Raising Middle-class Black Children: Parenting Priorities, Actions and Strategies

Abstract

The enrolment of middle-class children in extra-curricular activities is a recent trend in many affluent countries. It is part of what Annette Lareau refers to as a classed parenting style – ‘concerted cultivation’ which sees the child as a project with skills and talents to be fostered and developed. Controversially, Lareau argued that class, rather than race, was the most influential factor in determining this particular parenting style. In relation to our research with Black middle-class parents, we argue that the task for the researcher is attempting to understand how race and class differently interact in particular contexts. We conclude that a focus on Black Caribbean heritage families can further develop the concept of concerted cultivation, and demonstrate the complex ways in which, for these families, such a strategy is a tool of social reproduction but also functions as attempted protection against racism in White mainstream society.