“Just in and Out”: How Working-Class and Middle-Class Parents Navigate Social Interactions in New York City

• In Event: 1150 - Place Making and Urban Spaces

Abstract

Popular television series and news articles, depict a classic New York attitude: an orientation in which individuals refrain from interaction and a fast-paced mentality pervades. This depiction often neglects the maneuvering and social navigation of parents raising children in these same spaces. Drawing on over 100 qualitative interviews with working-class and middle-class parents in affluent and low-income areas in New York City, I explore how parents from different socioeconomic backgrounds manage friendships and interactions in neighborhoods for the purposes of building beneficial environments for their children. I describe working-class parents’ social distancing as a maneuver meant to protect their children from perceived neighborhood dangers. In contrast, middle-class parents cultivate social inclusivity to form a support network and sense of community with neighbors. I describe these patterns of interaction and friendship formation through parents’ professed practices and characterizations of members of their community. Working-class and middle-class families’ contrasting navigation of social distance in New York City provide insight into child-rearing practices that span urban areas.

Author

• Bailey A. Brown, Columbia University