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Conclusion: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture
Abstract
This concluding chapter argues that parents consider Competitive Kid Capital—by internalizing the importance of winning, learning how to recover from a loss to win in the future, managing time pressure and the like—as credentials to help children retain their relative position in society or gain an advantage. Parents are preparing their children to best succeed in the future. Whether this notion is a dysfunctional class frenzy, the book has shown how this concept developed over time and how an infrastructure has developed to support it. In particular, it explores why parents are willing to encourage their children to participate and succeed in competitive after-school activities.
... Pressures to meet these criteria, to get into a top school, influence parenting decisions early on in a child's life, including the selection of extracurricular activities (Friedman 2014;Ginsburg 2007). Regardless of whether there are direct benefits, American parents believe that extracurricular activities are an essential component of admission into a ''good'' college (Friedman 2013). ...
... Parents also enroll their children in extracurricular activities believed to develop self-confidence, cultural competency, and other social skills (Covay and Carbonaro 2010;Weininger et al. 2015). Friedman (2013) argued that this behavior has an explicit stratification focus: Parents desire credentials for their children that they see as a precondition for entry into the upper-middle class and the ''good life that accompanies it'' (Friedman 2013:3). Parental ''anxieties'' about social mobility (Cucchiara 2013;Roda and Wells 2012;Stearns 2004) and ''fears of falling'' (Ehrenreich 1989;Newman 1999) have been widely documented. ...
... The parents in our sample did not explicitly link activities to notions of social mobility or competition. Parents were not concerned with developing ''competitive kid capital'' (Friedman 2013) or with how participation in extracurriculars would be perceived by third-party evaluators (i.e., admissions committees). Instead, they were concerned with whether activities would make children happy, the relative fit with the child's age and personality, the potential health and fitness benefits, and geographic proximity to home. ...
This article draws from American research on ‘‘concerted cultivation’’ to compare the parenting logics of 41 upper-middle-class parents in Toronto, Canada. We consider not only how parents structure their children’s after-school time (what parents do) but also how the broader ecology of schooling informs their parenting logics (how they rationalize their actions). We find that parenting practices mirror American research. Upper-middle-class families enroll their children in multiple lessons and cultivate their children’s skills. However, unlike their American counterparts, Canadian parenting logics are not explicitly stratification oriented, guided by a desire to access elite universities. Canada’s relatively flat stratification system of higher education, where prestige differences between universities are minimal, prompts the emergence of a more expressive parenting ethos. Our findings draw attention to the macrofoundations of social behavior by articulating the connection between parenting logics and educational status hierarchies. We conclude by considering the implications of cross-national differences to theories of parenting and social stratification.
... Some scholars identify extracurricular activities as a new knife perforating American communities by social class. In an increasingly competitive economic context, middle-and upper-class parents "double-down" on extracurricular activities, and at increasingly earlier ages (Levey-Friedman 2013), to secure their children's standing, potentially exacerbating inequalities (Putnam 2015). Meanwhile, extracurricular activities carry the unique potential to increase motivation and reduce alienation among disadvantaged youth (Bohnert et al. 2008) and to create "identity projects" that disadvantaged youth can leverage to avoid delinquency and idleness and find a positive path to adulthood (DeLuca et al. 2016). ...
... This transition unfolded alongside demographic shifts from high to low fertility. As families had fewer children, generations became more distinct and parents had more resources (time, money and attention) to devote to each child (Angrist et al. 2005) Recognizing the ebb and flow of competition as key to understanding the culture of childhood, Levey-Friedman (2013) argues that those who came of age as part of a baby boom cohort born in the late 1940s to 1960s faced more competition for school admission and jobs. Socialized to compete, these adults then attempted to help their children position themselves for equally fierce competition. ...
... Indeed, non-sport participation and participation that crosses domains (sport and non-sport) is the most protective in terms of grades, college expectations, and substance use. Therefore, the disadvantage for non-Hispanic Black youth is important for contemporaneous academic and substance use outcomes and also because extracurricular participation has become increasingly important for future success (Levey-Friedman 2013). ...
