Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture
Abstract
This book follows the path of elementary school-age children involved in competitive dance, youth travel soccer, and scholastic chess. Why do American children participate in so many adult-run activities outside of the home, especially when family time is so scarce? By analyzing the roots of these competitive afterschool activities and their contemporary effects, the book contextualizes elementary school-age children's activities, and suggests they have become proving grounds for success in the tournament of life—especially when it comes to coveted admission to elite universities, and beyond. In offering a behind-the-scenes look at how “Tiger Moms” evolve, the book introduces concepts like competitive kid capital, the carving up of honor, and pink warrior girls. Perfect for those interested in childhood and family, education, gender, and inequality, the book details the structures shaping American children's lives as they learn how to play to win.
... Sports participation, in rare cases, can even result in Olympic or professional opportunities (Eckstein, 2017;Hextrum, 2021). Parents encourage their children's athletic commitments because of possible capital conversions, their enjoyment of the sports interactions, and their belief that "good" parents cultivate opportunities for development and mobility (Coakley, 2006;Friedman, 2013;Hextrum et al., 2024aHextrum et al., , 2024bKnoester & Bjork, 2024;Lareau, 2011;2015). ...
... In part, these parenting trends are fueled by the expectations for and among parents to intensively parent and to invest countless resources to optimize a child's success (Hextrum et al., 2024a;Lareau, 2011;Weininger et al., 2015). Concerns about concerted cultivation lead higher-SES parents to prioritize extracurricular activities like sports to create success-oriented dispositions and optimize social mobility possibilities (Friedman, 2013;Lareau, 2015). In turn, parenting strategies, habitualizations within high-achieving cultures, social connections, and ample resources grant students competitive advantages in the optional, fragmented, obtuse, expensive, and hierarchical school sport field (Eckstein, 2017;Hextrum, 2021Hextrum, , 2024Tompsett & Knoester, 2022). ...
... For instance, Friedman (2013) traced how affluent families increasingly focus their resources and attention away from recreational to competitive, barrier-ridden activities to develop "a particular type of character in their children" or competitive kid capital (p.91) Competitive kid capital includes symbolic and embodied characteristics like "learning how to recover from a loss" that affluent parents believe are transferable to and will help youth ascend within other domains like education and work (Friedman, 2013, p. 92). ...
Through exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, we explore how SES advantages youth in school-sponsored sports participation and obtaining the associated institutionalized cultural capital. Life history interviews (N = 47) with college athletes delineate an SES-linked habitus that values sports involvement, expectations, and talent acquisition within and outside of school systems all of which optimized opportunities for institutionalized cultural capital. To test the prevalence of these patterns for obtaining institutionalized culture capital (via high-school sports participation) we applied quantitative methods to a national cohort of high-school students from the Educational Longitudinal Study (N = 8914). As expected, school-level SES, number of school-sponsored sports, and family SES predicted the likelihood of playing high-school sports, playing multiple sports, persisting in sports, and standing out. Together, findings suggest that higher SES directs and enables sports investments, superior sports-related experiences, and the conversion of SES into institutionalized cultural capital via school sports participation.
... Over the past two decades, a growing body of research has shown that parental practices significantly influence disparities in children's future abilities and achievements (Friedman, 2013;Hong & Cui, 2023;Lv et al., 2018;Stahl & Schober, 2017). In music education, piano learning provides children with various pathways to future success, such as access to higher education through art college admissions, the pursuit of a professional pianist career, and other piano-related professions (Bai, 2021). ...
... According to Chua (2014), parents in Eastern societies prioritize the development of their children's individuality and autonomy. In a Western context, musical parenting is also characterized by intensity and competitiveness, with parents beginning to prepare their children early for college entrance competitions (Friedman, 2013). Consequently, Western children often engage in music with a focus on winning. ...
... In the realm of social class studies, music education is considered a form of cultural capital (Vincent & Ball, 2007), often associated with children from high socioeconomic backgrounds. Parents from these backgrounds endeavor to provide their children with advantages by facilitating the transmission of cultural capital (Friedman, 2013;Kong, 2020). Previous research focusing on the musical parenting practices of middle-class families has highlighted a significant characteristic known as concerted cultivation (Lareau, 2014). ...
Parents from different social classes in Eastern and Western countries have distinct approaches to musical parenting. This study focused on the musical parenting practices among Chinese parents concerning their children’s piano education, aiming to elucidate how social class affects these practices. Fieldwork and semi-structured interviews were conducted with four Chinese parents at a music school, within-case analysis identified four musical parenting practices: (1) limited supportive learning; (2) playing to win; (3) strategy for an elegant girl; and (4) preparation for becoming a pianist. Through cross-case analysis, four distinct musical parenting patterns emerged based on the practices of Chinese parents of varying social classes. These findings provide potential explanations for four distinct musical parenting patterns across various social classes, highlighting how working-class Chinese parents construct the myth of upward social mobility through their musical parenting.
... At the program level, we draw from Klinenberg's notion of "social infrastructure" (2018) to examine the often behind-thescene aspects that differentiate various organizations, programs, and approaches within youth sport. Previous ethnographic studies of specific sports or youth sports communities provide inspiration and context here: basketball and the Amateur Athletic Union scene (Brooks, 2009;May, 2008); little league baseball (Fine, 1987;Grasmuck, 2005); field hockey, figure skating, ice hockey, and ultimate frisbee (Eckstein, 2017); dance, soccer, and chess (Friedman, 2013); soccer (Andrews & Silk, 2012); and alternative or emerging sports (Rinehart, 2000;Wheaton, 2004). Research and theory on athletic organizations (Bohnert et al., 2010;Doherty et al., 2014;Perkins & Noam, 2007;Rail, 1988;Warner et al., 2012) as well as research on adolescent extracurricular activities more generally (cf. ...
