21
Education
MelvinL.Kohnn/an/an/an/a
Social Class and the Exercise of Parental
Authority1
Much past research on the relationship between social class
and the exercise of parental authority has been concerned with the question
of whether or not working-class parents typically employ different
techniques from those used by middle-class parents in dealing with their
children’s misbehavior. Bronfenbrenner has summarized the results of
twenty-five years of investigation in this area as indicating that: "In
matters of discipline, working-class parents are consistently more likely
to employ physical punishment, while middle-class families rely more on
reasoning, isolation, appeals to guilt, and other methods involving the
threat of loss of love."2
The studies to which Bronfenbrenner refers have relied
primarily on parents’ generalized statements about their usual or their
preferred methods of dealing with discipline problems—irrespective of
what the particular problem might be. But obviously not all discipline
problems evoke the same kinds of parental response. In some sense, after
all, the punishment fits the crime. Under what conditions do parents
of a given social class punish their children physically, reason with them,
isolate them—or ignore their actions altogether?
The present study attempts to specify the practices of middle- and
working-class parents in various circumstances, and from this information
to develop a more general interpretation of the relationship of social
class to the exercise of parental authority.
SAMPLE AND METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION
Washington, D.C.—the locus of this study—has a large
proportion of people employed by government, relatively little heavy
industry, few recent immigrants, a white working class drawn heavily from
rural areas, and a large proportion of Negroes, particularly at lower
economic levels. Generalizations based on this or any other sample of one
city during one limited period of time are, of course, tentative.
Our intent in selecting the families to be studied was to secure
approximately two hundred representative white working-class families and
another two hundred representative white middle-class families, each family
having a child within a narrowly delimited age range. We decided on
fifth-grade children in order to be able to direct the interviews to
relationships involving a child old enough to have a developed capacity for
verbal communication.
The sampling procedure involved two steps: the first, selection of
Census tracts. Tracts with 20 per cent or more Negro population were
excluded, as were those in the highest quartile with respect to median
income. From among the remaining tracts we then selected four with a
predominantly working-class population, four predominantly middle-class,
and three having large proportions of each. The final
selection of tracts was based on their occupational distribution and
their median income, education, rent (of rented homes), and property value
(of owner-occupied homes). The second step in the sampling procedure
involved selection of families. From the records made available by the
public and parochial school systems, we compiled lists of all fifth-grade
children whose families lived in the selected tracts. Two hundred families
were then randomly selected from among those in which the father had a
"white-collar" occupation and another two hundred from among those in which
the father had a manual occupation.
In all four hundred families, the mothers were to be interviewed. In
every fourth family we also scheduled interviews with the father and the
fifth-grade child. (When a broken family fell into this sub-sample, a
substitute was chosen from our overall sample, but the broken family was
retained in the overall sample.)
When interviews with both parents were scheduled, two members of the
staff visited the home together—a male to interview the father, a
female to interview the mother. The interviews were conducted
independently, in separate rooms, but with essentially identical schedules.
The first person to complete his interview with the parent interviewed the
child.
We secured the cooperation of 86 per cent of the families where the
mother alone was to be interviewed, and 82 per cent of the families where
mother, father, and child were to be interviewed. Rates of non-response do
not vary by social class, type of neighborhood, or type of school. This of
course does not rule out other possible selective biases introduced by the
non-respondents.
Index of Social Class. Each family’s social class position was
determined by the Hollingshead Index of Social Position, assigning the
father’s occupational status a relative weight of 7 and his educational
status a weight of 4. Here we consider Hollingshead’s Classes I, II, and
III to be "middle-class," and Classes IV and V as "working-class." The
middle-class sample is composed of two fairly distinct groups: Classes I
and II are almost entirely professionals, proprietors, or managers, with
at least some college training. Class III is made up of small shopkeepers,
clerks, and salespersons, but includes a small number of foremen and
skilled workers of unusually high educational status. The working-class
sample is composed entirely of manual workers, but preponderantly those of
higher skill levels. These families are of the "stable working class"
rather than "lower class" in the sense that the men have steady jobs and in
that their education, income, and skill levels are above those of the
lowest socio-economic strata.
