Parent–Child Conversational Styles in Middle Childhood: Gender and Social Class Differences

Abstract

Interactions between parents and their third grade children were coded for 40 dyads from the Midwest US, evenly divided by gender and social class. Transcripts were coded for parents’ and children’s use of assertive and affiliative conversational styles. Overall, mothers used more affiliative speech than fathers, and fathers used more assertive speech than mothers; both parents used more affiliative speech with sons and more assertive speech with daughters. Middle class parents were more affiliative in their conversational styles than working class parents. No differences in children’s speech were found for either gender or class. These results suggest that parents convey implicit information about gender and social status to children through everyday interactions.