class parents to raise their children. The parents try to organise activities during the children’s free time that will enable the children to improve their intellectual and social skills (Lareau, 2011). The natural growth model is a technique used by working class and poor parents to raise their children. The working-class and poor parents do not take their children to organised activities because they are more concerned about providing the basic needs such as food and shelter. To them, providing these needs in itself is an accomplishment (Lareau, 2011). This paper seeks to evaluate how the adoption of these parenting models helps us to understand the education and social inequalities. Concerted Cultivation and Natural Growth Parenting Models According to Bourdieu, (1984), individuals who are from different social classes socialise differently. He further argues that this socialisation enables the children to know what is comfortable and natural (cited in Lareau, 2015). The middle-class parents do not have financial issues and they are able to offer their children things that the working class and poor families cannot afford. For instance, parents can employ chauffeur to take the kids to events, hire educators and shoppers for the kids. They aim at improving the children’s skill, talents and opinions. The middle-class parents engage their children in conversations and they allow the kids to negotiate. The children are also taught that it is right to approach the administrators and the teachers when they have issues that they need to solve when they are in school (Lareau, 2011). These children not only develop negotiation skills, but they are also able to grow their vocabulary which improves their communication skills. Lareau (2011), observed that middle-class parents intervened on the children’s behalf when they are not at home. This makes the children feel protected and they are not intimidated by bureaucracies. These children feel entitled to ask for help from the teachers and coaches. Rich parents are also likely to have a wider vocabulary compared to poor parents, this enables to talk to teachers and other professionals about their children’s performance. The negotiation skills that they learn from their parents enable them to negotiate with institution’s officials which make their needs and preferences to be met. Middle-class children are also able to ask questions to the people that they meet, for example, physicians. A research conducted by Bodovski and Farkas (2008), revealed that the concerted cultivation enables middle-class children to get better test scores in school. Middle-class parents allow their children to take part in games such as soccer and gymnastics, which enable them to improve their skills and learn new things. Lareau (2015), further adds that these children are able to learn how to deal with humiliation and glory. This enables the children to learn how to perform and present themselves. Lareau (2002), observed that middle-class youth are more likely to have better jobs and more secure jobs by the time there are 30 years compared to working-class and poor youths. Although concerted cultivation has many advantages, it also has a good share of disadvantages. Middle-class parents take their children to too many organised activities which end up disrupting family schedules. Lareau (2015), noted that most middle-class parents especially mothers have so many conflicting priorities, for example, meeting an activity’s deadline and serving dinner or preparing the kids for bed. In her study, she also noted that middle-class families appeared to be so tired due to tight schedules. Middle-class children do not play with neighbours or with their cousins like the kids from working-class and poor families do thus, they do not interact with their extended families which do not facilitate the formation of strong ties. The working class and poor parents are more focused on providing basic needs such as food, shelter due to financial problems instead of improving the student’s skills. Adult organised activities are not common among the working-class and poor families. Most of these children seem to understand their family’s financial constraints (Lareau, 2011). These children have ample time to entertain themselves by playing outside and creating their own games which they play with siblings, neighbours and cousins. Due to their financial problems, poor kids are forced to watch TV together and other activities which help to strengthen family ties especially between siblings (Kaushal, Magnuson, and Waldfogel, 2011). Kids rarely complain of boredom, they exhibit boundless energy and they do not appear exhausted like those from middle-class families. Just like concerted cultivation, natural growth approach also has its limitations. There is no negotiation and reasoning between kids and parents as is evident among middle-class families. According to Lareau (2015), there are clear boundaries between children and parents. Working-class parents teach their children to obey their parents and to depend on those who are in authority and to do everything they say without opposing them. Although poor children are more respectful than those from the middle-class, these children are not able to negotiate with those in authority. The kids feel uncomfortable and appear to be constrained when they are away from home (Lareau, 2011). Working class and poor parents generally tend to turn over the responsibility to teachers and those in authority. This makes the kids fear to interact with those in authority. Most of them are shy to ask for help. Some working-class parents have warm and friendly relations with teachers but some appear baffled and intimidated by teachers (Lareau, 2011). She further adds that these parents feel ineffectual when they demand something from those in authority. Working class children are less knowledgeable compared to middle-class children. The children exhibit a sense of constraint when they are in institutional settings and they accept most of the actions made by those in authority (Lareau, 2015) These two child rearing approaches lead to different educational and social advantages between the children. Middle-class children develop skills such as improved vocabularies and maintaining eye contact. The middle-class children in Lareau (2011), study learnt to shake hands and look at adults in the eye from when they were young children. She further added that research on job interviews shows that an interviewee who maintains eye contact, makes firm handshakes and who is confident is likely to pass during interviews. The working-class and poor youths in Lareau’s (2015) study revealed that it is dangerous to look at people in the eye in their neighbourhoods. These children