... We observe their effects in retrenchments in public park and recreation programming (Crompton & Kaczynski, 2003;Crompton & McGregor, 1994); the increasing costs of youth sport (Gregory, 2017;Hyman, 2012) and shifts in school sports toward pay-toplay models (Zdroik & Veliz, 2016); the bifurcation of funding for richer suburban communities (Hextrum, 2021) and urban populations only for risk prevention (Pitter & Andrews, 1997; see also : Hartmann, 2016, pp. 21-33, 45-50); the privatization of all manner of education, extracurricular activities, and child-rearing (Adler & Adler, 1994;Snellman et al., 2015); and the rise of more intensive, competitive youth activities (Friedman, 2013). ...
... 2. The recent growth and diversification of organized, out-of-school youth sport are driven by social forces both inside and outside of sport, among them: retrenchments in public park and recreation programming (Crompton & Kaczynski, 2003;Crompton & McGregor, 1994); the increasing costs of youth sport (Gregory, 2017;Hyman, 2012) and shifts in school sports toward pay-to-play models (Zdroik & Veliz, 2016); the bifurcation of funding for richer suburban communities (Hextrum, 2021) and urban populations only for risk prevention (Pitter & Andrews, 1997; see also : Hartmann, 2016, pp. 21-33, 45-50); Title IX (Stauroswky et al., 2022), the privatization of all manner of education, extracurricular activities, and child-rearing (Adler & Adler, 1994;Snellman et al., 2015); and the rise of more intensive, competitive youth activities (Friedman, 2013). ...
Out-of-school youth sport in the United States is bigger, more varied, and more impactful than ever before. In dialogue with existing scholarship, this paper uses multisite, collaborative fieldwork to identify core elements of program variation and develop a composite typology of this organizational field. The typology is based on a distinction between “sport-focused” programs and programs oriented toward nonsport social and developmental goals. Our primary insight is that programs within these domains exhibit two different organizational logics, one hierarchical, the other categorical. We also argue that variabilities of funding, social context, and reliance on public facilities are additional factors that impact the operation and effectiveness of these program types including their ability to address the racialized challenges of access, equity, and inclusion. Theorizing these differential configurations and their underlying characteristics can help parents, policymakers, practitioners (including coaches), and sports researchers engage youth sports more effectively under increasingly competitive neoliberal conditions.
... Friedman (2013) outlines the increasingly competitive nature of American society, particularly given rising levels of education, increased income inequality, and an ever growing emphasis on credentials. In order to secure children's futures, parents enroll children in competitive sports and activities, thus securing "competitive kid capital" where children learn to perform under pressure (Friedman 2013). As these talents are pursued, mothers work through multiple decisions on a regular basis about when one talent is developed enough, or should be abandoned. ...
... However, it may exhaust them and have many psychological consequences. Safeguarding may eliminate children's ability to enjoy what they are doing in the moment as they become "in it to win it" during certain sports or activities (Friedman 2013). For example, children may start out enjoying participating in Girl Scouts, but over time may be pressured into continuing the activity as labor in the service of achievement to put onto a college application. ...
... Fox (2009) describes the negative effects on mothers of young children as they spend their limited energies in doing what is perceived as the culturally correct investment in the care of babies. In the elementary years, mothers' great energies are invested as the child's talents become more urgently needing to be revealed (Friedman 2013;Lareau 2003). In the high school years, mothers struggle to manage an adolescent's safety (Elliott and Aseltine 2012) and resume, and face the additional labor of strategizing about, applying for and visiting universities (Nelson 2010). ...
... Extracurricular activities are understudied sites for social stratification (Friedman 2013;Pericak and Martinez 2022; Knoester 2022, 2023). Yet high school sports participation offers mental and physical health benefits, improved student retention and graduation rates, the encouragement of pro-social behaviors, resume building, and enhanced social statuses (Lopez 2019;Milner and Braddock 2016; NWLC 2015). ...
... Within a given field, gatekeepers set the rules and standards for ascendance. Gatekeepers of socially valued fields like schools and sports, often have habitus that align with higher levels of SES, masculinity, and whiteness (Bonilla-Silva 2017;Bourdieu 1984;Friedman 2013;Hextrum 2021;Lareau 2011). Thus, interscholastic gatekeepers may perceive athletic merit based on physical capital expressions and neglect the roles and impacts of socioeconomic, cultural, social-interactional, socialcapital, and institutional forces and determined investments-all of which are functions of gender, race/ethnicity, social class, and habitus (Bonilla-Silva 2017;Bourdieu 1984;Eckstein 2017;Friedman 2013;Lareau 2011Lareau , 2015. ...
... Gatekeepers of socially valued fields like schools and sports, often have habitus that align with higher levels of SES, masculinity, and whiteness (Bonilla-Silva 2017;Bourdieu 1984;Friedman 2013;Hextrum 2021;Lareau 2011). Thus, interscholastic gatekeepers may perceive athletic merit based on physical capital expressions and neglect the roles and impacts of socioeconomic, cultural, social-interactional, socialcapital, and institutional forces and determined investments-all of which are functions of gender, race/ethnicity, social class, and habitus (Bonilla-Silva 2017;Bourdieu 1984;Eckstein 2017;Friedman 2013;Lareau 2011Lareau , 2015. ...
High school athletics are understudied sites for social and educational stratification.
Participation can offer mental and physical health benefits,
improved student retention and graduation rates, the encouragement of
pro-social behaviors, resume building, and enhanced social statuses. Despite
legal prohibitions against race and gender discrimination in schools, opportunities
to play and persist in interscholastic athletics may reflect and amplify
existing social and educational stratification processes. Using an exploratory
sequential mixed-methods research design, this study centers on girls’ high
school sports and considers how gender, race/ethnicity, and social class
operate at the individual, interactional, cultural, and institutional levels and
encourage proclivities, commitments, and support for participation. We
combine qualitative (N = 28 women and 47 total college athletes) and quantitative
(N = 4,271 high school students) studies to inquire about how, and to
what extent, racial/ethnic and social-class dynamics affect girls playing any
and specific high school sports and whether they play persistently. Findings
suggest that schools co-construct unequal athletic opportunity structures by
nurturing and rewarding a cultivated athletic habitus associated with masculinity,
whiteness, and affluent dispositions. These processes disguise athletic
advantages and successes as well-earned merit and restrict who is most
likely to receive the individual and social benefits of high school sports
participation.
