1 Social Class and Parent Involvement In

Schooling
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In his autobiography Making It, Norman Podhoretz describes the journey he

made in his life - 'one of the longest journeys in the world' - from the Bronx
to Manhattan. Prodded by his high school teacher to apply for admission to
college, Podhoretz, the son of working-class parents, won a scholarship to
Columbia and ultimately became renowned as the editor of a national magazine.
But success had its price. As he became more comfortable in the world of
Columbia his Brownsville life began to appear shabby. As Podhoretz says:
I knew that the neighborhood voices were beginning to sound coarse
and raucous; I knew that our apartment was beginning to look tasteless
and tawdry; I knew that the girls [I was] in quest of ... were beginning
to strike me as too elaborately made up, too shrill in their laughter, too
crude in their dress (Podhoretz 1967:51).
Podhoretz's journey was shaped by his high school teacher, who had systema-
tically tried to break him of many of the behaviors he had learned in his
working-class home. Using stinging criticism of his satin jacket, his table
manners, his language, and his demeanor, she sought to teach him the mannerisms
of' cultivated people', in the hope that these alterations would ease his entrance
into the upper-middle-class world that she so desperately wanted for him.
In the end, Podhoretz left behind his working-class roots and joined what
he called 'a foreign country':
The country is sometimes called the upper-middle-class; and indeed I am
a member of that class, less by virtue of my income than by virtue of the
way my speech is accented, the way I dress, the way I furnish my home,
Copyright 2000. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

the way I entertain and am entertained, the way I educate my children

- the way, quite simply, I look and I live.
This view, that class membership has a powerful influence on family life and on
children's lives outside the home, is not shared by some sociologists. Swayed by
the ideology of classlessness in American society, the reluctance of Americans to
define themselves as working-class or upper-class, and the lack of dramatic class

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 Home Advantage

divisions in political debates, some sociologists have argued that attention to social
class membership does not significantly enhance our explanatory powers. l
Others have conceded that social class may influence dynamics within the
home, but they maintain that social inst,itutions outside the home are indifferent
to class membership. In the area of schooling for example, some note the
persistent failure of sociologists to find powerful evidence of class discrimination
in school practices, after taking into consideration children's ability. Indeed
status attainment studies have concluded that the impact of socio-economic
status is on the values and educational aspirations which children bring to the
educational process. These in turn influence educational achievement. Re-
searchers have insisted that, with minor exceptions, focusing on social class
(independent of aspirations or children's ability) does not significantly add to our
understanding of the dynamics within the classroom or the school. They
consider children's ability, aspirations, and social-psychological profile to be
more revealing areas of investigation. 2
In this book, I challenge the position that social class is of only modest and
indirect significance in shaping children's lives in schools. I argue that social class
(independent of ability) does affect schooling. Teachers ask for parent involve-
ment; social class shapes the resources which parents have at their disposal to
comply with teachers' requests for assistance. 3
Indeed this book suggests that researchers have made a fundamental mistake
in their conceptualization of the problem: they have limited their focus to
experiences within a given social institution - looking at family life or school
life. Parents do not automatically give up trying to control their children's lives
when their children walk out of the front door, so what researchers need to
examine are inter-institutional linkages. While working-class men have little
autonomy on the job, at the end of the shift, their work is over. Upper-middle-
class men, however, frequently carry their work into their family's life, as they
travel overnight, work at home on weekends, and entertain co-workers and
business associates as part of the standards for occupational advancement. Social
class differences in family involvement in schooling appear to mirror these
patterns in the amount of separation between work and home in working-class
and upper-middle-class families. In Middletown, the Lynds (1929) spoke of the
'long arm of the job' in shaping family life. This research suggests that this 'long
arm' may be longer than previously thought, extending beyond the home to
influence dynamics in other social institutions.