cannot learn the importance of maintaining eye contact and this makes it difficult for them to get the opportunities enjoyed by people in the middle-class who have good communication skills. Lareau (2015), research also revealed that middle-class children are able to pursue their preferences and even if some children were more outgoing than others, shifting interactions so that they could suit their needs was a common practice among all middle-class children. These children are able to make the rules to work in their favour, unlike the poor children who follow the set rules. In addition, those who are in authority react positively to middle-class children’s style of interaction (Lareau, 2011). Her study revealed that these children were able to make special requests to their teachers and doctors. Poor children feel shy to ask for help from those in authority and this does not give them a chance to enjoy favours like the rich children do. Middle-class children depend on their parents and they consult them when making big and small decisions. According to Lareau (2015), the middle-class youths benefit from parent’s coaching and advice from when they were children and when growing into adulthood. This enables the middle-class youths to make better decisions which improve their chances of achieving their goals. According to Marsh and Kleitman (2003), sports improves a child’s non-cognitive skills such as independence and persistence (cited in Richard, et al. 2016). This can also enable them to get higher grades at school and improved self-esteem. A child’s participation in sports, going to the cinemas and zoo is determined by the family’s financial status (Pienik, 2009). This shows that middle-class children are more likely to engage in sports such as swimming than those from poor families. Lareau (2015), noted that the working class and poor youths tried to do things on their own and when confronted with a challenge, they did not ask for help. They are persistent when facing problems, this does not help to solve the problem (Black, 2009; cited in Lareau, 2015). The activities that parents do together with their children, for example, going to galleries and cinemas with their children also affect their performance in school and in other aspects of life. Middle-class parents interact with their kids and expose them to new environments and new things which help them to understand science and other studies in school (Duncan and Murnane, 2011). The middle-class children observe and imitate how their parents interact with institutions. These children learn important skills that are rewarded in institutions such as schools. The working class children, on the other hand, do not have these opportunities thus, creating a gap between them and the middle-class children. Lareau’s (2011), research revealed that most working-class and poor families provided their children with fewer educational materials such books and they also had fewer discussions with their children, unlike middle-class parents. Working class parents are also not likely to constantly monitor their children’s performance like the middle-class parents do. The parents cannot afford to take the children to cinemas and sports that would improve the kid’s skills thus, giving the middle-class children an advantage over them. According to Duncan and Murnane (2011), the growing gaps between the low-income and high-income families increase the difference between their academic achievements. This is supported by Reardon (2011), who argued that rich parents invest a lot of resources on their children’s educational development but the poor parents cannot afford (cited in Kaushal, Magnuson, and Waldfogel, 2011).Although Lareau (2011), does not clearly state which model is better than the other she maintains that the middle-class children benefit more than the poor children because they are able to develop reasoning and negotiation skills that are useful in the ever-changing society. Lareau (2011), observed that child-rearing practices were natural among all classes, that is, parents seem to bring up their children in the approach they use automatically and unconsciously. According to Lareau (2011), the concerted cultivation approach seems to have a bigger chance of being translated into social profits compared to the accomplishment of natural growth adopted by poor and working class families. This shows that the poor and working-class parents should adopt concerted cultivation technique so that they can improve their children’s skills which will lead to better life for the kids. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that the parenting model that a parent adopts leads to educational and social inequalities between children. The middle-class children are exposed to environments and activities that enable them to acquire important skills such as communication skills which help them to get better and more stable jobs. This approach has a number of limitations, for example, it does not facilitate the creation of strong ties with the extended family. Working class parents provide their kids with basic needs but they do not look for ways to improve their social and educational life during their free time. The poor children are able to play with their siblings, neighbours and cousins which help to create strong ties but they do not acquire the skills that middle-class children acquire from organised activities. Working class parents should try to expose their children to these important skills so that they can have opportunities that those from the middle-class families have. This will help to reduce the current educational and social inequalities. References Duncan, G.J. and Murnane, R.J., 2016. Rising Inequality in Family Incomes and Children's Educational Outcomes. RSF. Bodovski, K. and Farkas, G., 2008. “Concerted cultivation” and unequal achievement in elementary school. Social Science Research. Lareau, A., 2011. Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Univ of California Press. Lareau, A., 2015. Cultural knowledge and social inequality. American Sociological Review. Lareau, A., 2002. Invisible inequality: Social class and childrearing in black families and white families. American sociological review. Kaushal, N., Magnuson, K. and Waldfogel, J., 2011. How is family income related to investments in children’s learning? New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Pienik, J., 2009. Parenting & privilege: Race, social class and the intergenerational transmission of social inequality. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Richards, L., Garratt, E., Heath, A.F., Anderson, L. and Altintas, E., 2016. The childhood origins of social mobility: socio-economic inequalities and changing opportunities. Read More