Parenting & privilege: Race, social class and the intergenerational transmission of social inequality

Drawing on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics' Childhood Developmental Supplement, I employed structural equation modeling to test four hypotheses derived from Annette Lareau's concerted cultivation theory of the social reproduction of inequality: (1) that an underlying construct, which Lareau labels "concerted cultivation", manifests itself across a number of interrelated parenting practices; (2) that concerted cultivation is tied to social class, with middle-class parents providing more concerted cultivation than working-class and poor parents, and with the working and poor classes providing similarly low levels of such parenting; (3) that, adjusting for social-class status and other potential confounding factors, race is not independently predictive of parenting practices; and (4) that middle-class advantages in positive youth development are significantly mediated by concerted cultivation. Results were supportive of Lareau's claims. Concerted cultivation: (1) could be modeled as a latent construct with acceptable measurement properties; (2a) was found to be greater within the middle class than among the working class or the poor, and (b) did not differ between the poor and working class; (3) was not related to race independently of social class; and (4) mediated the relationships between familial social class and youth intellectual skills, along with a wide-range of positive psychosocial developmental outcomes. Limitations and suggestions for future research are considered.