Julie Hawkins

Chapter Analysis of Unequal Childhoods: Chapters Five and Eleven

Julie Hawkins

Texas A&M University

EDCI 353: Child and Adolescent Development

Fall 2017
Julie Hawkins

Introduction:

Unequal Childhoods in a book that reports on the findings of a study done on many

different children and their lives. Throughout the book, many different children are detailed and

their lives are exposed. All these children have very different struggles and it shows just how

much life can differ for children. Just because you are a part of a certain gender, race, religion,

economic class, or political party doesn’t mean your life will be the same. In the chapters I chose

to analyze we will discuss nine-year-old Katie Brindle who struggles with poverty and self image

and ten-year-old Billy Yanelli who is labeled as a “behavior problem”.

Analysis of Chapters Five and Eleven:

I chose chapters five and eleven for this analysis. There were a few reasons I chose these

chapters. First off, these chapters were both just ones that stuck with me while reading Lareau’s

work. Also, I believed I could draw a lot of parallels between these families, which I will later

discuss. Finally, I chose these chapters because I felt somewhat of a personal connection to

Katie’s situation and had strong feelings about Billy’s life. These are just a few specific reasons

why I chose the chapters, but as I analyze and discuss them more my feelings behind the

situations and therefore my reasons for picking the chapters will be shown more strongly.

There are many examples of how the family culture influenced the thoughts and

behaviors of the children and their families. In Katie’s family, her family culture directly
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influenced how she thought about herself. Not only did her culture emphasize beauty, but she

was also molested by a member of her family. These issues helped contribute to her self-image

problems. Billy’s family culture also contributed to some of his issues action out. His culture

emphasized physical punishment which he then displayed to other students.

There were many important values of the families highlighted in these chapters. In

chapter five, we saw that Katie’s family really emphasized appearance. This can be seen from

the mother keeping the house very clean and organized, all the comments made about Katie’s

appearance, and the fact that Ms. Brindle would sometimes keep Katie home from school if she

did not have clean clothes. “There seems to be no clutter of any kind in the apartment. Ms.

Brindle insists that Katie not leave her belongings, such as her backpack or coat, lying around.

Immediately upon arriving home, she is expected to put her things in their proper places. Every

part of the apartment is always very tidy and clean. The smell of bleach often lingers in the air”

(Lareau, 2011, pg. 85). We also read these other examples on pages 86, 87, and 93. For Billy’s

family, education and standing up for himself was greatly emphasized. “There were many ways

that Ms. Yanelli complied with school standards. For example, it was important to Little Billy’s

parents that he do well academically. His mother monitored his homework to make sure that it

was done. When buying clothes for the fall, she was careful to comply with school guidelines.

The mother attended all parent-teacher conferences and even, at times, contacted the school

when concerned about a problem. At times, however, the parents were defiant of school

regulations. Little Billy’s parents, for example, encouraged him to defend himself on the

playground in direct opposition to school rules. During fourth grade, tired of hearing that Little

Billy was being pummeled by another white boy in his classroom, Mr. Yanelli and his uncle

taught him how to fight and instructed him to go to school the next day to “get the job done.”
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When Little Billy was suspended, the parents remained pleased by Little Billy’s hitting, although

his actions were in direct violation of school rules” (Lareau, 2011, pg. 226). These are some of

the values each individual family held, and they had a direct impression on the children.

Katie and Billy were alike in many ways, however they also had significant differences.

Both children were from a lower-class family that struggled economically and could be

considered to be in poverty. Both children’s mother was their primary caregiver. Both Katie and

Billy were smart students but had other factors that made them struggle in school. One of the

biggest differences between these children were their most personal struggles. Katie struggled

with self-esteem issues and just wasn’t happy with herself. Billy had trouble dealing with

conflict and doing what he was supposed to without resorting to harsh words or physical

violence. Even though these students do have many things they could relate to each other on, I

do not believe they would be friends. I think if they possibly gave interaction between each other

a try and really opened up to each other, they would find someone who could understand many

of their life situations and then they could become friends, however I don’t think they would get

to that point. Since Katie has so many self-worth issues, she probably would be a little shy and

not start an interaction with Billy. I believe if Billy interacted with Katie it would mostly be to

tease her. Although Billy wasn’t a bully, he did seem to like to talk bad to other students and

resort to conflict. Billy could see Katie’s vulnerability and pick on her as a way to get some of

the attention he wants.

If I had Billy and Katie in my classroom, they would both brings some strengths to the

class. Katie is smart and creative. Even though she may not always do her work, she is smart and

will work hard when she is passionate. “Katie has a flair for the dramatic and seems to be a

“natural” actress” (Lareau, 2011, pg. 86). This creative side of Katie could be a strength she
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displays in the classroom. Billy’s strength may be seen most when getting to lead a group. Billy

seems like he likes to be the center of attention and to be in control. Giving him some of that and

letting him take on the role as leader could let him shine. As Billy gets older, he may even excel

in debate since he likes some sort of conflict. However, hopefully by this time he has found a

healthy way to address it and could display that in debate. Since each child struggles in a

different way, there are some ways I could alter the way I instruct the child in order to facilitate

their learning and make the home/school experience more congruent. For Katie, I would try to

assign her more projects. This way she does not have the daily task of keeping up with

homework and then going home where there is little emphasis placed on it’s importance. She

could use her creativity to her benefit in these projects and work towards a long term goal. Katie

may also thrive better with discussions and other assignments instead of just worksheets. For

Billy, I would try to put him in more group work secessions. This way Billy could work through

his conflict resolution problems and still get some attention from his peers without disturbing the

class. For homework assignments, I would give Billy very specific directed tasks. In many ways,

this seems to be how Billy’s mom gives him directions at home and this could align with that.

Conclusion:

Lareau’s book Unequal Childhoods was a fascinating read and helped to connect these

issues we’ve learned about into very real life scenarios. Katie and Billy are children with lives

who may look fairly similar from an outside perspective, however they have very different

childhoods. “To understand development, we have to take into account diversity of people,
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relations, settings, and measurements” (Woolfolk, 2015, pg. 50). We cannot judge a life just

based on some facts and assume that something like poverty, or being raised in a single parent

home, or being a minority, or having parents who care about schooling deeply all affect children

the exact same way. Just because you have two families with children that come from poverty,

tis does not mean the children will have very similar experiences in life.
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References

Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal childhoods: class, race, and family life. Retrieved from

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.tamu.edu

Woolfolk, A. & Perry, N. E. (2015). Child and Adolescent Development (2nd ed.). (n.p.): Pearson

Education, inc.