Week Eight: Annette Lareau — Unequal Childhoods

1. Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods“Children grow up within a broad, highly stratified social system.”Sociologists conceptualize class in terms of categories or gradations. \ Sociology 1201

2. Week Eight: Annette Lareau—Unequal Childhoods • Research basis: Intensive Observation by herself and her graduate students of 12 families, half black and half white, and each category also divided by social class. About 20 hours per family over a period of several weeks. “Treat us like the family dog.” Sociology 1201

3. Social Movement • DFN: Group of people organizing to promote (or sometimes resist) change in society using means that are at least partly unconventional (outside the norms) • Strategy of those who have little institutional power • Always invokes powerful opposition • High risk Sociology 1201

4. 1st Wave of Feminism • Late 19th and early 20th century • Basic legal and voting rights • Marching, picketing, being jailed • 1920: Constitutional Amendment giving women the right to vote Sociology 1201

5. Second Wave of Feminism • Late 1960s and early 1970s • Basic contention that the sex roles idealized in the 1950s were unfair and arbitrary—a form of oppression • Consciousness-raising groups • “The personal is the political.” • Equal Rights Amendment passed Congress in 1971 but fell 3 states short of being ratified Sociology 1201

6. Effects on American women’s consciousness • 1962: 2/3 of women responding to Gallup poll denied every being treated unequally based on sex • 1970: 50/50 • 1974: 2/3 reported unequal treatment Were things getting worse—or was consciousness changing? Sociology 1201

7. 2 distinct viewpoints about family • Women, like men, should put major energy into careers, with family involvement taking less hours (The Time Bind) • Men, like women, should put major energy into family and home, accepting a reduced standard of work achievement. (Halving It All) Sociology 1201