Extracurricular activity participation is linked to positive development, but it is also a setting for inequality. Using a quarter century of data from Monitoring the Future (N = 593,979; 51% female; 65% non-Hispanic white; 13% non-Hispanic black; 12% Hispanic; 4% non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander; 7% other race), this article documents patterns and trends in school-based extracurricular participation by race, social class, gender, and age, and their links to academic and substance use outcomes. Findings reveal differences by race and confirm a division by social class that has worsened over time. Further, girls are gaining on boys and surpass them in some types of school-based activities. Participation is linked to better academic outcomes and less substance use, affirming the importance of redressing the inequalities revealed.
... In particular, research has chronicled how many privileged parents, especially those of a professional-class background, both enthusiastically and anxiously prepare their children for opportunities and constraints in the unknown future (Demerath et al. 2010;Nelson 2010;Weis, Cippolone, and Jenkins 2014). The attempts of these privileged parents to help the next generation secure their socioeconomic privileges have emerged, persisted, and evolved from their children's toddlerhood (or even infanthood) to young adulthood (Friedman 2013). Many economically privileged parents, who view their children as projects that require cultivation, consider the college that their children end up attending to be the ultimate testimony or "outcome" of their parenting. ...
... The ways in which people consider and practice their parental responsibility and obligation not only vary by class standing but also have great implications for their children's life chances (Friedman 2013;Goodwin 2007;Lareau 2011). In her influential book, Unequal Childhoods, Lareau (2011) introduces the concept of "concerted cultivation" to describe how middle-class parents tend to perceive their children as projects whose development requires their effort, while their workingclass counterparts tend to appreciate their children's "accomplishment of natural growth." ...
... Despite these limitations, this research advances scholarly understandings of parenthood and social class in two aspects. While this research resonates with existing literature that reveals the efforts of privileged parents to ensure the next generation's niche both academically and professionally (Friedman 2013;Lareau 2011;Nelson 2010), we underscore the constraints that these parents encounter and the resources that they mobilize when trying to accomplish these goals. As we have demonstrated, many of these parents have trouble smoothly or directly converting their economic capital to their or their children's cultural privilege. ...
This article focuses on how economically advantaged families hire independent educational consultants (IECs) to help them navigate the college application process. We argue that the help provided by IECs embodies the marketization of emotional and relational mediation that many privileged families pursue during times of great anxiety. We offer the concept of "family mediator" to illustrate the relationship between parents, children, and the IECs whom these families employ. First, this article will chronicle why many advantaged parents feel apprehensive about their children's application to college and how they decide to turn to IECs for help. Furthermore, we will demonstrate how privileged parents, especially mothers, rely on IECs to assuage their feelings and emotions. Finally, we will examine how IECs enable parents and children to avoid conflicts and sustain connections to each other. Nevertheless, we find that resorting to IECs as emotional and intergenerational mediators may not always work. Some parents and children occasionally resist the mediation provided by these IECs, just as a few IECs are unwilling to work as the bridge persons in these privileged families in order to protect their professional reputation and boundaries.
... With the primary goal of developing their child's internal desire to win, they also seek to improve their ability to recover from loss, manage pressure, perform under stress, and survive external judgment. For their part, children participating in competitive activities express a desire for extrinsic material rewards (e.g., trophies, ribbons, medals) and a relative acceptance of the need for the uncomfortable experience of evaluation, pressure, and stress (Levey, 2013). I elaborate this theory, arguing that by virtue of their focus on "winning," competitive activities encourage extrinsic rather than intrinsic motivation, a process which informs career choice. ...
