Family engagement has long been held as an important component of the educational experience for our students. This study is about how schools tend to aim towards the middle when looking to engage families in their child's school life, and future implications for how educators need to shift from the lens of the middle-class to reach our…

Much of the literature on social class and language study in schools argues that for middle-class parents and their children, languages are chosen for their capacity to offer forms of distinction that provide an edge in the global labour market. In this paper, we draw on data collected from interviews with parents and children in middle-class…

This article builds a case for nuanced conceptualizations of "urban" and "-suburban" educational contexts and issues. The author analyzes data across two studies--one of upper-middle-class White parents with children in Chicago public schools, and the other of Black low-income and working-class parents who moved from Chicago to…

This paper examines how some Swedish parents constructed meanings of parenthood. The parents had completed a state-sponsored parenting programme and were interviewed about their experiences of the programme, their everyday lives, their need for support, ideas about the societal context, and their understandings of "good" and…

This paper critiques what it sees as a tendency on the part of certain social researchers to engage in moralistic critiques of middle-class parents, especially in relation to the choices and actions of such parents within educational quasi-markets. It proceeds to a linked critique of the influence within education of certain aspects of the work of…

Popular culture today characterizes middle-class parents as being consumed with anxiety about their children. Drawing on more than 100 consumer reviews of baby monitors published on Epinions.com, the author examines how parents respond to that anxiety. Although Epinions.com reviewers are not representative of the population at large, they do…

This study investigated whether the lower class student preceives a "conflict of subcultures" between his home environment and his middle class oriented school. Data were collected through interviews with 12- to 16-year-old lower class students in New York City and Baltimore. The 110 students on whom the findings are based were divided…