Social Class and Parent Involvement in Schooling

Considerable attention has been devoted to parent involvement in schooling at

the elementary level. 4 Researchers usually define parent involvement as
preparing children for school (for example, teaching children the alphabet;
talking and reading to children to promote language development), attending
school events (for example, parent-teacher conferences), and fulfilling any

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 Social Class and Parent Involvement

requests teachers make of parents (for example, to play word games with their
children at home). Others include in the definition providing children a place to
do homework and ensuring the completion of homework (Epstein 1987; Epstein
and Becker 1982; Hoover-Dempsey et al. 1987; and Van Galen 1987). Re-
searchers argue that this kind of parent involvement improves school per-
formance, as measured in reading scores or standardized test scores (Epstein 1988;
Stevenson and Baker 1987; Henderson 1981).5
Although parent involvement is positively linked to school success, many
parents are not as involved in schooling as teachers would like. This lack of
involvement is not random: social class has a powerful influence on parent
involvement patterns. For example, between forty to sixty per cent of working-
class and lower-class parents fail to attend parent-teacher conferences. For
middle-class parents these figures are nearly halved, i.e., about twenty to thirty
per cent (Lightfoot 1978; Ogbu 1974; McPherson 1972; Van Galen 1987). In the
areas of promoting verbal development, reading to children, taking children to
the library, attending school events, enrolling children in summer school, and
making complaints to the principal, middle-class parents consistently take a
more active role in schooling than do their working-class and lower-class
counterparts (Baker and Stevenson 1986; Heath 1983; Heyns 1978; Medrich et al.
1980; Stevenson and Baker 1987; Wilcox 1978).6
Many teachers work to increase parent involvement in schooling. Surveys
of teachers show that most want parent involvement and ask for it, particularly
in the early years of schooling (Gallup 1985). A few teachers are 'teacher leaders'
and are particularly vigorous in requesting parent support (Becker and Epstein
1982), but almost all teachers in elementary school encourage parent involve-
ment and many are discouraged by what they consider insufficient parent
participation. In fact, in polls of teachers the lack of parent involvement is
consistently named as one of the most important problems facing the public
schools. And about one sixth of former teachers polled reported that they left the
profession because of lack of community and parent support (Harris 1985a;
1985b).
Researchers have joined teachers in the efforts to develop and share
strategies for increasing parent involvement. Indeed the policy implications of
parent involvement in schooling have now come to dominate the research
agenda. Using his research on high schools, James Coleman (Coleman 1987;
Coleman and Hoffer 1987) has argued that parent involvement in the com-
munity reduces drop-out rates and improves school performance. He urges
other schools to try to emulate this successful use of what he calls 'social capital'.
Epstein (1986; 1987) has also called for increased parent involvement in
schooling. Other social scientists, in providing models of home-school relations,
have advocated strategies for raising the level of parents' involvement (Walberg
1986; Rich 1986; Clark 1983).
In championing the virtues of parent involvement in schooling, and
promoting techniques for increasing it, researchers have neglected the more
basic question of why social class so affects parent involvement. Every important

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 Home Advantage

social science study of family-school relations in the last two decades has noted
class differences in parent-school relations, but none has systematically examined
why they persist. Rather these works have focused on effective strategies for
increasing parent involvement (Litwack and Meyer 1974; Leichter 1974; Epstein
and Becker 1982; Clark 1983).7 In a few instances researchers have studied the
enduring tensions between the particularistic concerns of parents and the
universalistic concerns of teachers (Lightfoot 1978; McPherson 1972).
As a result the current research approach to parent involvement in
schooling is skewed. There is very good evidence that the character of child
rearing has changed radically through history. There is also very good evidence
that the curriculum, classroom goals, and organization and structure of
schooling have also changed radically. This means that historically and cross-
culturally a wide variety of home-school relationships are possible. Rather than
continuing to take one type of home-school relationship as an ideal, sociologists
should acknowledge and investigate this variety. To do so would entail a careful
examination of social class differences in family-school relationships; such
investigations would not immediately dismiss one set of behaviors as undesirable
and seek to convert a wide range of behaviors by families into a uniform (and
historically specific) style of interaction.