... We found that parents played key roles in reinforcing gendered stereotypes and divisions that were operating in youths' daily practices and competitions (middle school and high school). Additionally, our data show that sailing was regularly utilized by families to maintain upper-class values and distinctive social status (Friedman, 2013). Thirty interviews and 113 hours of field observations with stakeholders such as coaches, teachers, youths (14 to 17 years old), and their parents frame these various lines of analysis around sailing activity. ...
... It's a physics problem." Many other Californian parents echoed Denise's opinion that school sailing provided children with skills and ways of being that would give them advantages in their future life plans outside of sports themselves (Friedman, 2013). For instance, many parents explained that the risky sailing conditions their children sometimes faced were challenging and thus were crucial in preparing them for the future; it would teach them about what they might encounter in "real life." ...
... Thus, Californian sailing has been viewed and used in the same way as other sports activities that have been researched in the United States. Friedman (2013) suggests that in these environments, parents prioritize learning to compete to ensure the presence of sometimes limited academic and professional opportunities in neoliberal American society. Risk-taking in adult-controlled competitions is thus particularly valued. ...
Significant research has shown that gender and social class relationships can be problematic within the context of water-based leisure activities such as surfing, windsurfing, and sailing (Olive et al., 2016; Wheaton, 2003). More specifically, it has been argued that sailing is traditionally practiced and dominated by upper-class males who can determine social codes that exclude and devalue others (Créac'h & Sébileau, 2004). We develop these critical ideas about broader water sport activity through the lens of family involvement within the context of an international comparative qualitative study of sailing projects based within secondary schooling sites in California and France. A key line of analysis involved investigating how various forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1979) were reproduced through gendered and social class hierarchies. We found that parents played key roles in reinforcing gendered stereotypes and divisions that were operating in youths' daily practices and competitions (middle school and high school). Additionally, our data show that sailing was regularly utilized by families to maintain upper-class values and distinctive social status (Friedman, 2013). Thirty interviews and 113 hours of field observations with stakeholders such as coaches, teachers, youths (14 to 17 years old), and their parents frame these various lines of analysis around sailing activity.
... In addition, standardized test scores, the other main achievement measure used to assess college applicants, are so highly linked to family SES that some scholars view SAT and ACT tests as products and more precisely vessels for justifying class inequalities [26,30,63,64]. The present study uniquely highlights the roles of extracurricular activities in the U.S. and how students from advantaged SES backgrounds may leverage their corresponding knowledge bases, resources, and abilities into disparities in post-secondary enrollment [9,11,65]. ...
... Indeed, higher SES parents appear to be increasingly investing in and encouraging extracurricular activities as important pathways to college attendance and into more selective school attendance [9,11,31,65]. Of course, these investments are enabled by SES-related resources [9,12,31]. ...
... Also, this study offers novel evidence of how extracurricular activities may increase the likelihood of attending college and a more selective college, with both sports and non-sport activities providing advantages for attending any college as well as the likelihood of attending a more selective college. Higher SES parents are more likely to enroll their children in extracurricular activities, and they are more likely to live in contexts where these extracurricular activities are available [9,12,65]. Participating in extracurricular activities have consistently provided academic benefits over time [76], and a recent divergence in participation rates by socioeconomic status is alarming given how the patterns mirror inequalities in college attendance [11,73]. ...
Inequality research has found that a college education can ameliorate intergenerational disparities in economic outcomes. Much attention has focused on how family resources impact academic achievement, though research continues to identify how mechanisms related to social class and structural contexts drive college attendance patterns. Using the Education Longitudinal Study and multilevel modeling techniques, this study uniquely highlights how extracurricular activities relate to family socioeconomic status and school contexts to influence college attendance. Altogether, sport and non-sport extracurricular participation, college expectations, and academic achievement scores, situated within unique school contexts that are driven by residential social class segregation, contribute to the cumulative advantages of children from higher SES families. The results from this study show that these cumulative advantages are positively associated with college attendance and an increased likelihood of attending a more selective school.
... It may also mirror a pattern noticed in qualitative studies. Qualitative researchers have tracked affluent families turning to sport to reproduce their class standing (e.g., Eckstein, 2017;Friedman, 2013;Hextrum, 2018Hextrum, , 2019Hextrum, , 2021Messner, 2009). The belief is that competitive, elite sports cultivate the dispositions and characteristics needed to ascend society's education and employment winnowing mechanisms (Friedman, 2013;Messner, 2009). ...
... Qualitative researchers have tracked affluent families turning to sport to reproduce their class standing (e.g., Eckstein, 2017;Friedman, 2013;Hextrum, 2018Hextrum, , 2019Hextrum, , 2021Messner, 2009). The belief is that competitive, elite sports cultivate the dispositions and characteristics needed to ascend society's education and employment winnowing mechanisms (Friedman, 2013;Messner, 2009). Some studies have also pointed to well-educated families explicitly investing in sports for special admission advantages, as parents with college degrees are better positioned to game a competitive college selection process (Eckstein, 2017;Hextrum, 2018Hextrum, , 2019Hextrum, , 2021. ...
American meritocratic ideology positions sports as level playing fields in which individuals, regardless of their background, can ascend with the right combination of ability and effort. Yet few studies challenge the sport-meritocracy ideology by empirically examining the socioeconomic backgrounds of college athletes (Allison et al., 2018). Studies of youth sport participation show that community-level income shapes athletic opportunities suggesting class is a strong barrier to physical activity (NWLC, 2015; Sabo & Veliz, 2008; Tompsett & Knoester, 2022). Class inequalities are exacerbated in sports with robust privatized youth systems like baseball (Klein et al., 2020; Post et al., 2022). Utilizing a unique quantitative dataset of NCAA Division I college baseball players (n = 19,987), we consider the extent to which a community’s socioeconomic levels and racial demographics shape the chances of someone becoming a college baseball player. We compare college baseball players’ hometown income levels and racial demographics to their home state and to U.S. averages. We also consider differences across competitive divisions (i.e., Non-Power 5 vs. Power 5). Findings show that college baseball players—regardless of conference affiliation—commonly come from affluent, nonminority cities, with high education and income levels, indicating that socioeconomic status is a significant predictor of college athletic participation.
