Article Review
Furstenberg, Jr., Frank. “Diverging development: The not-so-invisible hand of social class in the United States.” In B.J. Risman, Families as they really are. pp. 276-294. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2010.
How does the social background of the family influence child’s future? Furstenberg wrote an article “Diverging development: The not-so-invisible hand of social class in the United States” aimed to analyze the impact of social standings of the family on the life of children. In his article, Furstenberg starts with the modern understanding of the idea of social differentiation and social classes and states that nowadays, there are only two major kinds of social classes, those who live above the poverty line and below it. Furthermore, the social background is affected not only by earnings, occupation, and education but also by gender, ethnicity, and race. Then, Furstenberg describes a problematic construct of social classes and says that they have flexible boundaries that are determined by proper experience and access to selective social relations and educational opportunities. He observes a developmental theory of social class, which features that social class shapes the course of children’s development and moves to his findings.
Furstenberg studies the impact of financial and educational social class differences on the future and life opportunities of children in the United States of America. He mentions access to proper health care, basic knowledge that parents give their children during early years of their life, residential place, access to high-quality circumstances and resources to protect children from troubles, stability, support, sponsorship, and self-reliance, and confidence in the future. Furstenberg reveals the connection between these factors and future of children from families with the different social background. He also says that there are exceptions; sometimes children from affluent families decrease their living standards in future and backward. He provides the necessary quantitative data to support his opinion.
In the end of the article, Furstenberg says that the modern idea of a middle class that makes social differentiation less visible is not entirely correct as American differ in their education, income, and occupation. All of these influence American children, their way of life and future. He highlights the reasons of their problems and asserts they should be solved.
Is more susceptible to prenatal and neonatal health problems: during pregnancy, her or his mother cannot afford proper health care and keep good diet; she is more stress-susceptible than mothers from advantaged families and has fewer opportunities to care for a future child properly.
Has less academic aptitude: Furstenberg states that word stock children acquire in their early years have a significant impact on their reading skills and future success at school; children whose parents are not well-educated cannot get enough basic knowledge and, hence, have worse educability than children from advantaged families.
Lives in more stressful circumstances: the life of disadvantaged families is more unstable; they can experience losses of the job, financial, residential, and health problems, divorces, and disagreements at each point of time.
Does not know what will do and how will live in future: disadvantaged families have not enough resources to guarantee their children bright future and do not have any expectations; it is harder for young adults from disadvantaged families to get financial aid and higher education; they are not confident about their future; as the result, about half of them does not improve their social standings and start to experience the same problems as their parents.
Is more susceptible to various troubles: advantaged families are able to protect their children while disadvantaged families have not enough resources for this; at the result, children from disadvantaged families are more likely to experience consequences of delinquencies, problems with health or in school, etc.
Works Cited
Furstenberg, Jr., Frank. “Diverging development: The not-so-invisible hand of social class in the United States.” In B.J. Risman, Families as they really are. pp. 276-294. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2010.