Biography and Social Structure

Some of the weaknesses in the research on family-school relationships are linked

to unique problems in the study of education. Other problems, however, reflect
enduring weaknesses in sociological models of the influence of social stratifica-
tion on individual biographies. In documenting how social class influences social
life, researchers often have presented correlations between social class and life
experiences (Bielby 1981; Sewell and Hauser 1980). This provides statistical
probabilities, the aggregated likelihood of social class influencing educational
and occupational mobility. But statistical models contain many 'empty places'
with no indication of how particular individuals will fill these places (Cicourel
and Mehan 1985). Nor is it clear under what circumstances social class provides
children with a powerful advantage, and under what circumstances the
advantage is trivial or non-existent.
In addition many conceptual models focus on the influence of values on
behavior. They suggest, explicitly and implicitly, that social class has a powerful
influence on life chances because it influences the values that parents hold and
pass on to their children. This assumption is overly narrow because it fails to
recognize that, in addition to values, social class provides individuals with
resources which they can effectively marshall in the social sorting process
(Bourdieu 1977; 1984; Collins 1979; Swidler 1986).
In recent years a growing number of scholars have looked at the cultural
patterns associated with social class and have tried to analyze how these patterns
provide advantages in social institutions. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu

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 Social Class and Parent Involvement

(1977a; 1977b; 1984; 1987), for example, has argued that social class alters the
cultural resources - including language and knowledge of art, music, and other
cultural experiences - that individuals have access to in their home environment.
He suggests that family life provides resources ('capital') which yield important
social profits (Bourdieu 1977a; 1984).8 Similarly Ann Swidler has conceptualized
culture as a:
... tool-kit of symbols, rituals, and world-views, which people may use
in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems (Swidler,
1986, p. 273).
In focusing on the strategies individuals employ to improve their social
positions, these social scientists offer a portrait of the individualized actor as
engaged in creating his/her biography within specific social structural
constraints.
Empirical work using Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital has begun to
appear (Blau 1986; Cookson and Per sell 1985; DiMaggio 1982; DiMaggio and
Mohr 1985; Teachman 1987; De Graaf 1986; Useem and Karabel 1986). This
research suggests that exposure to high status cultural resources is associated with
educational success. Introducing cultural resources into the models usually, but
not always, improves upon existing models of the linkage between social class
and educational and social outcomes (DiMaggio and Mohr 1985; Robinson and
Garnier 1985; Teachman 1987).
While important, this research has often failed to exploit the full potential
of the concept of cultural capital because it focuses on individuals, showing, for
example, the association between cultural consumption and educational per-
formance. Individualistic analyses fail to demonstrate the standards of social
institutions which, according to the concept, are infused with the family life and
experiences of the privileged social classes. Nor does it show how an individual's
class position provides advantages (i.e., resources) that help him/her comply
with the standards of the institution. It is clear that taking art lessons and going to
museums influences grades and college aspirations; it is less clear why it provides
this advantage. Although the concept of cultural capital has the potential to
show how social class differences in family life can help or hinder individuals in
their efforts to meet the standards of school and go on to gain acceptance in
college, empirical research has not demonstrated this potential.
Moreover, although acknowledging that social institutions do not operate
in a vacuum, most researchers ignore the linkages among social institutions.
Structural-functionalism provides a coherent theoretical model of these inter-
institutional linkages, but more recent sociological research has failed - con-
ceptually and empirically - to pursue these issues. Instead researchers have foc-
used on dynamics within social institutions, or they have provided very general
assertions about the 'congruence' or 'correspondence' between social insti-
tutions. For example, Alexander and colleagues correctly point out that
researchers have had trouble looking at the influences of parents and teachers on
one another (Alexander et al. 1987a). Their own research examines the standards

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 Home Advantage

of 'deportment', notably the degree to which parents and teachers share child
rearing values (and the impact of this on school performance). While useful,
their research does not take up the degree to which parents (or teachers) try to
bring themselves into alignment with the standards of another institution. Nor
does it investigate whether parents try to alter the school experience of children.
Similarly, Bowles and Gintis (1976) articulated a 'correspondence theory'
suggesting that classroom dynamics vary according to class differences in
authority patterns, but presumed, rather than demonstrated, social class dif-
ferences in the interactions between parents and teachers over the curriculum. 9
Thus the conceptualization of the variation in linkages among social
institutions - in the intensity, depth, and quality of these linkages - has been
weak. These analyses fail to capture the notion of a family - school linkage with
- to use an analogy-a small, rarely used pathway, in one community or a large,
well-traveled, pathway in another. Researchers need to study the size, nature,
and purpose of these home-school 'roads', as well as the number of travelers
using them. Having the company of many others may shape the nature of the
journey; by focusing primarily on individual travelers researchers have missed
these possibilities.