... Their findings revealed that both the direct and indirect effects of concerted cultivation on test scores are statistically nonsignificant. In light of these results, the authors referenced complementary research (Friedman 2013;Robinson and Harris 2014) suggesting that concerted cultivation may instead influence children's noncognitive values, such as interpersonal skills, within formal institutional settings. This finding indicates that while the academic benefits of concerted cultivation may be minimal, potential advantages could be realized in the workplace. ...
Parental concerted cultivation has been proven useful in understanding social and cultural reproduction in Western countries; however, its impact on educational outcomes in other societies remains underexplored. Using data from the China Education Panel Survey, this study investigates how concerted cultivation—theorized by Lareau—shapes academic performance (grades in Chinese, mathematics, and English) among Chinese middle school students. Employing item response theory models, we construct a robust measure of concerted cultivation and rigorously estimate its association with academic outcomes. Our analysis reveals a nonlinear relationship: parental concerted cultivation positively affects academic performance up to a certain point, beyond which excessive engagement is associated with diminishing returns. We also find that concerted cultivation practices are closely tied to parental social, cultural and political resources. Notably, the nonlinear effects exhibit stratification, disproportionately disadvantaging students from lower-class and less-educated families. These findings advance the understanding of the intricate dynamics of cultural reproduction and mobility within the current Chinese context.
... There are reasons to expect that the link between mortgage and children will vary across a family's socio-economic background. Scholars have theorized parental investment through a combination of class-based parenting styles with positional competition (Bertrand and Morse 2016;Charles and Lundy 2013;Doepke et al. 2019;Frank 2007;Levey Friedman 2013;Ramey and Ramey 2010). Lareau (2003) famously argued that families in the middle and upper middle classes engaged in concerted cultivation of their children, which could include residing in good-school neighborhoods to cultivate their children's school experience (see also Calarco 2020;Kimbro 2021). ...
American households owe more than $12 trillion in mortgages, which represents the main source of a family’s debt. Scholars connect mortgages to the desire of families, especially better-off households, to seek housing in neighborhoods with good schools for their children, which tend to be more expensive. Although this perspective assumes a children–mortgage link, we do not know whether having children actually increases mortgage, nor whether and how this relationship varies by household income. To examine these issues, we use eleven waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data between 1997 and 2017 and individual fixed effects, as well as propensity score matching and a quasi-experimental design. Our analyses show that generally, (1) families with children are more likely to have mortgage debt and in greater amounts; (2) it is families in the 60th to 100th income percentile who have the most mortgage debt; and (3) critically, families in the roughly 10th to 60th income percentile have more mortgage debt due to having children. These findings defy assumptions that it is well-to-do families that take on more mortgage debt as part of intensive or concerted cultivation parenting practices. Rather, our findings suggest that families who take on mortgage debt related to their children tend to be those in more economically precarious positions for whom debt for the sake of kids may be a financial burden. As such, our findings provide suggestive evidence that financially intensive parenting may contribute to growing wealth inequality among American families with children.
... Furthermore, as the costs of participating in youth sports have risen, the options available to parents with limited financial means have contracted. Yet, parents have often been eager to invest in activities with the potential to enhance their children's talents and skills (Eckstein, 2017;Friedman, 2013). Consequently, the common upper-middle class approach to parenting that emphasizes organized youth activities as concerted cultivation, enabled by higher SES-linked resources, appears to have differentially shaped the organized youth sports participation patterns of higher SES children (Hextrum et al., 2024;Lareau, 2003Lareau, , 2015. ...
Using data from the National Sports and Society Survey
(N = 3,993), this study described and analyzed U.S. adults’
reports of their youth sports experiences. We considered
patterns in ever having played a sport regularly while growing
up, ever having played an organized sport, and then
relative likelihoods of having never played an organized
sport, played and dropped out of organized sports, or played
an organized sport continually while growing up. We used
binary and multinomial logistic regressions to assess the
relevance of generational, gender, racial/ethnic, socioeconomic
status, and family and community sport culture contexts
for youth sports participation experiences. Overall, the
findings highlight general increases in ever playing organized
sports and ever playing organized sports and dropping
out across generations. Increasing levels of female sports
participation, emerging disparities by socioeconomic statuses,
and the continual salience of family and community
cultures of sport for participation are also striking.
... The widespread belief among academics, policy-makers and the public alike that education improves individual and societal level economic outcomes (e.g., Gullason, 1999;Rosenbaum, 2011;Wolf, 2004) has served as justification for sizable government investments into the expansion of educational access around the world (Marginson, 2016;Meyer, Ramirez, Frank & Schofer, 2007;Schofer & Meyer, 2005). It is also responsible for the growing amounts of time and energy devoted by families into ensuring the educational success of their children (Friedman, 2013;Hamilton, 2016;Ramey & Ramey, 2010). ...
... It was measured with three items (e.g., ''It is important for me to perform better than other people on a task''). Friedman (2013) describes how middle-and upper-class U.S. parents seek to cultivate a competitive orientation in their children, especially though extracurricular activities. Although many low-income children endorse the achievement ideology and its underlying logic of competitiveness, some may refuse to engage in competitions that are perceived as unfair or unwinnable (Lamont 2018;Willis 1977). ...