... While social theorists like Bourdieu and Coleman have long argued that ( C ) E m e r a l d G r o u p P u b l i s h i n g informal socialization (particularly through the family) contributes to this process, relatively little is known about the link between these informal practices and adulthood outcomes. Drawing on the work of Lareau (2003) and Levey (2013), I show that informal socialization, particularly participation in activities that emphasize performance, has a lasting effect on occupational attainment. My findings reveal that the social stratification of informal socialization is more complex than originally conceived. ...
... In conclusion, I offer a friendly critique of Levey's (2013) notion of a "competitive habitus." Organized competitive activities for children were originally introduced by Progressive Era reformers as a way to educate immigrants about "American" values (Levey, 2010). ...
PurposeThis chapter proposes and tests a novel relationship between early participation in competitive activities, “competition socialization,” and the attainment of a managerial position in adulthood. Building on extensive qualitative research, I argue that an early emphasis on “winning” becomes internalized as a desire for the extrinsic rewards that in some ways characterize managerial positions.
MethodologyI test this hypothesis on survey data collected from professionals (N = 334) employed in a probability sample of U.S. advertising agencies, using binomial logistic regression.
FindingFor individuals under forty, competition socialization increases the likelihood of working in a managerial position. However, this effect does not hold for older professionals, for whom graduate education is a better predictor of managerial attainment.
Value of the chapterTo my knowledge, this is the first chapter to test of the effect of youth participation in organized activities on adulthood outcomes. By drawing attention to the influence of competitive socialization on managerial attainment, I highlight the need to incorporate informal socialization into our models of occupational attainment.
... Specifically, children were also presented with the social rule of "playing to win" (Levey, 2009), and this added rule may have influenced the developmental pattern usually observed with prosocial lie-telling. According to Levey (2009), the current generation of children are being raised in naturally competitive environments where they succumb to performance pressure from a young age. ...
... Specifically, children were also presented with the social rule of "playing to win" (Levey, 2009), and this added rule may have influenced the developmental pattern usually observed with prosocial lie-telling. According to Levey (2009), the current generation of children are being raised in naturally competitive environments where they succumb to performance pressure from a young age. Even extracurricular activities (e.g., sports and arts) are evaluated for the purpose of determining one's level of excellence, and often pave the path for one's future (e.g., through recognition or scholarship). ...
... empirical perspective (see Friedman 2013;Schupp 2017Schupp , 2018a) that prioritizes teachers' experiences. Investigating the links and tensions between dance competition culture and commercial dance from participants' perspectives is needed to reveal the power dynamics between these dance worlds and their influence on dance education. ...
In the United States dance competition culture and commercial dance are both highly visible. Although connections between the two distinct dance worlds are implicitly present, they remain largely unexamined. To begin a conversation about how commercial dance and dance competition culture relate and their influence on dance education, this article provides a contextualization of nine dance competition teacher/choreographers' perceptions of how commercial dance and dance competition culture inform each other. Interview data reveal the impression of a strong, tangible link between commercial dance and dance competition culture, and that overlapping values point to a symbiotic relationship between the two. The positioning of commercial dance and dance competition culture as popular and accessible has a direct influence on how Americans consider and engage with dance. As such, examining dance competition teacher/choreographers’ experiences provides valuable insight into the role of dance and dance education in the US.
... Fora do mercado de trabalho, altamente escolarizadas ou, mais raramente, tendo se casado jovens e abandonado ou adiado os planos de finalizar um curso superior, essas mulheres dedicamse integralmente aos filhos. São elas que os levam para a escola e os buscam no final do período escolar, são elas que os acompanham nas inúmeras atividades extracurriculares a que se dedicam, no clube ou fora dele, rotina típica das crianças desse meio social não apenas no Brasil (Vincent e Ball, 2007;Friedman, 2013). Como a escolha das atividades extracurriculares é vista como algo "individual", que decorre das "inclinações", do "gosto" das crianças, não é raro que essas mulheres se vejam atravessando a cidade, várias vezes por dia, para atender às pesadas agendas de cada filho ou filha, que podem envolver aulas de futebol, balé, inglês, artes marciais etc. Como, além disso, são elas que se ocupam de toda a gestão das atividades familiaresque abrange definição de cardápios, idas a supermercado e padaria, preparação de lanches, organização de roupas e uniformes, compra de presentes para festas de aniversário, contratação e administração de funcionários etc. -, veem-se obrigadas a empreender uma intrincada organização do tempo, que, ao final, libera pouco ou nenhum espaço para suas agendas pessoais, mesmo fenômeno observado por Lisa Swanson (2009), no seu estudo sobre as chamadas soccer moms nos Estados Unidos. ...
