Summer Activity Gap Considerations

Gabriella Campas

EDP 314

Summer Activity Gap considerations

1/29/17

The video on parenting strategies and how they affect their child’s long term outcomes was interesting to watch. I think it’s important to understand that every student observed in that study came from all types of social classes and that social-classes kind of determined the path they were most likely to take. It was sad to hear that most of the working class/poor families had hoped that their child would go onto college and get a degree but most of the students dropped out of high school for reasons like being unmotivated or their family needed help at home. In contrast to the middle/upper class students, they had the luxury of furthering their education because of the financial means that their parents had access to, that ensured they had futures. I felt like the middle/upper class student’s kind of had opportunities handed to them because most of those students did go onto college and it was almost too easy in a way. Don’t get me wrong these students did have the support and push from their parents to be better and achieve greater, it just seemed to simple and less of a hassle to achieve.

But Chin and Phillips would argue that families’ child rearing changed once those students went on summer vacation. Meaning that middle/upper class families were the focus was solely on cultivation it lessened in the summer and the working class/poor families focused more on cultivation during the summer and less during the school year. But another big player in determining the future of these students is ethnicity. Lareau’s study focused more on African American and white families from a Midwestern town, whereas Chin and Phillip’s study focused on students from African American, Latino, Asian American, and white families from a large western city. It’s possible that these social differences can determine what kind of summer vacation and overall child rearing from parents these students have and in the long run how it will determine their futures. You get more evidence if look over and compare when using more than two cultures that live in the same area. Which is why I think Chin and Phillips research would be more interesting to further investigate because you are reading about different living environments that the students in the article lived in throughout the summer and understanding what happens to children as they go through the school years and enter/leave high school. It gives good insights into the way our social-classes work when students are given the opportunities to be successful outside of the classroom and the opportunities that they can obtain within their social-class.