Empirical evidence suggests children’s socio-emotional skills—an important determinant of school achievement—vary according to socioeconomic family background. This study assesses the degree to which differences in socio-emotional skills contribute to the achievement gap between socioeconomically advantaged and disadvantaged children. We used data on 74 countries from the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment, which contains an extensive set of psychological measures, including growth mindset, self-efficacy, and work mastery. We developed three conceptual scenarios to analyze the role of socio-emotional skills in learning inequality: simple accumulation, multiplicative accumulation, and compensatory accumulation. Our findings are in line with the simple accumulation scenario: Socioeconomically advantaged children have somewhat higher levels of socio-emotional skills than their disadvantaged peers, but the effect of these skills on academic performance is largely similar in both groups. Using a counterfactual decomposition method, we show that the measured socio-emotional skills explain no more than 8.8 percent of the socioeconomic achievement gap. Based on these findings, we argue that initiatives to promote social and emotional learning are unlikely to substantially reduce educational inequality.
... However, the working-class working environment is often hierarchical and routinized, requiring workers to obey orders. In terms of skill building, middle-class parents are familiar with the qualities needed to succeed in the white-collar workplace and thus emphasize cultivating noncognitive skills in their children (Friedman, 2013). Working-class parents, in contrast, have a relatively limited understanding of the white-collar working style, and they hope their children will move upward through their academic achievements and thus pay attention to academic performance (Lan, 2014). ...
Parenting practice, an embodied cultural capital, is class based. The findings of this study showed that in urban Chinese families, the middle class was inclined to adopt the practice of concerted cultivation while the working class was inclined to adopt the practice of natural growth. However, those who were born in working-class families but were able to achieve upward mobility to the middle class were more likely to adopt similar practices to those who stayed in the middle class; those who were born in middle-class families but moved downward were able to retain some aspects of parenting practices similar to those who stayed in the middle class. The findings of the unbalanced reproduction of parenting practice do not support the argument that class boundaries have solidified in Chinese society.
... The term organized activities has been adopted by some scholars when referring to regimented, extracurricular activities that occur outside the school curriculum such as afterschool and youth programs held in schools, churches, community centers and clubs (Bohnert et al., 2010). These programs typically center around athletics, artistic and academic areas, tend to be structured and led by adults, and are typically designed and delivered for youth of similar ages at regular, pre-scheduled times (Friedman, 2013). Several studies have examined outcomes derived from participation in a wide range of extracurricular program offerings (e.g., Howie et al., 2010;Metsäpelto and Pulkkinen, 2014;Ilari et al., 2016;Zarobe and Bungay, 2017;Molinuevo et al, 2010). ...
Introduction
Music is central in the lives of adolescents. While listening is usually the most common form of engagement, many adolescents also learn music formally by participating in school-based and extracurricular programs. This study examined positive youth development (PYD), school connectedness (SC), and hopeful future expectations (HFE) in middle school students (N = 120) with four levels of musical participation in school-based and extracurricular music programs. Levels of participation were based on students’ engagement in different music programs, including the Virtual Middle School Music Enrichment (VMSME), a tuition-free, extracurricular program that focuses on popular music education and virtual learning. We also investigated student listening preferences, musical tuition, and daily instrumental practicing.
Method
Study participants completed an anonymous, online survey that contained five self-report measures including the very-brief form of the PYD questionnaire, a scale of school connectedness, and a scale of HFE.
Results
Findings revealed significant differences in PYD scores by grade and gender, and associations between levels of musical participation and competence, a PYD component. Liking music and participation in extracurricular activities predicted scores on SC, and starting formal music education before age 8 predicted scores in HFE. We also found VMSME students to stem from neighborhoods with lower HDI than students in the other study groups, which points to issues of access to formal music education.
Discussion
Findings are discussed in light of earlier research on PYD, extracurricular activities in adolescence, the ubiquity and functions of music in adolescence, and deficit thinking in education.
... Finally, the broader conceptualization of cultural capital tested here for France may apply in other contexts, with significant implications. Indeed, educational systems where extracurriculars are especially important, such as in the United States (Friedman 2013)-more so than in France-warrant attention to the wide array of cultural practices accessible to students outside school. ...
Scholarship examining the role of cultural capital in school outcomes in relation to race and ethnicity in the French context is scarce. This article seeks to test how various potential forms of cultural capital, beyond the most traditional ones, are associated with school grades relationally with French students’ backgrounds. Using Ministry of Education data to perform regression analyses on old and new forms of cultural capital, I find some evidence of differences in their association with grades. Reading, internet, documentaries, sport, and music practice are all associated with higher school grades, but less so for Haiti and overseas- origin children for four practices out of five. This study contributes to research on ethnic/racial inequalities in the French school system and to broader conversations around the contemporary redefinition of cultural capital by showing that racial inequalities can be reproduced in schools through a wide array of cultural practices.
... As a final example, we illustrate changes in parental spending on extracurricular activities for children overtime. Researchers have noted that parents are organizing their children's time increasingly around activities outside of school (Lareau, 2003;Levey-Friedman, 2013, Ishizuka, 2019, Dhingra, 2020. While parents may have multiple motivations to enroll children in extracurricular activities (Dhingra, 2020), several scholars have argued that enrichment activities have a direct impact on cognitive development and various skills like confidence and self-discipline that may positively impact children's future economic outcomes (Duncan & Murnane, 2011;Kaushal et al., 2011). ...
This article takes Viviana Zelizer’s (1985) Pricing the Priceless Child to the new millennium. Zelizer documented the transformation between the 19th and 20th century from an “economically useful” to an “emotionally priceless” child. She observed that by the 1930s, American children were practically economically worthless but invested with significant emotional value. What has happened to this emotionally priceless child at the dawn of the new millennium? Has there been a new transformation in the social value of children, and, if so, what might have such a transformation entailed? To address these questions, we examine overtime trends that point to increasing devotion of resources and time to children’s education, a key input in the exceedingly influential human capital theory, which connects investment into children’s human capital with their future market value. Therefore, we argue that the priceless child 2.0 is a useful-to-be human capital investment child. We use four empirical examples of overtime growth in children’s human capital investment: (a) enrollments in early childhood education, (b) federal spending on early education, (c) federal spending on K-12 programs, and (d) parental spending on child care, education and extracurricular activities. In the conclusion, we discuss some potential consequences and concerns about raising children as human capital investment.