How do members of the privileged groups perceive themselves? Which groups do they consider as “the others”? Which aspects, characteristics, and dimensions of these groups do they mobilize in order to make these distinctions? Which perceptions about themselves and about what distinguishes them from others do they transmit to their children? Drawing data from an ethnography of an elite social club located in a city in the state of São Paulo, the article (i) describes the social and symbolic boundary work in which members of certain fractions of the upper classes engage in order to define and negotiate differences from other fractions and from members of other social groups; (ii) identifies elements of the belief system that gives meaning to this work, showing the centrality of the moral boundaries, and (iii) documents processes by which children and adolescents integrate with it. By revealing how beliefs are mobilized in everyday interactions and transmitted to the new generations, the article offers a contribution to the studies on Brazilian social inequality, acknowledging the reinforcement that individuals give to the social hierarchies inscribed in institutions.
... Work on concerted cultivation of middle-and upper-class parents (Lareau 2003) illustrates these potential dynamics. Privileged children are "coached" to monopolize resources in schools (Calarco 2014a) and build competitive capital in extracurricular activities (Friedman 2013). Consequently, they develop a sense of "entitlement" (Lareau 2011), which easily and often morphs into pessimism and disappointment, as opposed to a sense of "appeasement" or "constraint" among children from low-income backgrounds (Calarco 2014b). ...
In uncertain economic times, who are those young adults that show positive expectations about their economic future? And who are those who worry? Based on previous stratification research and extending economic sociology insights into the realm of young people’s economic expectations, we focus on the impact of family class background and a sense of current meaningful community relations on young adults’ general and job-specific economic expectations. Analysis of Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data reveals that a sense of community belonging has a robust and positive impact on economic optimism of young adults, but the role of family socioeconomic background is weaker. We conclude that imagining one’s economic future is less about realistic calculation determined by early structural conditions but more about identity work of young people who assert their moral worth in how they imagine their economic lives and manage uncertainty and well-being in ongoing social relations.
... 18 This is likely because most studies on elite students in the U.S. took place in boarding schools. Studies that do not examine boarding school students reduce parental roles to inputs of class-based resources, such as supporting students' appearances and fashion(Berry 2016;Stevens 2007), cultivating athletic ability in childhood(Friedman 2013), or giving children pocket money(Sweeting et al. 2011). These studies, however, focus on static measures of family background during adolescence or latent effects of parental involvement during childhood. ...
How do students sort each other into different status groups in school? Research primarily conducted in the United States conceptualizes student status hierarchies as multidimensional systems. Scholars portray multidimensional status systems as exclusionary, constructed by and in the best interests of high status students, and disconnected from adult society. However, these theories are less useful for understanding a unidimensional status hierarchy that determines student status based on a single dimension. This study challenges several assumptions based on multidimensional status hierarchies about status hierarchies by providing insights into how unidimensional status hierarchies are constructed, maintained, and justified. Data for this study come from 15 months of ethnography and interviews with 36 socioeconomically elite students, parents, and teachers at six top performing high schools in Beijing. First, I found that Chinese high school students established a unidimensional status hierarchy based solely on test scores, with the students who achieved the highest test scores on daily practice tests having the highest status. Students sorted each other into four status groups: Intellectuals (Xueshen), Studyholics (Xueba), Underachievers (Xuezha), and Losers (Xueruo). This status hierarchy dominated the school. All of the students recognized it as a legitimate basis for according status. Rather than the status hierarchy serving exclusionary purposes by restricting friendships between students from different status groups, students formed inclusive social associations without attention to status because associations did not threaten the status quo. Second, while literature emphasizes the motivation of high status students to maintain the status hierarchy, I observed that both high and low status Chinese students upheld the hierarchy. Finally, scholars imply that the status hierarchies that govern adolescent society are disconnected from adult society, yet in this study, I observed that teachers and parents supported the student status hierarchy and students believed that school status predicted adult status. The findings from this study underscore the need to improve current conceptual models of the nature of status hierarchies and the factors that facilitate the allocation of people into different status groups. While I use the example of elite Chinese adolescents, the findings carry implications for unidimensional status hierarchies among other social groups.
