International authors have argued that social class inequalities can influence parental engagement in education. Lareau argued that middle-class families possess the resources to actively cultivate their children to succeed academically, whereas working-class and poor families feel they lack such resources and allow their children to develop…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine the commitment of Catholic secondary schools to the poor, working, and middle class families of the New York City metropolitan area through the perception of the school president. This study sought to identify the socioeconomic class of students in the Catholic high school populations within…

An intersectional approach to human development emphasizes the multiple social categories individuals occupy, some of which confer privilege (e.g., being White) and some of which confer marginalization (e.g., being poor). This approach is needed especially in critical consciousness scholarship, and particularly in regard to understanding whether…

Social class encompasses the preferences, lifestyles, and behaviors of people in various social class groups in conjunction with the structural privileges that accompany certain social locations (Smith, 2010). Class-privileged college students typically come to campus with greater amounts of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1980) that afford them the…

This research study interpreted family histories written by teachers enrolled in graduate programs in education in the United States. The family histories described feature ancestors from the working class. Though their family histories are characterized by poverty and unemployment, three of the four teachers interpreted their family histories as…

Using Maurice Merleau-Ponty's (1947/1964) phenomenological notion of the "threads of intentionality" that tie subject and object together meaningfully and Pierre Bourdieu's (1986, 2000; Bourdieu & Waquant, 1992) reflexive sociology and constructs of "habitus," "field," "capital," and "nomos," we theorize social class-sensitivity in literacy…

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…

Economic inequality is high and rising in a number of developed countries, including in the United Kingdom and the United States. There are growing concerns that this may have negative implications for equality of opportunity, and the extent to which social disadvantage is transmitted across generations. It is widely believed that providing…

A comprehensive update of the classic study that delivers both a passionate plea and strategies for teachers, parents, and community organizers to give working-class children the same type of empowering education and powerful literacy skills that the children of upper- and middle-class people receive. The classic, indispensable guide for teachers,…

Focuses on pedagogical relationships established in three different Australian primary schools designated as disadvantaged schools and located in ethnically diverse working-class areas. Contrasts the schools' pedagogical responses to children in poverty and analyses them in terms of their capacities to contribute to socially just outcomes from…