... 3 Parental financial expenditures have increased since the mid-1970s and now include a wide range of items and financial investments on children's behalf (Bandelj and Grigoryeva 2021). Parents spend a considerable amount of money on enrichment activities for children, viewing these as essential for developing young people who will be valued by future educational and occupational institutions (Lareau 2011;Levey Friedman 2013). Nurturing children's "exploratory" cultural tastes by traveling widely and equipping children with knowledge of a vast assortment of cultural products and experiences has also become a (costly) part of the professional middle-class parenting project (Fielding-Singh 2017a;Khan 2011;Weinberger, Zavisca, and Silva 2017). ...
How do parents decide what goods, experiences, and activities they can afford for their children during times of economic insecurity? This article draws on 72 in-depth interviews with U.S. professional middle-class families in which one parent is unemployed. Extending the concept of relational work, this study illuminates how the microfoundation of economic decisions is gendered. Families where fathers are unemployed take the approach of relational preservation: they seek to maintain a high threshold of expenditures on children and view curtailing child-related spending as a threat to their class status. These families see reducing expenditures on children as a parental, and especially paternal, failure. Families where mothers are unemployed take an approach of relational downscaling, lowering the threshold for essential expenditures on children. These families are reluctant to spend less on children’s education, but they do not view decreasing spending on other items, such as consumer goods, as threatening their class status. Gendering relational work reveals how inequalities within families are reproduced through meaning-making around expenditures on children, and it clarifies a key source of variation in parental economic decision-making.
Using data from the National Sports and Society Survey
(N = 3,993) and multiple regression analyses, this study examined
parents’ involvement in their children’s youth sports
participation activities. We considered historical trends in parents’
attendance at their children’s sporting events, time spent
otherwise supporting their children’s youth sports endeavours,
and the amount of money that families allocate to their children’s
sports activities. We found generational, socioeconomic
status, family and community sport culture, and youth sport
commitment associations with parents’ involvement patterns.
Parents’ involvement generally increased across generations,
became more differentiated by family socioeconomic status,
and was largely connected to sport cultures and children’s
sports commitments, of course. Patterns were largely similar
for parents’ frequencies of attendance at their children’s sporting
events, parents’ frequencies of support for their children’s
sports participation, and family expenditures on their children’s
sports participation.
Inspired by Nigel Dodd's The Social Life of Money , this article proposes an analysis of entangled economic lives, that is, how meaning, structures and politics jointly shape the flow of monies within households. The past decades have marked a shift from “childrearing expenditures” to “parenting investments” that align with new visions of both children and parents. The new social life of money for children revolves less around what Viviana Zelizer decades ago famously called “a priceless child,” and more in support of human capital development of children and invested parenting identities. The new ideational schemas are scaffolded by financialization, an exploding parenting product industry, and an aloof state offloading provision for children onto individual parents. Leading entangled economic lives, parents engage in relational work in which they match the sacred child‐parent bond with not only culturally appropriate but actually affordable monies for children, creating a new political economy of parenting.
Researchers have repeatedly found that within modern higher education systems, students from wealthier backgrounds tend to be concentrated in the most advantageous sectors. Dubbed “effectively maintained inequality,” this process allows these groups to maintain a competitive advantage in the labor market by virtue of acquiring more elite credentials. But what happens in nations with flatter university hierarchies, where there is relatively modest vertical differentiation in the brand strength of domestic universities? Through this study, we provide the first national-level analysis of the relationship between parental income and access to more selective, better resourced, and higher ranking Canadian universities. We also assess the extent to which there is an earnings premium associated with attending these more elite institutions. Our results suggest there are few differences in the types of universities attended by Canadians from different economic strata. Moreover, any earnings premium associated with attending a more elite Canadian university disappears once we account for basic demographic and field of study controls. We theorize that Canadian universities’ flatter institutional hierarchy drives wealthy families to seek advantages through enrollment in elite majors (e.g., business, engineering) and other tactics that take place outside the higher education system.
Using 122 interviews, this study examines how students at one elite U.S. university conceptualized the impacts of extracurricular participation during college. Scholars have argued that activities can yield valuable forms of capital for students at the primary, secondary, and college levels, yet these processes remain undertheorized. Applying Bourdieusian field theory, I found that respondents perceived three structural parallels between their student organizations and actual workplace contexts. Through clubs, students socialized one another to adopt new relational orientations that anticipated future careers navigating institutional hierarchies. Despite their university’s supposedly endless resources for activities, students paradoxically restricted one another’s access to clubs through elaborate recruitment practices that mirrored job hiring. Within clubs, respondents described learning to manage one another and relate in a detached manner as colleagues, rather than friends. While past research has explored how extracurricular activities shape individual outcomes, this study reveals how students themselves perceived the impacts of club involvement, specifically in an elite institutional context. Respondents’ experiences suggest that extracurricular activities may represent a key site of “status degradation ceremonies” that ultimately enhance elite institutions’ consecrating function.
In this study, with an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, we considered the components and implications of a habitus that (re)produces racial/ethnic, social class, and gender differences in US interscholastic sport participation. We drew from independently collected qualitative (N = 19 men and 47 total college athletes) and quantitative (N = 4,097 high school boys) data and noted and investigated dynamic links between individual choices; family, community, and school contexts; and power structures that inform interscholastic athletics. Findings positioned sports as offering valuable institutionalized cultural capital but being rife with reproductive struggles. Schools serve as fields that co-construct unequal athletic opportunity structures by nurturing and rewarding a cultivated athletic habitus associated with masculinity, whiteness, and affluent dispositions. These processes situate athletic advantages and successes as purely meritorious but restrict who is most likely to receive the individual and social benefits of high school sports participation.
Objective
This study investigated how middle‐class rural parents engaged in status safeguarding in an economically struggling rural community and how the parenting views and practices of rural return migrants impacted the community.
