Child Rearing Essay

Historically, social stratification and inequality has played a significant role in the benefits and hindrances that have been conferred to children through a family’s beliefs, values, and social position. The transfer of power from families to social institutions in recent history, has led to the need for individuals to become skilled at interacting and communicating with these institutions to ensure advantages for all family members (Popenoe 1993). Lareau’s findings indicate that middle-class children emerging into adulthood were equipped with the appropriate skills necessary to navigate institutional settings as confident possession of a sense of entitlement and security within their social standing allowed them to pursue and obtain their objectives

Social assets are one aspect of child cultivation that need to be examined more closely to evaluate the process of how these assets influence academic and ultimately adult success. Which individual or collective social assets yield the greatest potential for success to children? This question could be answered by conducting a qualitative study to respectively investigate the intricate nuances of social assets to ascertain whether education, social status, verbal proficiency, etc., are more or less responsible for positive achievements in childhood development and beyond. Moreover, as the constitution of families continues to change, becoming more diverse in nature and construction, it would be beneficial to longitudinally study a broader range of family compositions to discover how socioeconomic status and parenting methodologies influence academic and career related outcomes in children. Most likely, the evolution of diversity in family structure will engender new and unique insight into the differential advantages or disadvantages acquired by