German Governesses in Victorian Middle-class Families: A Challenge to Domestic Authority?

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan N. Bayley
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Middle Class Families

Sex-Role Specialization in a Transforming Market: Empirical Evidence from Vietnamese Middle-Class Households

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elfriede Penz ◽  
Erich Kirchler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Household Consumption ◽  
Household Decision ◽  
Role Changes ◽  
Consumption Decisions ◽  
Middle Class Families ◽  
Role Specialization

Vietnam is undergoing a rapid transformation to a more prosperous society. This article analyzes household decision making in a transforming economy that has undergone modification of the traditional view of the family, from being an autonomous unit to an object of state policy. This is relevant because policy interventions shape household consumption through gender equality programs and thus have an impact on sex-role specialization. The aim of this study is to advance understanding of Vietnamese household consumption decisions and spouses’ current influence patterns by investigating sex-role specialization in Vietnamese middle-class families’ decision making. Overall, no significant sex-role changes were observed. It seems that traditional Vietnamese sex-role specialization does not (yet) differ among age groups. Instead, traditional sex-role segmentation remains predominant across all investigated age groups. While economic and consumption habits change rapidly, middle-class families appear to preserve their traditional influence patterns in purchase decisions.

Self-segregation strategies through school choice in Chile: A middle-class domain?

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110365
Author(s):  
Alejandro Carrasco ◽  
Manuela Mendoza ◽  
Carolina Flores
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Socioeconomic Groups ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Middle Class Families

Sociological research has shown that marketized educational systems favour middle-class families’ self-segregation strategies through school choice and, consequently, the reproduction of their social advantage over poorer families. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of capitals, habitus and strategy, we analyse quantitative and ethnographic data on parents’ school choice from Chile to introduce nuances to this argument, evincing more extended and complex mechanisms of self-segregation in the Chilean marketized educational system. We found that not only middle-class parents but also parents from different socioeconomic groups displayed self-segregating school choice strategies. We also found that these strategies were performed both vertically (in relation to other social classes) and horizontally (in relation to other groups within the same social class). These findings unwrap a possible stronger effect of the Chilean school choice system over segregation.

The Role of Emotions in Socialization Processes Across Cultures

2019 ◽  
pp. 209-232
Author(s):  
Heidi Keller
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Emotion Socialization ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Socialization Processes ◽  
Middle Class Families

This chapter is based on an inextricable interrelationship between biology and culture that implies that there are universal and specific dimensions of psychological phenomena, including emotions. It is assumed that biological predispositions interact with environmental/cultural influences to shape human behavior and representational systems. After discussing the conceptions of emotions, culture, and cultural environment that underlie the discussion in this chapter, emotion socialization in different environments is presented. First, the Western middle-class child’s learning environment is portrayed before alternative developmental pathways are presented, in particular the rural farming context and some examples from non-Western urban middle-class families. Emotions are especially discussed with respect to their prevalence and centrality in socialization processes and cultural conventions of emotion expression. The author concludes that the evaluation of behaviors and behavioral representations developed in one culture with the standards of another culture is unscientific and unethical.

Meanings and attitudes regarding education and household spending priorities of the new middle-class families in Brazil

2020 ◽  
pp. 146954052092624
Author(s):  
Murilo Carrazedo Costa Filho ◽  
Angela Cavalcanti Rocha
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Household Spending ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Ethnographic Interviews ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Homogeneous Fraction ◽  
Middle Class Families

This study investigates how meanings ascribed to education influence lower-income parents on investing (or not) in their children’s education, and how this in turn influences family expenditures and consumption priorities. Based on 62 ethnographic interviews with individuals who had ascended from poverty to the lower fractions of the Brazilian urban middle-class, we examine differences within a relatively homogeneous fraction in terms of social status and income. Three distinct groups emerged: (1) parents who live in the favelas (slums) and see school as an agent to keep children away from deviant behaviours, (2) parents who live in the favelas and invest in education as an enabler of upwards social mobility, and (3) parents from less affluent suburbs who pay for private education to keep their children from interacting with bad influences outside the territory. Even in socially segregated territories, meanings were shaped less by parents’ amount and composition of cultural and economic capitals, and more by their own experiences with the educational system and access to positive role models (or lack thereof). It appears that the meanings attached to education end up defining family expenditures, family budget and important consumption trade-offs. In addition, our findings reveal a subtle, fine-grained mechanism of distinction based on school choice among the class fraction’s members. We draw on Wilson’s social isolation theory to show how parents of similar economic and cultural capital, and who were socialized in a similar cultural milieu, ascribe different meanings to education, and the resulting differences in household consumption patterns. We thus offer insights on the different reproduction mechanisms at play within an economically disadvantaged social fraction that had moved from poverty to the lower urban middle-class in Brazil.

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