“Children grow up within a
broad, highly stratified social
system.”
Sociologists conceptualize
class in terms of categories
or gradations.
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Sociology 1201
Week Eight: Annette Lareau—
Unequal Childhoods

Research basis: Intensive Observation by
herself and her graduate students of 12
families, half black and half white, and
each category also divided by social class.
About 20 hours per family over a period of
several weeks. “Treat us like the family
dog.”
Sociology 1201
Social Movement

DFN: Group of people organizing to
promote (or sometimes resist) change in
society using means that are at least partly
unconventional (outside the norms)
Strategy of those who have little institutional
power
 Always invokes powerful opposition
 High risk

Sociology 1201
1st Wave of Feminism
Late 19th and early 20th century
 Basic legal and voting rights
 Marching, picketing, being jailed
 1920: Constitutional Amendment giving
women the right to vote

Sociology 1201
Second Wave of Feminism
Late 1960s and early 1970s
 Basic contention that the sex roles
idealized in the 1950s were unfair and
arbitrary—a form of oppression
 Consciousness-raising groups
 “The personal is the political.”
 Equal Rights Amendment passed
Congress in 1971 but fell 3 states short of
being ratified

Sociology 1201
Effects on American women’s
consciousness
1962: 2/3 of women responding to Gallup
poll denied every being treated unequally
based on sex
 1970: 50/50
 1974: 2/3 reported unequal treatment
Were things getting worse—or was
consciousness changing?

Sociology 1201
2 distinct viewpoints about family
1.
2.
Women, like men, should put major
energy into careers, with family
involvement taking less hours (The Time
Bind)
Men, like women, should put major
energy into family and home, accepting a
reduced standard of work achievement.
(Halving It All)
Sociology 1201