Driven by Race: Black Parents Promoting Adolescents' Academic Success

• In Event: 078 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 13. Values, Race, and Gender

Abstract

Middle class black parents typically prepare their adolescents for the racial barriers they face in schooling through the use of a non-elite form of cultural capital: racial socialization. This may reduce the attention they pay to the use of the elite cultural practices to promote academic achievement. This study looks at variations in middle class black parents’ use of non-elite cultural capital and how it affects their use of elite forms, in particular the use of parental involvement practices common among other middle class parents. The evidence suggests that black parents’ use of racial socialization reinforces the use of elite cultural capital.

Author

• Jacqueline Cooke Rivers, Harvard University