Values, Discrimination, and Cultural Capital

Why does social class have such an important influence on parent involvement in
schooling? At issue here is not the absolute level of parent involvement, but
rather the gap between the relatively high level of involvement of middle-class
and upper-middle-class parents and the relatively low level of involvement of
working-class and lower-class parents. Three major intellectual positions have
emerged.
Parents' values are a frequent, although often implicit explanation of why
social class influences parent involvement in schooling. For example, in a study
of teachers that revealed that parents' social class influenced their attendance at
conferences and their willingness to work in the classroom, the authors
considered a number of explanations:
Higher SES [socio-economic status] parents, realizing the importance of
education and feeling confident of their right to be involved in the
school, may take a more active role than their lower SES counterparts
in supporting school programs (Hoover-Dempsey, et al. 1987, emphasis
in the original).
In suggesting that parents of high socio-economic position 'realize the im-
portance of education', the authors are implying that parents of lower socio-
economic status do not 'realize the importance of education'. This comes quite
close to the notion of values, which is often defined as a 'standard of desirability',
(Kohn 1977) but it is not an explicit theory of values.
The 'Wisconsin Model' (Sewell and Hauser 1980) is more explicit. The

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 Social Class and Parent Involvement

researchers argue that socio-economic status influences parents' values; these, in

turn, influence children's educational aspirations. According to the model, social
class influences children's performance by shaping children's educational goals
and motivations. Earlier work, using the 'culture of poverty' perspective,
attributed the lower levels of parent involvement in schooling to the lower value
which parents placed on education (Deutsch 1967a; 1967b; Reissman 1962;
Strodbeck 1958; 1965).
Other studies have traced unequal levels of parent involvement back to the
educational institutions themselves. Some researchers accuse schools of institu-
tional discrimination, claiming that they make middle-class families feel more
welcome than working-class or lower-class families (Lightfoot 1978; Ogbu
1974). Connell and colleagues, for example, argue that while ruling-class
families treat teachers as workers, working-class parents are 'frozen out' of
schools (Connell et al. 1982).10 There are few thorough studies of the
interactions between parents and teachers, but the studies suggest a relatively
high level of uniformity among teachers in their reports of requests for parent
involvement. In addition teachers report making more - not fewer - requests
for parent involvement to working-class and lower-class parents than they do to
middle- and upper-middle-class parents (Epstein 1986; Hoover-Dempsey 1987).
This relatively high quantity of interaction does not, of course, address the
quality of interaction. It is possible that teachers (who are by d¢fmition middle-
class) may be less comfortable, less friendly, and less talkative with lower-class
and working-class clients.
Other researchers have looked at the impact of parent involvement on
organizational dynamics (Corwin and Wagenaar 1976; Epstein 1987). Epstein,
for example, has shown that within schools some teachers are 'leaders' in
recruiting parent involvement (Epstein and Becker 1982; Becker and Epstein
1982). These teachers are more successful in getting parents to become involved,
regardless of social class, and are also less likely than other teachers to use social
class as an explanation for why parents are not involved. Instead they attribute
parent involvement patterns to the strategies they did, or did not, use
throughout that particular academic year. 11
Thus organizational variations at the school site can influence teachers' and
students' school experiences. Overall, however there is considerable uniformity
in the requests teachers (particularly teachers in first grade) make for parent
involvement, while there is substantial variation by social class in parents'
responses. Even when they are interacting with the same teacher at the same
school, working-class parents are less likely to attend school events than are
middle-class parents (McPherson 1972). Looking at organizational dynamics can
add to our understanding of this difference, but such an approach is clearly
inadequate as a model of why class differences in parent involvement persist.
A third perspective for understanding varying levels of parent involvement
in schooling draws on Bourdieu's work and his concept of cultural capital.
Bourdieu (1977a; 1977b; Bourdieu and Passe ron 1977) argues that schools draw
unevenly on the social and cultural resources in the society. For example, schools

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 Home Advantage

use particular linguistic structures, authority patterns, and types of curricula;

children of higher socio-economic standing enter school already familiar with
these social arrangements. Bourdieu maintains that the cultural experiences in
the home differentially facilitate children's adjustment to school and academic
achievement. This transforms elements of family life, or cultural resources, into
what he calls cultural capital.
This perspective emphasizes the importance of the structure of the school
and of family life and the dispositions of individuals (what Bourdieu calls
'habitus') in understanding the different levels of parent participation in
schooling. The standards of the school are not neutral; their requests for parent
involvement may be laden with the cultural experiences of intellectual and
economic elites. Bourdieu does not examine the question of parent involvement
in schooling, but his analysis points to the importance of class and class cultures
in facilitating or impeding parents' negotiation of the process of schooling.

