Class Origin and College Graduates' Parenting Beliefs

Abstract

Previous studies have documented relationships between parenting beliefs and social class. Few studies, however, have examined how parenting beliefs vary among those who share a class position. Drawing upon interviews with 54 college graduates—27 parents with working-class origins and their 27 spouses with middle-class origins—I show that heterogeneity in college-educated parents' beliefs cohered around class origin. Specifically, ideas of children's education and time use related to class origin, though ideas of how to talk with children did not. I discuss the implications of these findings in terms of cultural reproduction, cultural mobility, and intergenerational inequality.