Includes bibliographical references (pages 429-451) and index.

Concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth -- Social structure and daily life -- Part I. Organization of daily life -- The hectic pace of concerted cultivation: Garrett Tallinger -- A child's pace: Tyrec Taylor -- Children's play is for children: Katie Brindle -- Part II. Language use -- Developing a child: Alexander Williams -- Language as a conduit for social life: Harold McAllister -- Part III. Families and institutions -- Concerted cultivation in organizational spheres: Stacey Marshall -- Concerted cultivation gone awry: Melanie Handlon -- Letting educators lead the way: Wendy Driver -- Beating with a belt, fearing "the school": Little Billy Yanelli -- The power and limits of social class -- Part IV. Unequal childhoods and unequal adulthoods -- Class differences in parents' information and intervention in the lives of young adults -- Reflections on longitudinal ethnography and the families' reactions to Unequal childhoods -- Unequal childhoods in context: results from a quantitative analysis / Annette Lareau, Elliot Weininger, Dalton Conley, and Melissa Velez -- Appendix A. Methodology: enduring dilemmas in fieldwork -- Appendix B. Theory: understanding the work of Pierre Bourdieu -- Appendix C. Supporting tables -- Appendix D. Tables for the second edition.

This book is a portrayal of class inequalities in the United States. It contains analysis of the processes through which inequality is reproduced, and it engages with methodological and analytic dilemmas usually glossed over in academic texts.