Social Class and Family-School Relationships

This book explores how and why social class influences parent involvement in
schooling. The research looks at a specific form of parent involvement: parents'
role in their children's education, particularly classroom activities. 12 The book
analyzes family-school relationships in a predominantly white, working-class
elementary school and in a predominantly white upper-mid dIe-class elementary
school. It describes family-school relationships in one first grade class in each
school; and, within the two schools, the analysis focuses on twelve families over
the course of their children's first and second grade school years.
The research reveals that family-school relationships very between the
working-class and upper-middle-class communities. Relations between work-
ing-class families and the school are characterized by separation. Because these
parents believe that teachers are responsible for education, they seek little
information about either the curriculum or the educational process, and their
criticisms of the school center almost entirely on non-academic matters. Most
working-class parents never intervene in their children's school program; their
children receive a generic education. Although these parents read to their
children, teach them new words, and review their papers, such activities are
sporadic rather than enduring and are substantially less than what the teachers
would like. Efforts to monitor their children's school activities are undertaken
almost exclusively by mothers.
By contrast, upper-middle-class parents forge relationships characterized by
scrutiny and interconnectedness between family life and school life. These parents
believe that education is a shared responsibility between teachers and parents,
they have extensive information about their children's schooling, and they are
very critical of the school, including the professional performance of their
children's teacher(s). Most, but not all, upper-mid dIe-class parents read to their
children and reinforce the curriculum at home. Many parents, particularly

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 Social Class and Parent Involvement

parents of low achievers, attempt to customize their children's schooling by

requesting particular teachers, asking that their children be enrolled in school
programs, and complaining to the principal about the teacher. Some parents also
try to compensate for weaknesses in the school program by carrying out some of
the classroom curriculum at home, hiring tutors, and having their children
evaluated by educational consultants. Although mothers do most of the work in
supervising children's education, fathers attend symbolic school events and take
an active role in making important school-related decisions. Teachers are
impressed by this participation on the part of fathers and see it as a sign that
families value education highly.
The case studies of these families and schools, while small in scope, provide
considerable evidence that the prevailing conceptual approaches are seriously
incomplete. The research suggests that scholars of family-school relationships,
in focusing primarily on parents' roles in preparing children for school and
complying with teachers' requests for help, have cast their net too narrowly. The
findings presented here show that upper-middle-class parents also attempt to
shape their children's school site experience. Upper-middle-class parents,
particularly those whose offspring are low achievers, try to take a leadership
role in their children's schooling. They do not depend on the school for
authorization, nor do they automatically defer to a teacher's professional
expertise. As a result, the purpose and meaning of parents' activities differ
between the two communities studied. There are much tighter linkages between
upper-middle-class parents and the school than between working-class parents
and the school because upper-middle-class parents closely supervise and fre-
quently intervene in their children's schooling.
The study also suggests the importance of rethinking conceptual models of
why social class influences school experience. In contrast to the assumptions
associated with prevailing models, parents in both communities in this study
shared a desire for their children to succeed in school. All of the parents valued
educational success in first and second grade. In addition, the teachers took
similar, and at times identical, steps to get parents involved in schooling.
The communities differed, however, in the skills and resources parents had
at their disposal for upgrading their children's performance in school. By
definition, upper-middle-class parents had more education, status, and income
than working-class parents. This increased their competence for helping their
children in school, as well as boosted their confidence that they were capable of
helping. Working-class parents lacked both the skills and the confidence to help
their children in school.
In addition upper-middle-class parents had relatives, friends, and neighbors
who were educators. Upper-middle-class mothers also had close ties with other
mothers whose children attended the school. As a result, upper-middle-class
parents had much more information about the educational process in general
and about the specifics of their children's school-site experience than did
working-class parents. Upper-middle-class parents drew on this information as
they attempted to gain advantages for their children at the school site. Class

