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Annette Lareau’s research for her book “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life,” while obviously noteworthy and perhaps groundbreaking two decades ago, does pose some problems as we look at it today. Her choices to include certain participants and exclude others seem to be based solely on whether they could help her check off several boxes that she prescribed for her study. She needed to have a selection of cases where each child was a unique mix of two possibilities for gender, race, and class. This method made it easy for Lareau to classify middle class families into a tactic of concerted cultivation, and working and lower class families into the strategy of accomplishment of natural growth. This is frustrating, because it seems to be much too narrow of a focus, much too literally black and white to really presume to be truly applicable to the larger population. By ignoring factors outside of the strict dichotomy of lower/working and middle class and white and Black, Lareau limits the amount of significance that can be extrapolated from her work.

Relfective Protocol (an incident from last week)

February 12th, 2013 

How do you know the difference between abuse and discipline? 

Abuse                vs.                     Discipline 

types of Discipline: 

• Threats 
• writing lines
• spanking 

Similarities? 

cyclical/cultural 

Traditional vs. Progressive Discipline 

In class it has been mentioned that current events have not really been integrated into our classes. So here is a debate going related to education. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/education/gym-class-isnt-just-fun-and-games-anymore.html?hp&_r=0

I have noticed that the word, "discourse" is in many posts! Great! It definitely became part of my vocabulary after taking this course in Fall 2012. From you all, I would love to know how you define "discourse." What is your definition? What does the word capture when you use it? What are its limitations?  How has using ut, or knowing it well (?), shaped your outlook in the class and/or beyond?

Would love to hear comments! Looking forward to reading more posts...

Best,

Esteniolla M.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12cnhpVm_aXcjTXk7tU2u7V1cG9Rpr2jhdjnZIhm--_M/edit

Lareau states her theoretical perspectives regarding the inequality of education and educational institutions which encompasses different philosophies of child rearing, psychology, and socioeconomic standings and their correlation to each other. According to Lareau, middle class families tend to employ the concerted cultivation approach, while lower income families tend to employ the accomplishment of natural growth approach. She seeks to prove how concerted cultivation leads to a sense of entitlement in children while the accomplishment of natural growth leads to a sense of constraint. Although Lareau attempts to validate both approaches, she notes the significant advantage of the concerted cultivation approach and how it prepares the student for the inevitable life ahead of dealing with the masses of faceless institutions (and how this advantage automatically places others at a disadvantage). While I feel Lareau's theories hold some truth, I find her approach extremely reactionary and her study blind to the other causes of disadvantages in the classroom. In many cases, her observations are skewed to fit her theory and her attempt to distinguish her theory as binary in nature often leaves out the dynamic aspect of family lives, child-rearing methods, and situations. Because of this, the significance of her theory is stunted.

Jayah Feliciano

February 18, 2013

Paper 2

Theoretical Analysis Reflection

     In Lareau’s text, she focuses on low/working and middle class families and the impact that their way of living has on the offspring.  She states that middle class families engage in concerted cultivation as opposed to the low/working class families who prefer natural growth for their children. Lareau believes that the children raised in the middle classes families gain more of advantage than the children in low/working class families, and I agree with Lareau.

            Chapter three is about a boy, Garret Tallinger, who is raised in a middle class family. Organized sports are a top priority for him and they shape Garret to be competitive, aggressive, and teach him how to work with a team. In addition to sports, his parents use a technique of answering questions with more questions to arrive at an answer. They also teach Garret how to interact with adults, making sure he gives eye contact when shaking the hand of an adult. The parents of Alexander Williams, who is also middle class, makes sure that he questions authority.

McDermott and Varenne define culture as a term “that is generally taken to gloss the well-bound containers of coherence that mark off different kinds of people living in their various ways, each kind separated from the others by a particular version of coherence, a particular way of making sense and meaning,” (325). Reading McDermott and Varenne’s article on culture, and focusing on the wording of how they defined culture in the beginning--by emphasizing on "separating" people and identifying differences in one another-- I am curious as to how their perspectives would apply in the setting of my field placement at a school with students who have learning differences, as they call it.

    After reading Freire’s perspective on teaching and learning, and their relationship and dichotomies, I think it is fair to say that he has offered the reader a romanticized and idealistic version of a classroom and the dynamic that exists between teachers and students. He also presents a fairly isolated view of the classroom, only slightly taking into account the background and family lives of students. This highly contrasts to the writing of McDermott & Varenne, seeing how there is not as much of an insistence on the importance of the individual, but rather the teaching methodologies and practices in and around the classroom. He is much more optimistic about the future; a quote that stuck with me in relation to this was,”I am not angry with people who think pessimistically. But I am sad because for me they have lost their place in history” (Freire 26). I struggle to put this in context of his argument for critical thinking in the classroom and critical analysis of teaching by teachers. It seems a little contradictory to me that he is so anti-pessimistic, yet looks for criticism. I do not mean to equate pessimism and criticism, but being blindly optimistic about the future does not leave much room for critical thinking, whether constructive or not.