Initially, I settled on two class categories, guided by the populations represented in the town where I was observing. Since employers or self-employed workers were less common than others in the population as a whole, I decided to concentrate exclusively on parents who were employees rather than employers or self-employed. The question then became how to differentiate within this heterogeneous group. Various criteria have been proposed for this purpose, but authority in the workplace and “credential barriers” are the two most commonly used. The former entails the differentiation of those with supervisory or managerial authority over other workers from those with neither. The latter criterion entails separating occupations with stringent educational requirements from those with less demanding ones. On the basis of these considerations, coupled with a pragmatic assessment of what was realistically feasible, I settled on an approach that differentiated a working class and a middle class, each broadly construed. I planned to assign the families to one of these categories on the basis of discussions with each of the employed adults in which they would provide extensive information about the work they did, the nature of the organization that employed them (if there was one), and their place in it. If a family included two full-time workers with divergent class designations, I would assign the family to the higher category (i.e., “middle class”), irrespective of which family member had the defining job.
This plan was adjusted when I discovered that in Lawrenceville schools a substantial number of children were from households supported by public assistance. To ignore them would have been to restrict the scope of the study in a somewhat arbitrary fashion. As a result, I added a group of poor families not involved in the labor market—families that are traditionally excluded in social class groupings. In the end, I worked with three categories: middle-class families, working-class families, and poor families (see Table C1 for criteria for inclusion).
These social class categories conceal important internal variations. Both the Williams family (Black) and the Tallinger family (white) have very high incomes (i.e., annual incomes of more than $175,000). The differences in income among middle-class families, while real, did not appear to be linked to differences in child-rearing methods among middle-class parents (including the more wealthy ones) in my limited sample. Moreover, no other available data show compelling intraclass divisions. Thus, using one term—middle class—to cover the middle-class families of varying wealth seemed reasonable.
In a somewhat different vein, Table C3 makes it clear that these differences in social class are heavily interwoven with different forms of family structure, a pattern that is also found nationally.3 Thus, the Black and white middle-class children we observed all reside with both of their biological parents. Although some of the poor children have regular contact with their fathers, none of the Black or white poor children in the intensive observations had their biological fathers at home. The working-class families were in between. This pattern raises questions of whether the pattern of concerted cultivation depends on the presence of a two-parent marriage. The scope of the sample cannot provide a satisfactory answer to this question. Still, indications are that family structure, while it may influence aspects of the cultural logic of child rearing, does not determine it. For example, in the sample of thirty-six middle-class families, there were three single parents. These single-parent families clearly used the cultural logic of concerted cultivation. The parents did complain in interviews, however, that being a single parent hampered their ability to enroll their children into as many organized activities as they wished. National data reveal that children in two-parent homes spend more time in organized activities than do children in single-parent homes.4
CHOOSING THE SCHOOLS
In an ideal world, I would have found schools and neighborhoods that were racially integrated and integrated by social class. In reality, of course, American children live in settings that tend to be homogenous by race and, to a lesser extent, by social class, and they typically go to schools that are similarly homogenous.5 In the end, I opted for schools that were racially integrated but were relatively homogenous by social class.6 After I had identified a group of schools that met my basic criteria, I used informal networks to meet with high-level administrators in the relevant school districts. These administrators selected the final sites from the list of choices I presented, and, on my behalf, they also made the first overtures to the principals involved. Detailed descriptions of Lower Richmond public elementary school and Swan public elementary school (the sources for almost all the children discussed at length in the book), are presented in Chapter 2.
From December 1993 to June 1994, I observed at least twice a week (frequently more often) in a third-grade classroom at Lower Richmond. I began similar observations in a third-grade classroom at Swan in April 1994. A research assistant continued at Swan weekly, observing the now fourth-grade children from September through December. In addition, I went back to each school occasionally when the children were in fourth grade; in fifth grade the research assistants and I attended graduation.
Lower Richmond’s third-grade teacher, Ms. Green, generously welcomed me into her classroom and facilitated my integration and that of a Black woman undergraduate student who was assisting me. While in the classroom, I sometimes simply observed, but other times, I helped out with art projects and computer lessons and lent a hand shepherding children from place to place in the school. I brought in food on various occasions, including cookies for the class on Valentine’s Day.7 I got to know the students well; the girls would give me a hug when I got to school. Once I established a warm rapport with the children, the next step was to interview parents.
Based on the classroom teacher’s knowledge of the children, I separated them into groups by race and class and selected every “nth” name. I wrote the parents a letter (the schools released the children’s addresses) explaining that I was writing a book on how children spend their time when they are out of school and, more generally, examining the work it takes parents to get children through the day. I mailed these requests for interviews at the end of the children’s third-grade year (Lower Richmond) and in the fall of the children’s fourth-grade year (Swan).8 I then called all of the parents to talk about the project and schedule an interview.
Across the two sites, only one mother refused participation outright (some fathers eventually declined). In addition, two or three parents who had initially agreed to be interviewed were not interviewed because of scheduling difficulties. Overall, however, the response rate for families was more than 90 percent. I still did not have a sample with which I felt comfortable, however. Despite their racially diverse character, the two schools did not include enough middle-class Black and poor white children for the study. I broadened the sample to include third-graders at Swan and also recruited through fliers and informal networks.9 The bulk of the interviews with parents took place in 1993 and 1994, but some were not completed until 1997. An additional sixty interviews with educators and other adults working with children were also conducted. For example, the third-grade and fourth-grade teachers at the schools were interviewed (including in Lawrenceville), along with other school personnel (i.e., reading specialists, music and art teachers, the school nurse, bus drivers, and yard duty teachers) as well as numerous providers of children’s leisure services. Where possible, these interviews were focused on the children in our study. (A chronological overview of the study is presented in Table C9, Appendix C.)