Socializing Inequality

Dieter Vandebroeck is Professor of Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BRISPO, VUB, Belgium), where he heads the research lab on Childhood, Culture and Cognition. He is the author of Distinctions in the Flesh: Social Class and the Embodiment of Inequality (2016).Maaike Jappens is Post-doctoral Researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BRISPO, VUB, Belgium). Her current work focuses on social inequality, children’s perceptions of the social world and their relationships with family and peers.Annette Lareau is Professor (Emerita) in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. She is the author of the award-winning books Home Advantage (1989), Unequal Childhoods (2003) and Listening to People (2021). With Blair Sackett, she authored We Thought It Would Be Heaven: Refugees in an Unequal America (2023).

"This groundbreaking volume of original research by established and young international scholars shines important light on children’s active role in processes of social reproduction in the family, school, and peer group. The studies using a variety of methods add significant knowledge to a neglected but promising area of research and is sure to stimulate new and exciting theory and research on children and social reproduction in sociology, education, psychology, anthropology and related fields."William A. Corsaro, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, Indiana University, Bloomington and author of The Sociology of Childhood, 6th Edition"This is a groundbreaking book for anyone interested in how children are made — class-wise. It shows how they come to develop class-based ways of thinking, acting, speaking, seeing themselves and others and how these socialization processes in childhood reproduce class privilege and inequality. At the crossroads of two dynamic and (re)emerging fields (the study of class in early childhood, and the sociology of socialization as an incorporation of the social world), this book offers a welcome and important contribution to both. It is also a terrific and lively read, bursting with ethnographic vignettes and statistical data showing children in very different spheres and situations, which makes the book great for teaching as well as research. Highly recommended!"Muriel Darmon, Research Professor at CNRS/EHESS, Paris I – Sorbonne and author of Socialization"This book is essential reading for all those concerned about social injustices, providing carefully, considered reflexive insights into inequalities within childhood. Strongly theorized throughout, yet powerfully grounded in fascinating empirical data Socializing Inequality makes a major contribution to our knowledge of the working of social class in the Early Years, a much neglected period in the life trajectory. Taking an international perspective, the book provides case studies from across the globe that offer new, rich understandings of the importance of both socialization within childhood, and the consequences for fairness and social justice in wider society."Diane Reay, Professor Emeritus at Cambridge University and author of Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes

• Introduction: Studying Class in Early Childhood. A Field in its Infancy?; PART I: Family Dynamics and the Early Transmission of Class Privilege; 1. Organized Lifestyles in Childhood and Family Climate; 2. Different Spheres: Children’s Worlds, Adult Worlds, Tara Carroll; 3. Outside of Family Care. Socialization of Orphans and Transmission of Capital in the French Child Welfare System; 4. ‘You’re Not my Mom!’. Legitimacy of Socialization Agents and Social Belonging of Foster Children; PART II: The (Pre)School Reproduction of Inequality; 5. A Fair Start? The Social Segregation of Early Childhood through Preschool Choice; 6. Preserving childhood or moving towards adulthood? Patterns of Socialization and construction of inequalities at age; 7. The transmission of international cultural capital in upper middle class families during childhood; PART III: Language, Socialisation and Symbolic Power; 8. Taking the Reins: Social Class Differences in Language Socialization among Siblings; 9. All Roads Lead to Male Domination? The Case of Théodore, a Young Upper Middle-Class Child; 10. The Genesis of Certitudo Sui. How Childhood Socialisation Constructs Social Ease and Reserve; PART IV: Constructing Children’s Social Sense; 11. When Do Children Start to Grasp ‘Class’, ‘Status’ and ‘Inequality’? A Review of the Literature; 12. How Children Perceive Economic Inequality: Results of an Analysis of Drawings with 7 and 8-year-olds; 13. Symbolic Recycling: How Social Class Comes to Children’s Minds