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 Home Advantage

differences in gender roles also have an effect here; working-class families

traditionally have much more segregated gender roles than do upper-middle-
class families. This is reflected in parents' roles in schooling.
Thus the defming features of class position (e.g., education, occupational
status) and the patterns of family life historically linked to class position (e.g.,
child rearing methods, kinship ties, gender roles) have unintended consequences
for family-school relationships. In turning over responsibility for education to
teachers, working-class parents thwart the expressed wishes of their children's
teachers. Ironically, although working-class parents are much more respectful of
teachers' professional status and expertise, it is upper-middle-class parents who
fulfill teacher's expectations of the ways and the extent to which parents
should be involved in schooling.
Parents' actions have direct consequences. This study documents how
upper-middle-class children's school programs were influenced by parents'
requests for teachers; by requests for placement in specialized programs; and by
parents' interventions in classroom programs such as spelling and math.
Different styles of home-school relations influence how much exposure children
have to academic material. They can also shape promotion and retention decisions
in cases where upper-middle-class families take a more assertive role than their
working-class counterparts. In a few instances teachers' expectations for
academic performance appear to have been determined/influenced by the actions
of parents.
The interventions by upper-middle-class parents appear to yield significant
educational advantages, particularly for low-achievers, some of whose reading
skills improved markedly over two years. Nevertheless, the pattern of intense
parent involvement has a dark side: some of the children in this study showed
signs of stress in schooling in first grade. Parent involvement also influences
parent-teacher interactions, particularly when parents critically evaluate teachers'
professional performance.
These fmdings suggest that the concept of cultural capital improves upon
existing explanations of why working-class parents are less involved in school
than upper-middle-class parents. Social class provides parents with social
resources which they 'invest' to yield social profits. Class differences in parent
involvement in schooling are rooted in more than the values parents place on
educational success or the strategies schools adopt for recruiting parent
involvement.
This exploration of family-school relationships also reveals that current
formulations of the concept of cultural capital need modification. Persons with
similar cultural resources did not equally 'invest' these resources to gain
advantages for their children at school. Contrary to the assumptions of current
research that uses a cultural capital approach, possession of high status cultural
resources does not automatically yield a social profit; rather, these cultural
resources must be effectively 'activated' by the individual. Most work on
cultural capital has focused on 'high culture' but in the settings examined here,
cultural resources not generally considered as cultural capital (e.g., vocabulary,

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 Social Class and Parent Involvement

parents' confidence in their abilities to help their children in school) yield a profit
for parents of first grade children. These advantages, however, are revealed only
when the more familiar approach of examining individual actor's behaviors
within educational institutions is supplemented with a careful investigation of
teachers' standards.
Most significantly, the research has implications for current models of social
stratification and the linkages among social institutions. Most studies look at
the impact of social class within social institutions, including family life, work,
mental health organizations, or the criminal justice system. A few studies have
shown how experiences in one institution can penetrate the other, as occurs
when complexity of work and level of supervision influences child rearing
values (Kohn and Schooler 1983).13 Researchers need to do a better job of
studying the ways in which families can - and do - bring themselves into
alignment with the standards of 'gatekeeping institutions' responsible for social
selection. There are indications that the long arm of the job reaches inside the
home and beyond, shaping parents' management of their children's lives outside
the home.

Organization of the Book

This book begins with a brief description of the school sites. Mostly, however,
Chapter Two focuses on the requests which teachers in the two schools made.
Chapter Three describes the pattern of separation between home and school
which characterized the working-class community of Colton (fictitious name).
Chapter Four portrays the pattern of interconnectedness between home and
school in the upper-middle-class community of Prescott (also a fictitious name).
As with many other areas of family life there was not one parent-teacher
relationship but two: mothers and fathers had distinctly different experiences.
Chapter Five describes these gender differences in parents' involvement in their
children's school lives.
The question of why such dramatic differences in family-school relation-
ships existed in the two communities is taken up in Chapter Six. The influence of
values, institutional discrimination, and class resources is examined and I argue
that social class had a significant effect in shaping family involvement in school.
Chapter Seven shows that the impact of family-school relationships on
children's school careers was not trivial. Parents' actions led to 'generic' and
'customized' educational careers, and the pattern of interconnectedness yielded
educational profits for some children. These benefits were not without costs,
however, and Chapter Eight takes up the dark side of family-school relation-
ships. The research challenges the current view that, independent of ability,
social class does not have a significant influence on school experiences, a matter
discussed in Chapter Nine. I suggest that the 'long arm of the job' is even longer
than previously discussed, shaping parents' roles in managing their children's
lives outside the home. I conclude by outlining a direction for understanding the