Background
Rural communities seek college‐educated returners to offset outmigration. We know little about how returners impact the community, especially if they return to raise children.
Method
This study analyzed interview data from 15 white, college‐educated parents between the ages of 25 and 38 who returned to their rural hometown to raise their children.
Results
All returners emphasized their children's choice regarding their future educational and occupational paths, and they equally valued college and skilled trades. In other ways, rural return migrants drew on distinct cultural repertoires in their childrearing strategies. Parents who had not lived in cities before returning relied on a localized cultural repertoire to engage in status safeguarding through reputation management as they monitored cross‐class interactions and emphasized fitting in. In contrast, rural return migrants who had lived in cities drew on a cosmopolitan cultural repertoire that emphasized exposure to cultural amenities and engaged in cultural practices that they saw as distinguishing their children from the local community.
Conclusion
Although the return of college‐educated residents is often celebrated, this study suggests that college‐educated migrants may ultimately maintain inequalities within the community through social class or cultural exclusion based on their cultural repertoires.
Status and reputation both play important roles in the evaluation and choice of organizations. Status is used as a heuristic in the first stage of a two-stage process when decision-makers select a subset of status-proximate organizations, and cognitively costlier reputation-based comparisons take place in the second stage within this subset. Existing status research assumes that the relative importance of different dimensions of reputation in the second stage is not contingent on the status of the organization that is being evaluated. We argue that this assumption is not warranted. Evidence suggests that high status is associated with a focus on gains and opportunities while low status is associated with a focus on downside risks. Similarly, some dimensions of reputation are associated more with upside opportunities while other dimensions of reputation are associated more with downside risks. Consequently, we argue that the emphasis on reputation dimensions associated with upside opportunities relative to dimensions of reputation associated with downside risks is contingent on status, which provides the evaluation frame. We test our hypothesis and provide empirical evidence consistent with our predictions using a sample of 411,530 US applicants to Master of Business Administration programs.
Compared with working-class parents, middle-class parents increasingly promote sports performance for their children as part of a larger strategy of ensuring that their children are upwardly mobile and likely to attend and graduate from college. However, we need to learn more about the distribution of youth sports performance in specific sports and whether it relates to social class. In this study, we test for a relationship between social class and performance in girls soccer by examining the success of high school girls soccer teams in 16,091 contests. We find that schools with more working-class youth consistently lose by many goals. The relationship between performance and social class is weaker in predominantly Latinx schools than in predominantly Black and predominantly White ones, likely reflecting the community cultural wealth in soccer in Latinx immigrant communities. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.
In a context in which Western children’s leisure time has become increasingly adult-managed, Girl Scouts of the United States of America seeks to distinguish itself from other extracurriculars with a “girl-led” program. However, based on participant observation and interviews with Girl Scout volunteers, I find that Girl Scouts is more parent-led than girl-led as concerted cultivation and intensive parenting moves into an organizational setting. Specifically, parents work together to promote the accumulation of cultural and social capital though collective concerted cultivation, which ultimately limits the autonomy of children and reproduces childhood inequality even in an organizational setting.
This article explores the intensifying friendship ideal current in children’s media culture. The article argues that children’s animations, such as Lego Friends, educate children about a desirable model of sociability, namely that of the closed group of friends. While the recent research on friendship has focused on the technological mechanisms of friendship in specific textual practices and platforms, the concept of friendship itself and its cultural re-significances has received less attention. In this analysis, Lego Friends is approached from the perspective of popular cultural meaning making: how and in relation to what are friendships represented as not only valuable but also necessary social relationships. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s theory of articulation, the article suggests that the intensifying friendship ideal reflects the contemporary adult concern of social exclusion, rooted in neoliberal economic insecurities.
Drawing on interviews with upper-middle-class parents in a large North-eastern city, we examine how “predictable stability” informs their assessment of downward mobility risks for their children. In contrast to anxiety and a ‘fear of falling,’ multigenerational achievement allows these parents to assume that their children will realize education and career success and a comfortable standard of living. This analysis extends contemporary theories of parenting and social stratification by illustrating variation among upper-middle-class dispositions and the micro-foundations that underlie quantitative research on the “stickiness” of intergenerational status mobility and the “glass floor” that protects upper-middle-class children from experiencing downward mobility.
This article examines the cultural processes a group of middle-class parents engage in to manage tensions between their classed sense of proper consumer-parenting and their children’s consumer interests and desires. Based on analysis of qualitative data from interviews with parents with young children living in a middle-class neighborhood in Austin, Texas, I highlight the cultural practices through which parents acquiesce to their children’s desires without compromising their own classed consumer norms. Specifically, in this article I highlight the cultural processes through which middle-class parents (1) draw distinctions between spending on objects and spending on experiences, and (2) engage in intra-group “circuits of commerce” through which class actors confer positive shared meanings and moral understandings to otherwise excessive or “bad” consumer spending. Examining the ways in which parents were able to provide many of the “cheap” consumer goods their children desire without compromising their classed consumer norms provides insights into class boundaries in contemporary U.S. society as well as the role of consumerism and consumer culture in the reproduction of class inequalities.
This chapter applies Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) to review research on US higher education’s college athletic admission system. US college sports permit coaches to admit athletes as university students who may not have otherwise matriculated. Preferential athletic admission seems meritocratic because Black men – once barred from higher education and their sports teams – are now overrepresented in the prominent revenue-generating teams of American football and basketball. Scholars have characterized revenue-generating college athletics as a racially exploitative labor system. But the visibility of Black athletes disguises how White, middle-class athletes are overrepresented in all other sports. Applying CWS to diverse areas of literature including sociology of youth sports, critical race theories, sports management, physical education, and higher education access scholarship, I identify three mechanisms that permit the overrepresentation of White athletes to go unrecognized in athletics: racial segregation, preserving White advantage, and interpreting Whiteness. In doing so, this chapter opens new terrains for critiquing sport as meritocratic by (re)positioning Whiteness as a structuring force in athletic access and opportunity.
