(Polish, Italian, Irish, Russian, Hispanic,
Chinese, and Southeast Asian) and
African Americans as a result of industrialization in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. Philadelphia is known
as a city of neighborhoods: Its residents
live in neat brick row homes as well
as back alleys and decaying buildings.
Some children in this city will grow up
in abject poverty; others, in highly privileged circumstances.
We chose to study two neighborhoods that were representative of these
contrasts. Kensington, also known as
the Badlands, is a dense, multiethnic
community consisting of Puerto Rican,
black, Vietnamese, Eastern European,
and Caucasian residents with a poverty
rate of 90 percent, almost 29 percent
unemployment, and approximately
5,000 children under age 17. In contrast, Chestnut Hill is a highly gentrified
neighborhood, 80 percent Caucasian
and 20 percent black, with a child
population of about 1,200. Families
there tend to be educated professionals,
with the average home costing in the
$400,000s. The neighborhood borders
several large parks and is somewhat
geographically isolated from the rest of
the city.
For more than 10 years, we examined
how these contrasting ecologies of
affluence and poverty might contribute to disparities in reading and the
development of information capital (see
details in Neuman & Celano, 2012).
We engaged in observations, interviews,
and activities, using many different
analytic tools to understand how these
environments might influence children’s
opportunities for education.
Stark Differences
Differences in Print Resources
Right from the beginning, there are differences in the amount and quality of
print children in these two neighborhoods are exposed to in their worlds.
For example, a 3-year-old in Chestnut
Hill would likely see signs with iconic
symbols in good readable condition,
professionally designed with clear
colors and strong graphics. In contrast, many of the signs in the Badlands
neighborhood are covered with graffiti
with taggers’ distinctive signatures,
rendering them impossible for a young
child to decipher. We found that
74;percent of signs in the Badlands
were in poor condition, compared with
1;percent in Chestnut Hill.
TRENDS of the TIMES
High-income families no; spend nearly 7 times as much on their children’s development as lo;- income families do. Source: Kornrich, S., & Furstenberg, F. (2013). Investing in children: Changes in parental spending on children, 1972–2007. Demography, 50 ( 1), 1–23.
The disparities continue when
it comes to the availability of print
resources appropriate for young
children. In Chestnut Hill, we found
11 stores that sold print materials for
children, 7 of which even had special
sections just for children. In contrast, the
Badlands, with a far greater density of
children, had only 4 places that carried
children’s print materials.
Even more troubling were the differ-
ences in choices available to a parent
selecting a book for a child. Children in
Chestnut Hill had access to thousands of
book, magazine, and comic book titles,
whereas children in the Badlands could
access only a small fraction of materials.
Our calculations indicated about 13
titles for every child in the community
of privilege, and about 1 title for about
every 20 children in the community of
poverty.
Differences in Adult Supports
Material resources represent only
one kind of support in creating an
environment for reading and the
development of information capital.
Even more important is the type of
adult support and mentoring that
children receive.
In a now-classic study, Annette
Lareau (2003) identified parenting
practices associated with social class.
According to her research, parents from
middle- and upper-middle-class families
typically engage in a child-rearing
strategy known as concerted cultivation,
consciously developing children’s use of
language, reasoning skills, and negotiation abilities. In contrast, working-class
and poor parents tend to practice—not
necessarily by choice—a more hands-off
type of child rearing known as natural
growth. These parents generally have less
education and time to impress on their
children the values that will give them
an advantage in school. Their children
often spend less time in the company
of adults and more time with other
children in self-directed, open-ended