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 Home Advantage

interaction between the class structure and organizations in shaping children's

life chances.
The appendix provides a detailed discussion of the research methodology as
well as the strengths and weaknesses of the data set. As I explain in more detail
there, the research is based on six months of participant-observation in two first
grade classrooms. In addition the mothers of twelve children (a boy and a girl
from the high, medium, and low reading group in each classroom) were selected
for interviews in their homes in the summer after first grade. 14 The following
year, at the end of the second grade, these same mothers were interviewed again;
and separately I also interviewed most of the fathers. The first and second grade
teachers, the principals, and other school personnel were also interviewed. To
prevent the confounding factor of race all of the children in the sample are white.
In each school three pf the mothers worked outside the home, either part-time or
full-time. One child from each school was from a single-parent family. Almost all
of the interviews (except with the principals) took place in teachers' and parents'
homes. Each interview averaged about two hours and each was tape-recorded.
This research design has the advantages and the liabilities of other
qualitative studies. It was designed to probe beneath the statistics of social class
and parent involvement in order to understand better the social context and the
meaning of those behaviors. The use of intense personal interviews to collect
data makes it possible to examine issues that would have been precluded using
methods such as survey research. With such a small, non-random sample,
however, the research is necessarily exploratory. It does not attempt to test
hypotheses. Instead it seeks to improve the sophistication and accuracy of
conceptual models. It is a contribution to the ongoing debates among researchers
about the influence of family background on parent involvement and, more
generally, about the impact of social class on children's life chances in American
society today.

Notes

1. See Nisbet (1959) for the classic statement of this posItIon. Blumberg (1982) and
Vanneman (1987) provide more recent overviews of the research on social class in
America.
2. For a useful summary of the 'Wisconsin model' of status attainment research, see Sewell
and Hauser (1980). Campbell (1983), Kerckhoff (1976), and Knottnerus (1987) also
provide overviews of this research tradition.
3. Other studies also show, often in passing, upper-middle-class parents carefully mGnitor
their children's classroom activities, while working-class parents show signs of
hesitancy and passivity in interacting with the school (Wilcox 1978; 1982; Joffee 1977;
Ogbu 1974; Rist 1978; Gracey 1972; Van Galen 1987; Metz 1986; Griffith and Smith
forthcoming; Smith and Griffith forthcoming).
4. The literature on this topic, particularly by educators whose work's aimed at improving
home-school communication, is voluminous. For representative examples, see Atkin et
al. (1988), Bronfenbrenner (1979; 1982); Epstein (1986; 1987); Davies (1981); Fillion
(1987); Gotts and Purnell (1986); Griffore and Boger (1986); Henderson (1981); Hymes

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 Social Class and Parent Involvement