... Two examples, sides of the same coin and only apparently different, are worth considering: American "Child Beauty Pageants" (Friedman H.P., 2013), and Neapolitan baby "neomelodic" singers (Luzzi S., Bellino L., 2010) viii . Both American child beauty queens and Italian little singers are somehow pushed to the stage because of a widespread quest for visibility and the narcissistic projection of their parents over them. ...
This paper tries to conceptualize postmodern childhood by suggesting the expression “Puer Optionis” as a way to summarize the condition of contemporary children in the Western world. Why are our children prone to looking for an audience? According to some academics, our Zeitgeistevolved and, along with it, the values spread through our children have changed, shifting from communitarian and altruistic to individualistic and narcissistic (Uhls, Greenfield, 2011). In a “spectacularized” society (Codeluppi, 2007), fame and desire for visibility are shown as goals to be reached during a developmental phase, childhood, where the construction of a belief system (Bandura A. et al., 1963) can considerably magnify them. Three examples of “showcases” are suggested, regarding the child spectacularization process: the city; the stage; social networking sites (SNS), opening a short parenthetical about “Sharenting.” Finally, an evolution of the Imaginary Audience theory by David Elkind (Elkind, 1967) will be assessed: in a world where every aspect of our lives can be dragged into the spotlight, is this audience still “imaginary?” What are the implications for our children and the educational challenges we face as educators?
... Goodwin (2007:107), for example, underscores the ways middle-class parents instill new knowledge in their children by making "use of for accomplishing a particular activity-exploring new domains of knowledge, including new vocabulary, idioms, and theories about the world-in the midst of mundane activity during the walks around the neighborhood, car rides, at mealtime, and during bedtime stories." Friedman (2013) introduces the concept of "competitive kid capital" to describe the cultural skills and lessons-such as internalizing the importance of winning and being able to perform under the gaze of others-that parents expect their children to learn from activities such as chess, dance, and sports. These studies point to the ways parents play a decisive role in perpetuating class disparities across generations through transmitting valuable cultural resources, abilities, and "know-how" to their children. ...
This article uses privileged families who hire Independent Educational Consultants (IECs) as an instance to examine how privileged parents collaborate with individuals whom they consider educational experts to support their children in the college race. We argue that advantaged parents' anxieties about their children have created a market for IECs who provide expert advice in order to mitigate the uncertainties that these parents experience and to manage various goals that they want to achieve at an important turning point in their children's lives. Drawing primarily on interviews with parents who work with IECs, we introduce the concept of “collaborative cultivation” to analyze the processes whereby advantaged parents rely on the expertise and expert status of private counselors to cope with their and their children's vulnerability in the college race while at the same time preparing their children for the unknown future. The parental method of “concerted cultivation” reveals how elite parents rely on individuals they perceive as experts to establish “bridges” between their own social worlds and the academic worlds that appear to beyond their control. This bridging labor points to the myriad cultural beliefs enacted to justify the child-rearing goals that privileged parents wish to accomplish by working with IECs.
