Class in America

So the New York Times is also thinking about what class means these days.  They're kicking off one of their multi-day series of articles -- today's offering is "Class in America: Shadowy Lines that Still Divide."

The paragraph that immediately jumped out at me is:

"A paradox lies at the heart of this new American meritocracy. Merit has replaced the old system of inherited privilege, in which parents to the manner born handed down the manor to their children. But merit, it turns out, is at least partly class-based. Parents with money, education and connections cultivate in their children the habits that the meritocracy rewards. When their children then succeed, their success is seen as earned."

Yes, exactly.  And I think that's a big piece of why concerted cultivation has become such a dominant parenting practice among middle-class parents who themselves were raised by strategies much closer to the accomplishment of natural growth, or "benign neglect" as some of my readers phrased it.

"The scramble to scoop up a house in the best school district, channel a child into the right preschool program or land the best medical specialist are all part of a quiet contest among social groups that the affluent and educated are winning in a rout."

Forty to fifty years ago, the only people who practiced concerted cultivation were those who were determined to improve their children's status compared to their own.  (Condoleeza Rice's family strikes me as an example of this, as does the stereotypical Jewish parents who want their children to be doctors.)  Today, most middle-class parents believe that concerted cultivation is needed just to ensure that their children are as successful as they are.  And I tend to agree.  George W. Bush got through Yale on what was called "the gentleman's C."  That doesn't exist anymore.  (Although of course, there are specific practices that parents do in the name of concerted cultivation that I think are unnecessary, ridiculous, and even harmful.)

I'm sure I'll have more to say as I read the rest of the series.

Also, reading this article online, I see that the Times has attached hyperlinks to the names of most of the researchers citing, linking to their professional web pages.  This is the first time I've noticed them doing this -- have I just been oblivious or is this something new on their part?  I definitely approve.

Comments

[bitchphd]

Interesting observations--I hadn't thought about it this way. I wonder if that feeling that we have to cultivate our kids' class standing in order to maintain it is a mark that middle-class standing is far more precarious than it used to be. Or maybe I'm paranoid.

[Jody]

Wasn't that hysterical? People always say that it's not your getting interested in something that makes it pop up everywhere, it's just that you suddenly notice it everywhere. But this is a series on class featured on the Sunday front page. It's not my suddenly noticing a reference to Panglossian in the Post the summer I produced Candide.

It's a little creepy. Apparently we're deluded when we think we have original thoughts.

My husband and I had a long discussion about precisely the issue of Yale admissions on our way up to DC on Friday. It's my contention that the GI Bill altered the equilibrium of access to higher education, especially elite higher education, and that from that small "seed," the whole idea that Yale (and all its competitors) would admit students from all sorts of schools around the country grew. And I think that's important for two reasons: something that a lot of [Republican-voting] people identify as "natural change" was actually the result of government intervention; and also that sort of merit-based access is breaking down, and closing off avenues of class advancement.

If the Times is to be believed, and class mobility is getting harder to find, then it's absolutely the case that people are working harder just to stay where they are. Wasn't that the assertion, too, of the mother-daughter team who wrote the book about the middle-class bind?

[Suzanne]

There was an interesting article in the WSJ on Friday 5/13 on how very strongly children's earnings are predicted by their parents' earnings, and why the myth of class mobility in America has expired. Here's the URL (it's one of those non-subscriber links that's only good for seven days) --
http://online.wsj.com/wsjgate?subURI=%2Farticle%2F0%2C%2CSB111595026421432611%2Demail%2C00%2Ehtml&nonsubURI=%2Farticle%5Femail%2F0%2C%2CSB111595026421432611%2DIBje4NmlaJ4nZyqaXqHaqqEm4%2C00%2Ehtml

[amy]

Yeah, what a shocker yesterday to see that in the Journal. But I think it's true. And it's also true that middle-class existence is a lot more precarious than it used to be. Gonna get more precarious, too. No paranoia there. Don't forget that from midcentury to fairly recently we've been living high on American only-man-standing status after WWII and dominance in tech/ed. Other nations have caught up or nearly caught up -- there was a piece in the same WSJ, I think, about UIUC's miserable showing at a major world computing competition. Placed 17th. We used to own that field, with UIUC as a giant nerd hive. Lost hard to Chinese and Russians. Our kids face far greater competition than our parents did.

Which is one reason why we're looking at sending our daughter to private school, even though she'd go to a rich and surprisingly diverse elem school in one of the best public school districts in the country. They just don't do enough there for bright kids, from what I can make out.

[maria]

Articles on class always make me laugh, mostly when they are written by people from upper and upper middle class who fool themselves into thinking that they have pulled up from the depths, or detached from the overflowing purses of their parents.
There are specific cases of those who have made their way and worked very hard to accomplish goals, but I would wager few of them are from money.

May I sight that a higher income allows for the privilage to not work while going to college, where as others work up to three jobs while attending classes. Also, a higher income means more opportunity to excel and to have your name and the name of your parents familiar in specific industries, as well as very adequet references when applying for that first job out of college.

To make class comparisons is quite manipulated when one has no real conception of classes other than their own.