Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education

I picked up on Home Advantage after reading and enjoying Unequal Childhoods by the same author. This book serves as the prequel. Familiar Readers can expect Annette to conduct a study at a small town in northern California on primary school children. She observes, interviews, and questions parents and teachers about the children picked for the study, observing how social class influences parent's role in their child's first years of school.The book is interesting in a way because I got to learn the involvements and interventions orchestrated by parents of different social class standing during the first years of their child's education. I believe the comparison of middle and working classes is the greatest component of this book as it offers a chance to see both worlds on how the families of the two different social classes work out and carry their own ideology in the involvement of their child's critical primitive years in education.

It's an older book, but provides a useful lens for analyzing the effects of social class in schools. While the schools I have experienced in my career are more complex and diverse than those in Lareau's analysis, the fact that the two schools in her book were simple in terms of the populations served strengthened the narrative. As a newly minted administrator diving into the cultural proficiency literature, I have one word for this book: classic.

Uhm, something is missing.

Perfect for the pre-service or in-service teacher who wants to reflect on how the larger community plays a role in a school's environment. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to seriously consider their working environment and the importance of community stakeholders.

great example of studying qualitative research methods

Was published in 2000 with data from a 1980s dissertation. Is no longer valid in terms of material presented. I can’t fathom why my professor in 2021 was still using this book. Sigh.

Good

Useful