19. We weren’t able to observe each of these events for every child. We observed a doctor or dentist visit for each of the four middle-class children (Tallinger, Williams, Marshall, and Handlon), three of the four working-class children (Driver, Taylor, and Yanelli but not Irwin), and two of the four poor children (Greeley and McAllister but not Carroll or Brindle). Thus, there are healthcare visits for nine of the twelve children. All of these visits were tape-recorded. For parent-teacher conferences, we have nine of the twelve (i.e., everyone except Greeley, Marshall, and Williams). These were also tape-recorded. For the overnights, we have nine of the twelve (all except Carroll, Taylor, and Williams).
20. Alexander Williams was an exception. Despite his upper-middle-class position, he was clearly excited to be part of the study and happy to spend time with the field-workers.
21. See, among others, Guadalupe Valdes, Con Respeto.
22. I believed it was my responsibility as principal investigator to take over in any situation that a graduate student identified as prohibitively difficult emotionally.
23. I found the question of intellectual ownership troublesome with regard to writing this book. I had encouraged the research assistants to use the data in their own work, and I had presented papers with some of them in conferences. But since I find writing a book manuscript difficult at best, involving coauthors seemed like an invitation to disaster. I also felt that although the data collection was crucial, it was a part of the study, not the whole. I had done the Lawrenceville field-work, written the grant, and organized and run the project. In the end, I settled on a public recognition of the research assistants’ role (in the beginning of the book) and private thank-yous to them rather than coauthorship of the book.
24. Folio Views for Windows 4.2, Open Market, Inc.
25. See Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift.
APPENDIX B
1. For an excellent summary and analysis, see David Swartz’s book, Culture and Power. See also Pierre Bourdieu, “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction,” Outline of the Theory of Practice, and Distinction, as well as Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Marlis Buchmann’s book, The Script of Life, also has a lucid summary of Bourdieu’s model (see pp. 31–38).
2. Bourdieu, Outline of the Theory of Practice.
3. Rogers Brubaker, “Rethinking Classical Theory”; Craig Calhoun et al., Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives.
4. As he writes: The habitus “is a general, transposable disposition which carries out a systematic, universal application—beyond the limits of what has been directly learnt—of the necessity inherent in the learning conditions.” Bourdieu, Distinction, p. 170. See also pp. 172–73 in Distinction.
5. When Bourdieu discusses the habitus, as in Distinction, he often focuses on cultural consumption and taste rather than child-rearing strategies per se. He makes clear, however, that he sees disparate elements of a habitus to share a common principle. Thus, for example, choices in food and in child rearing will not be unconnected. In other words, habitus is a principle that connects these preferences in diverse arenas. Additionally, Bourdieu talks about the existence of different habitus by social class. It is not generally the case that each individual’s habitus is powerfully unique; instead there is a class habitus, but there are variations within this category. As he writes:
The singular habitus of members of the same class are united in a relationship of homology, that is, of diversity within homogeneity reflecting the diversity within homogeneity characteristic of their social conditions of production. Each individual system of dispositions is a structural variant of the others, expressing the singularity of its position within the class and its trajectory. ‘Personal’ style, the particular stamp marking all of the products of the same habitus, whether practices or works, is never more than a deviation in relation to the style of a period or class. (Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, p. 60)
6. Social scientists and others have tended to focus only on certain elements of Bourdieu’s model, especially the idea of cultural capital. Bourdieu’s very important concept of field, which captures these standards, generally has been neglected. As a result, the “double vision” offered by Bourdieu’s model—the simultaneous focus on biography and social structure that is achieved through the study of fields and the practices of individuals—is often absent in empirical work.
7. Swartz, Culture and Power, p. 120.
8. Bourdieu, “Marriage Strategies as Strategies of Social Reproduction,” and Outline of the Theory of Practice.
9. Annette Lareau and Erin McNamara Horvat, “Moments of Social Inclusion and Exclusion.”
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