... Dynamika wzrostu wydatków pozaszkolnych, czasu spędzanego z dziećmi i cena, jaką są w stanie dyktować swoim klientom uniwersytety, a także trudniejsze do skwantyfikowania zmiany w światopoglądzie, motywacjach i zachowaniach wyższej klasy średniej – przedostawanie się elementów edukacyjnych i związanej z nimi motywacji (czy przymusu) stałego indywidualnego rozwoju do coraz nowych dziedzin życia, a także traktowanie własnego rozwoju jako broni w nieustannej konkurencji o prestiż i pozycję – są bezpośrednim wynikiem tego wyścigu (Ramey i Ramey 2009; Bound i in. 2009; Stevens 2009; Friedman 2013). Wyższa klasa średnia, podobnie jak klasy znajdujące się niżej w społecznej hierarchii, i w wyniku oddziaływania podobnych mechanizmów, pozbawiona jest wyboru przez logikę rozwoju umasowienia. ...
In the last several years the nearly universal disposition for participation in higher education started to be seen, both by the academics and the general public, as a result of students’
irrationality. Students, influenced by the “myth of higher education” or the marketing strategies
of higher education institutions, commit to a course of action that, according to the critics of mass
HE, is economically unsound. The aim of this paper is to present an alternative way of thinking
about individual agency, rationality and the compulsory element of education. I try to show how
the negative consequences of mass higher education result from economically rational decisions
of individuals. I also argue that mass higher education has many characteristics of a social trap,
i.e. a process in which individual rationality has a detrimental effect on the common good. The
theory of social traps makes it possible to explain how the diffuse, individual decisions generate an
informal system of compulsory higher education and how this element of compulsion negatively
impacts the potential for higher education reform.
Studies have highlighted the growing phenomenon of ‘concerted cultivation’ wherein middle-class parents are enrolling their children into multiple paid-for organised leisure activities as a way of cultivating their skills and reproducing class advantage. In unpacking the class disparities in children’s organised leisure participation, researchers have largely overlooked the way race and ethnicity inflect middle-class parents’ concerted cultivation strategies. Drawing upon a qualitative study with Greater London-based professional middle-class British Indian parents, this paper argues that the time-spaces of concerted cultivation also serve as sites for British Indian children’s ethnic and racial socialisation (ERS). Two axes are identified along which racial parenting strategies intersect with concerted cultivation practices in these families: ‘cultural (re)production through organised leisure’ and ‘(anti)racism and leisure’. By analysing these processes, we draw out the implications of this interplay between class and race for understanding middle-class parenting and educational strategies in minority ethnic contexts.
What sustains the broad conception of merit that organizes academic gatekeeping in the United States? While prior analysts have offered “top-down” explanations of academic leaders expanding criteria of merit to accommodate institutional self-interests, we identify a “bottom-up” mechanism: the application essay. Integrating insights from several strands of sociological theory, we posit that the essays required by schools with selective admissions sustain merit’s breadth by enlisting young people (and their families, teachers, and consultants) in collaborative performances of what might be considered meritorious. Analyzing essay prompts and utilizing human readings and statistical analyses of 220,062 essays contributed by 55,016 applicants to a public US university system, we find circumscribed genre expectations and class-correlated patterns of self-presentation but also substantial range in what the university and its applicants invoke as evidence to support competitive bids for admission. Our work provides a novel explanation of an elaborate but opaque evaluation protocol and surfaces a paradoxically inclusive component of an otherwise fiercely exclusionary evaluative regime.
