Unequal Beginnings: Daily Life in Segregated American Preschools
Current scholarship emphasizes parents as early socializers, overlooking other influences. This is a critical oversight; the majority of American children now attend daycare before kindergarten. My dissertation asks how socialization at preschool contributes to inequalities. I conducted two years of ethnography at a Head Start center and one month of comparative observations at an affluent preschool center.
I found that poor children of color received conflicting messages about school behavior from peers, encountered rigid rules for using material objects that emphasized scarcity, and became skilled at meeting their needs informally. In contrast, affluent, white children received synchronized messages from peers and teachers about school behavior, encountered liberal polices about material objects that emphasized abundance and individuality, and became skilled at meeting their needs using teacher-approved strategies. I argue that these disparate socialization experiences inculcate classed interactional skills and naturalize unequal lifestyles for children. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation.
I found that poor children of color received conflicting messages about school behavior from peers, encountered rigid rules for using material objects that emphasized scarcity, and became skilled at meeting their needs informally. In contrast, affluent, white children received synchronized messages from peers and teachers about school behavior, encountered liberal polices about material objects that emphasized abundance and individuality, and became skilled at meeting their needs using teacher-approved strategies. I argue that these disparate socialization experiences inculcate classed interactional skills and naturalize unequal lifestyles for children. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation.