Topic and objective

In Germany, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Studies (PIRLS) have drawn increased attention to the persistent social inequality in children’s success in elementary school. Various studies have examined the decision-making behavior of parents and children that entails social disparities at the transition from elementary school to the secondary school system (e.g. Maaz & Nagy, 2009; Wohlkinger & Ditton, 2012). However, up to now family processes and their relevance for children’s success in school before that transition happens have gained less attention in German educational research.

This paper aims to help fill this gap by exploring how the lives of families with elementary school children differ by social class. Drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu (1986) and Annette Lareau (2011), the present study examines family practices and children’s out-of-school experiences in a German sample. A typology of family life is proposed that extends recent quantitative research from the United States (Bodovski & Farkas, 2008; Cheadle & Amato, 2011) and Great Britain (Henderson, 2013; Wood, 2014). The paper then goes on to discuss how this research might help explain educational inequality among elementary school children. 

Theoretical framework

In his piece about the Forms of Capital Bourdieu (1986) outlines a theory of the cultural transmission of educational advantages and disadvantages in the context of the family. Basically, his theory states that families conduct a specific life style that depends on the parents’ position in the social hierarchy; for children the class-based life style of their family implies specific learning processes and educational experiences. However, Bourdieu did not outline a concrete theory about the specific practices and the relevant parts of family life that he believed to be most important in the process of cultural transmission. Following Bourdieu, Lareau (2011) proposed a new approach to investigate how family processes as a whole relate to social class and educational opportunities. Based on an ethnographic study, Lareau developed a conceptual framework to analyze class-based differences in the daily lives of families. Lareau found that middle class families arrange for an orchestrated set of educational activities for children and less often involve them in daily chores and necessities. For this type of family practices Lareau uses the term Concerted Cultivation. In contrast, Lareau describes the lives of working class and poor families as being geared towards the Accomplishment of Natural Growth, which means that parents are mostly concerned with providing for their children’s well-being and otherwise let them engage in rather unstructured activities such as play and hanging out with peers. Both types of family life are characterized mainly by different approaches to language use, the organization of daily life and parents’ interventions in institutions. In this study, it is argued that Lareau’s concepts provide a theoretically sound and empirically viable approach to explore family life and how it relates to social class. While Lareau’s work has influenced quantitative researchers in the United States and Great Britain, it remains to be seen how her concepts work in the German context. The question is whether her concepts provide valid descriptions for family processes across Western societies.

Research questions

This paper addresses two main research questions: The first question asks whether there are varying constellations of cultural family practices that make up different types of family life with elementary school children. Thus, Lareau’s way to think about family life is extended so as to include the children’s perspective on how they organize their daily lives.

The second question is concerned with how different types of family life relate to a family’s social class, controlling for variables such as family structure and immigration status.

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