(1953); Leichter (1974; 1979); Morrison (1978); Rich (1987a; 1987b); Slaughter (1977);
and Swap (1987).
5. Because parents and teachers have overlapping spheres of control (Epstein 1987; Lightfoot
1978; Lortie 1977; Waller 1932) in their interactions with a child, clashes sometimes occur.
Researchers have understood these conflicts as stemming from parents, with a particular-
istic interest in their child, disagreeing with the teacher's need to treat children in a
universalistic fashion (Parsons 1961). The problems of 'boundaries and bridges', or
territoriality, have absorbed the attention of researchers. Many studies look at these
boundary disputes and the attitudes of teachers and parents towards one another (Corwin
and Wagenaar 1976; Henderson 1981; Herman and Yeh 1983; Hoover-Dempsey et al.
1987; Lightfoot 1978; Power 1985; Vern berg and Medway 1981). Researchers have not,
however, clearly investigated the impact of social class on these territorial disputes and the
way in which social class alters the content and the style of these conflicts.
6. This relationship between social class and parent involvement is not influenced by
mothers' labor force participation. Children's age and gender do playa role - mothers
are more involved when they have younger children and when the child is male
(Stevenson and Baker 1987; Epstein 1987; Hoover-Dempsey, et al. 1987).
7. For educators, whose primary goal is to increase school performance, this focus on
strategies for raising parent involvement is a reasonable position. Educators look at parent
involvement as a weapon in their arsenal to increase learning. They are understandably
interested in research which focuses on communication skills, site programs, and strategies
for increasing parent participation. But sociologists have a different role. Educators are
trying to change social behavior; sociologists are trying to understand it. As part of this
investigation sociologists have a duty to examine a wide array of social variables -
including those that cannot be easily changed through school programs and policies.
8. For analyses of Bourdieu's work see DiMaggio (1979), Schwartz (1977), Brubaker (1985),
Collins (1981), Lamont and Lareau (1988), and Sainsaulieu (1981). Buchmann (1989)
provides a lucid summary of Bourdieu's work.
9. For confirmations and extensions of Bowles and Gintis's work see Olneck and Bills
(1980); Oakes (1982); and Howell and McBroom (1982). More general discussions of the
issues of cultural reproduction and classroom curricula include Apple (1979); Apple and
Weis (1985); Anyon (1981; 1985); Finley (1984); Gaskell (1985); Oakes (1985); and
Wexler (1982). Debates regarding the cultural reproduction model and resistance theory
can be found in Giroux (1983); Fritzell (1987); Harker (1984); and Walker (1985).
10. Connell and colleagues, in their study of Australian schools, also suggest that the different
class location of parents influences their relationships with schools. Ruling-class parents
treat teachers as 'workers' and enroll their children in private schools; working-class
parents send their children to state regulated schools where they, and their children, feel as
if they are in alien territory (Connell et al. 1982).
11. Researchers have also examined the impact of organizational factors on other, related,
parts of the educational process. Alexander and colleagues found an interaction between
teachers' status origins, their expectations for children, and children's school success.
Teachers with low status origins did not have self-fulfilling prophecies while teachers of
high status origins appeared to have negative expectations for low status children
(Alexander et al. 1987).
12. Researchers have also discussed parent involvement in school politics, including
desegregation, school closures, curriculum decisions, and - occasionally - personnel
decisions (Metz 1986; Coons and Sugarman 1978; Levy et al. 1975; Haveman 1977; Katz
1968). Parents' political involvement in schooling, although an important area of inquiry,
is generally excluded from this study of parent involvement. Neither does the work
systematically examine the impact of family-school relationships on children's psy-
chological development. For discussions in this area see Entwisle and Hayduk (1978);
Entwisle et al. (1978), Epstein (forthcoming), Dornbusch et al. (1987) and Epstein (in
press).

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 Home Advantage

13. As the book Work and Personality makes clear, the work by Melvin Kohn has been carried
out with a variety of colleagues in the United States including Carmi Schooler, Joanne
Miller, Karen Miller, Carrie Schoenbach, Ronald Schoenberg, and Leonard Pearlin.
Kohn began by looking at the impact of class-related job conditions on values, especia1\y
values regarding child rearing (Kohn 1959; 1963; 1977; 1983a; Kohn and Schooler 1983a;
Pearlin and Kohn 1966) and alienation (Kohn 1983b). Kohn and Schooler extended it to
look at the impact of dimensions of work, notably the substantive complexity of work,
on an aspect of personality functioning, ideation flexibility (Kohn and Schooler 1983b;
1983c; 1983d; 1983e). The research has been applied to women as we1\ as men (Miller et al.
1983), and the findings have been supported in cross-national data (Kohn et al. 1986; Kohn
and Schooler 1983f). In addition the impact of dimensions of work on personality has
been supported as the job tasks have been shifted to housework (Schooler et al. 1983) and
school work (Miller et al. 1986). For extensions and debate ofKohn and colleagues' work
see Gecas and Nye (1974), Hynes (1985), Wright and Wright (1976), and Kohn (1976).
14. Two Colton families moved away during the summer after first grade before I had a
chance to interview them. Since the study folJowed children over time, I was interested in
including children I had observed in first as well as second grade. In the end, as I explain in
more detail in the appendix, I replaced these children with girls of comparable race,
family structure, and reading group membership about whom I had taken notes during
my observation. Unfortunately, selection of these new subjects upset the gender balance.
While in the upper-middle-class school of Prescott the study was of six families (i.e., three
boys and three girls), the final breakdown at Colton was two boys (in the high and low
reading group) and four girls.

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