Studies suggest that support from teachers in the classroom can matter for student success. Although cross-national research has revealed numerous ways in which parents shape the schooling process, little is known about how parental involvement at school may or may not influence the amount of support students receive from teachers in the classroom. In this study, I draw on data from the China Education Panel Survey – a nationally representative survey of Chinese middle school students with unusually detailed information on parental involvement and teachers’ behavior in the classroom – to test a conceptual model that proposes a link between parent-teacher contact in China and the attention students receive from teachers. In support of the conceptual model, I find that students whose parents cultivate relationships with teachers through frequent contact are more likely to be called on or praised by teachers, even after controlling for family background, student academic performance, and student behavior. Moreover, I find evidence of social class differences in parent-teacher contact in China, as well as evidence that parent-teacher contact shapes later academic performance through its impact on teachers’ attention. Overall, findings from the study point to a new way in which social class influences schooling through the mechanism of parental involvement. I conclude with a discussion of recent changes in public education in the United States that may lead this pathway to be increasingly important in the U.S. as well.
Recent leadership initiatives encourage children, particularly girls, to defy gender stereotypes. Yet, those creating and participating in these initiatives, like all members of our culture, have their own gender biases, have received gender socialization, and live in a society where the masculine is more valued than the feminine. We conducted participant observation of two gender-segregated leadership summer camps to examine how camp counselors and directors teach leadership to boys and girls. We find counselors unintentionally reinforce gender stereotypes and promote gender-typical behavior while attempting to break down these same stereotypes and behavioral expectations. We argue the gender-segregated environment leads to a problematic “separate but equal” approach to thinking about leadership that advances the individual abilities of boys and girls but does less to decrease gender disparities in emotional development, physical competition, or leadership styles. This research contributes to our understanding of how well-intentioned organizations and authorities, seeking to minimize gender disparities and develop strong leaders, unwittingly reproduce gender differences and perpetuate gender inequality.
The under 7s football is a non-formal socio-educative scenario especially overcrowded. The adult environment puts efforts end illusions on school sport as an extracurricular activity for the child to promote their education. There are numerous proposals for trying to establish guidelines to family behavior. However, this study wants to understand the familiar illusions that encourage the participation in under 7s football of their children as primarily responsible for their education. In this way, the aim of the study is to investigate the family motivations for school football to revalue the confluences of its educational value. The research emerges from a Case Study design ethnographic mode that uses the questionnaire (N=134, 63 women and 71 men) to deepen of the perception of family members involved in school football: parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. The results reaffirm the social function that the football has for the child and the adults that accompany them. Family involvement stands as an indispensable pillar for the sport activity. Thus, to optimize the educational potential is necessary to have the complicity of the family to reclaim the educational reference against the permeability of football business.
Recent developmental research demonstrates that young children tend to be risk-seeking. However, very little is known about the extent to which such a capacity varies with children’s group-based experience. Given that between-group competition is a central feature of human social life, this study aimed at examining the influence of group-based competition over risk preference in young children. In total, 234 children from 3 age groups (2–4-year-olds, 5–6-year-olds, and 8–9-year-olds) engaged in an intergroup competition manipulation, which was followed by a prosocial game assessing children’s ingroup egalitarianism and a gambling task measuring children’s risk preference. We found that children in the intergroup competition condition tended to be risk-averse compared with those who were in the nonintergroup competition condition. Furthermore, we found that an aversion to risk in the intergroup competition condition was driven by such an aversion observed in children from the losing group. In addition, we found a positive relationship between ingroup egalitarianism and risk preference in children from the winning group rather than those from the losing group. Together, our results contribute to the understanding of the effects of group-based experience on children’s risk preference and may have important implications for understanding individuals’ risky decisions.
The tension between the values of economic equality and diversity can be found throughout the world, and yet it rarely is recognized by scholars, partly because it deals with the sensitive area of culture and poverty. This article will focus on where this tension comes from, how and where it is expressed both worldwide and in the United States, and why anthropologists and sociologists neglect it. The tension expresses itself in predicaments in contexts ranging from government policy (e.g., on indigenous groups) to the workings of local antipoverty nonprofits, often confounding attempts to deal with the issue of inequality. The issue is neglected for a number of reasons, including the preferred narratives of poverty scholars and their assumptions about human aspiration and fault. Instead, I argue for better attention to the complexities of human action, culture, and agency in order to understand poverty and inequality.
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