{"id":8671,"date":"2012-04-12T11:58:29","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T15:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=8671"},"modified":"2012-04-12T11:58:29","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T15:58:29","slug":"the-educational-enrichment-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=8671","title":{"rendered":"the educational enrichment gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a graph from Duncan and Murnane&#8217;s <em>Whither Opportunity?<\/em>* It shows the average amount of money, adjusted for inflation, that families in the top and bottom quarters of the income distribution spend on &#8220;educational enrichment&#8221; for their own kids: lessons, summer camps, educational software, nannies, etc. In real terms, the amount has much more than doubled for upper-income families in one generation&#8211;but it is flat for people at the bottom of the income distribution.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.peterlevine.ws\/images\/enrichment.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"490\" height=\"353\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I would propose three explanations.<\/p>\n<p>The main driver could be the very difficult financial situation of people at the bottom of the income distribution: they can&#8217;t afford nannies, for sure.<\/p>\n<p>A second explanation is the declining prevalence and value of free, public opportunities for kids. Extracurricular groups, for example, have shrunk. As schools face financial and accountability pressures and middle-class families exit, there are fewer opportunities to learn by (for example) playing clarinet in the school band.<\/p>\n<p>The third hypothesis is a pretty significant difference in parenting styles. Annette Lareau <a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4934\">found that <\/a>middle-class families (irrespective of race) were using a strategy of &#8220;concerted cultivation,&#8221; investing time and money in 24\/7 educational experiences. Working-class families were opting instead for &#8220;the accomplishment of natural growth&#8221;: letting kids be kids and not putting excessive pressure on them. I think back in my day&#8211;the beginning of the graph above&#8211;middle class families also preferred &#8220;the accomplishment of natural growth,&#8221; but they have decided that it will no longer suffice for their kids.<\/p>\n<p>*From the introduction to Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane, eds., <em>Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children&#8217;s Life Chances,<\/em> (New York\/Chicago: Russell Sage\/Spencer Foundation) 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a graph from Duncan and Murnane&#8217;s Whither Opportunity?* It shows the average amount of money, adjusted for inflation, that families in the top and bottom quarters of the income distribution spend on &#8220;educational enrichment&#8221; for their own kids: lessons, summer camps, educational software, nannies, etc. In real terms, the amount has much more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-policy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8671"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8699,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8671\/revisions\/8699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}