This article is a collaborative ethnographic examination of the formation of white, middle‐class, suburban mothers’ subjectivities and mothers’ roles in the reproduction of racial inequity and structural violence. We focus on their affective labors transforming home spaces and suburban landscapes into white fantasies of childhood, which we describe as kind of domestic magic. We argue at the heart of this white racial habitus is the figure of the child and childhood. The child embodies mothers’ hopes for happy families and motivates their work and sacrifice. Our aim in this article is to show how racialized suffering and violence may not be reproduced by racial animus, neglect or ignorance but by seemingly innocuous hopes to make or conjure idyllic fantasies for children.
Although many recognize that families shape the likelihood of getting into college, few examine variation in families’ involvement during college or its implications for sustaining inequalities. Using interviews with 51 Black and 61 Asian American college students, our analysis reveals that class and race jointly shape students’ perceptions of the financial assistance that they receive from and give to family—whether in the short term (during college) or their plans for the long term (post-college). Advantaged students across race receive more and provide less assistance than disadvantaged students. Both disadvantaged Black and Asian American students share future intentions of support, but only disadvantaged Black students give their families money during college. Race and class affect students’ framing of family and designation of the particular family members (whether parents, siblings, extended kin, or fictive kin) included in these exchanges. Lastly, we analyze the ways these different forms of assistance shape students’ college struggles; Black students experience the most strain due to their working and giving back during college. Drawing on and developing theories addressing the models and practices of familial diversity, this paper shows how class and race intersect to shape family assistance and its consequences for the persistence of inequality.
This article studies how middle‐class parents negotiate globally inspired and classed parenting dispositions with contextual circumstances for transferring their privileges to their children. By drawing on 3‐year longitudinal qualitative data from middle‐class parents in Istanbul, we show that, first, this class feels insecure in the face of changing its social position in the transformation of the state's political economy and ideological foundations. Second, consistent with patterns reported elsewhere, they generally follow a concerted cultivation style of childrearing – enrolling their children in various extracurricular activities, prompting them to discover or create specific talents, consciously developing their language use and forging their ability to interact with social institutions – to impose a competitive personality on their offspring. Third, however, the early tracking, which may stream their children to disadvantaged upper secondary schools through multiple choice and centralized standardized tests, limits their concerted cultivation process by necessitating test‐doing skills. We argue that the Turkish middle class aspires to cultivate their children culturally, but the national testing regime forces them to develop aggressive tactics such as strategically delaying the cultivation process and cutting children's friendships.
Many primary school pupils broaden their education through extracurricular activities and sports, among which school soccer stands out due to its high levels of participation and its significant impact. The kind of learning imparted fluctuates between a priori pedagogical desires and the evaluations that family members and coaches bring to bear on the activity. This study aims to understand these evaluation strategies, their meaning, and their capitalization by schoolchildren. A multiple case study was conducted, making use of participant observation among 101 schoolchildren aged six years (3 girls and 54 boys) and seven years (2 girls and 42 boys) over one academic year and interviews with 21 teachers from their schools. Family members who were involved on site on a daily basis and the teams’ 10 coaches are included. 204 observation sessions were recorded, including matches and training sessions. The findings highlight a results-driven arbitrariness in the adults’ evaluations, favoring concurrent hetero-evaluation and the comparison of schoolchildren’s performances. This gives rise to situations of symbolic violence and to the child’s self-evaluation being linked to victory over their peers. This study encourages the planning of evaluative spaces for the co-participation of instructors, families, and schools, taking into account the child’s personal growth. To this end, we recommend the harmonization of formative opportunities regardless of schoolchildren’s individual skills.
Cet article propose une étude des rapports sociaux de sexe et de classe dans la voile légère scolaire. Reposant sur une enquête qualitative menée en France et en Californie, il met en lumière une répartition sexuée des tâches sur le bateau, fondée sur une hiérarchie entre les postes de barreur et d’équipier. Les garçons sont ainsi plus souvent barreurs et les filles équipières. Toutefois, en étudiant les trajectoires et les modes de socialisation de certain·e·s acteur·trice·s, leurs portraits sociologiques font émerger, dans les (re)plis de leurs expériences et dans le jeu de leurs dispositions, des individus pluriels parfois susceptibles de contester cette domination en faisant basculer la hiérarchie entre barreur et équipier.
Since its beginnings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, dance competition culture has featured youth as competitors, situating dance competition culture as an important dance training venue for youth. Like any cultural phenomenon, dance competition culture is shaped by societal norms, which are dynamic. Of particular note in dance competition culture are shifts about what is considered age appropriate technique and artistry, which raises questions about how age appropriate standards are determined and what they mean for youth who engage in dance competition culture. Using a multipronged research approach combining focus groups, autoethnography, and analysis of print materials, this chapter examines, contextualizes, and connects shifting expectations about age appropriate technique and artistry.KeywordsAge appropriateDance educationDance trainingTechniqueYouthAdolescents
Research shows that social class differences in high school sports participation are large and growing. However, focusing on sports participation may obfuscate large social class differences in sports performance among participants. The authors develop theoretical predictions on the basis of exclusion (middle-class youth perform sports better) and inclusion (working-class youth perform sports better). To test these predictions, the authors analyze the relationship between high schools’ social class composition and success in high school athletics using data on more than 200,000 contests in school fixed-effects models. The findings indicate that predominantly middle-class schools beat economically integrated and predominantly working-class schools by large margins, supporting exclusivity perspectives. Also, predominantly working-class schools win as much as economically integrated schools, providing evidence of inclusion, but inclusion is much weaker than exclusion. The authors conclude that sports performance among youth is highly stratified by social class.
Play is a proven source of resilience in the midst of difficult circumstances. This special issue of the International Journal of Play highlights how play behaviors were widely reported in varied countries during the recent Covid-19 pandemic, as well as in other crises. In the United States during the pandemic, home-based play within families intensified, affording opportunities to enhance family relatedness.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.