3.3: External Readings and Resources

‘Concerted Cultivation and the Accomplishment of Natural Growth’ – Chapter 1 in Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, & Family Life

Annette Lareau’s work has centered on the way that parenting and family background influence children. In this chapter, she outlines two different approaches to raising children and further discusses the implications of these on students.

Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal childhoods : class, race, and family life. Berkeley : University of California Press, c2011.

‘At the Edge of Poverty’ – Introduction in The Working Poor: Invisible in America

Often the national narrative surrounding poverty in the United States is the idea that, “work works”. However, David Shipler takes issue with that premise in this piece where he highlights many of the challenges facing people in poverty today. Shipler further discusses the balance of personal responsibility and social responsibility as means to eliminate poverty in the future.

Shipler, D. K. (2004). The working poor : invisible in America. New York : A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 2004.

Brown, D. (2009, May 18). The high cost of poverty: why the poor pay more. The Washington Post.

This article also speaks to many of the challenges facing the working poor in the United States today. In particular, it focuses on ways that the poor pay more, largely with their time, in dominant society.

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