While many school choice studies focus on individual parents' preferences, we simultaneously address the structural context within which families make decisions and the strategies they develop in response. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 24 Black middle-class parents of young children, we demonstrate that they sought well-funded, academically…

Empirical research on cultural and social capital has generally ignored the key role of institutions in setting standards that determine the contingent value of this capital. Furthermore, many studies presume that the yielding of profit from cultural, social, and economic capital is automatic. Bourdieu's concept of field highlights the ''rules of…

Stratification is a central issue in family research, yet relatively few studies highlight its impact on family processes. Drawing on in-depth interviews (N = 137) and observational data (N = 12), we extend Melvin Kohn's research on childrearing values by examining how parental commitments to self-direction and conformity are enacted in daily…

Focusing on parental networks--a central dimension of social capital--this article uses ethnographic data to examine social-class differences in the relations between families and schools. We detail the characteristics of networks across different classes and then explore the ways that networks come into play when parents are confronted by…

Social class influences parent involvement in schooling. This book uses the case study method to compare family-school relationships in a working-class elementary school with those in an upper middle-class school, focusing on one first grade class in each school, and within the two schools, on 12 families, over the course of their children's first…

Summarizes a qualitative study of family/school relationships in White working class and middle class areas. Concludes that schools have standardized views of the proper role of parents in schooling. Suggests that the concept of cultural capital is useful to understand social class differences in children's school experiences. (Author/RKM)