Methodology
Lareau and her graduate researchers followed these families around in their daily lives. They attended sporting events, spent the night in the family's home, and attended a doctor's visit to observe the differences between the working- and lower-class families, and middle-class families. During her observations, she notices two different parenting styles.
In her follow-up with families ten years later, Lareau admits that the ideal study would have involved on-going participant observation, but that was not feasible given the resources and time investment of the families that would have required. Instead, she conducted two hour recorded interviews with each of the twelve children, and had separate interviews with each of the mothers, fathers and siblings that agreed to be interviewed. Some declined. In response to the second edition of the book, critics continue to comment on the limitations of this study given its small sample size, while applying broad theoretical conclusions to North American society. Lareau briefly addresses race factors having an influence on outcomes for youth, but claims the class factors play a more significant role.
Read more about this topic: Unequal Childhoods
Famous quotes containing the word methodology:
“One might get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction and uses a multiplicity of theories, metaphysical views, fairy tales, instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is rather to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.”
—Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994)