THE CONTEXT OF AUTHORITY
The context for our study of parents’ reactions to specific disciplinary
situations is provided by a cursory examination of three general aspects
of authority: the relative role of mother and father in making family
decisions, the relative role of mother and father in setting limits upon
the children’s freedom of movement or activity, and the frequency with
which mother and father resort to physical punishment to enforce obedience.
From none of these perspectives do we find any appreciable difference
between middle- and working-class families. Middle-class parents’ and
children’s evaluations of the extent to which each parent participates in
the making of day-to-day decisions, major family decisions, and the
decisions that affect the fifth-grade child most directly, are quite
similar to those of working-class parents and children. Nor is there any
appreciable difference between the social classes in mothers’, fathers’, or
children’s evaluations of which parent is stricter, more likely to restrict
the children’s freedom, "lay down the law" when the child
misbehaves, or dominate the child. Finally, middle-class parents report
that they make use of physical punishment about as frequently as do
working-class parents.
Nevertheless, there are distinct differences in the conditions under
which middle-and working-class parents resort to physical punishment. We
shall see that parents of both social classes reserve physical punishment
for fairly extreme circumstances. But even in these extreme circumstances,
some actions that are intolerable to working-class parents are not punished
by middle-class parents, and other actions intolerable to middle-class
parents are not punished by working-class parents.
In attempting to specify the conditions under which middle- and
working-class parents use physical punishment, we rely here on parent’s
reported reactions to eight types of situation: the child’s wild play,
fighting with his brothers or sisters, fighting with other children, really
losing his temper, refusing to do what his parent tells him to do,
"swiping" something from home or from other children, smoking cigarettes,
and using language his parent doesn’t want him to use.
Parents were questioned in some detail about each of these situations.
We asked, for example, whether or not the fifth-grade child ever loses his
temper; precisely what he does when he loses his temper; what the parent
"generally does when he acts this way"; whether he "ever finds it necessary
to do anything else" and, if so, "under what circumstances" and what else
he does.
Parents’ reports on their reactions to their children’s behavior were
classified according to the following scheme:
1. Ignore: not doing anything about it.
2. Scold, admonish to be good, demand that he stop, inquire into causes
of behavior, scream at him, threaten to punish him. (It has proved
impossible to differentiate these several verbal reactions reliably from
interview material. We could not determine, for example, whether or not a
parent’s reported attempt to discover the causes of a fight was in fact a
scolding. Therefore we have reluctantly decided to treat these several
responses as a single category.)
3. Separate from other children or divert attention: removing the child
from the situation or providing alternative activities.
4. Punish or coerce: (a) Punish physically—everything from a slap
to a spanking. (b) Isolate—confining child alone for a
period of time, for example, sending him to bed during the day. (c)
Restrict usual activities—limiting his freedom of movement or
activity short of isolation, for example, not letting him play outside.
THE EXERCISE OF MATERNAL AUTHORITY
Most mothers in both social classes—report that their usual
response in the eight situations about which we inquired is to ignore
the child’s actions altogether, or at most to admonish him. Few mothers
isolate or restrict their children at this stage of things, and virtually
none punishes them physically. One can not conclude that mothers of
either social class are especially quick to resort to physical punishment
or to other forms of coercion.
But when their children persist in wild play, fighting with their
brothers or sisters, or displays of temper, both middle- and working-class
mothers are apt to turn to one or another form of punishment. Working-class
mothers are more likely than are middle-class mothers to do so in the case
of their sons’ prolonged loss of temper; middle-class mothers, on the other
hand, are more likely to punish their sons for refusing to do as they are
told.
Working-class mothers are more likely than are middle-class mothers to
resort to physical punishment when their sons persist in wild play
or fighting with
brothers or sisters, or when their daughters fight with other children.
There may be in addition a general, albeit slight, greater tendency for
working-class mothers to resort to physical punishment no matter what the
situation. (In thirteen of sixteen comparisons, a somewhat larger
proportion of working-class than of middle-class mothers report using
physical punishment, although only in the three comparisons noted above
is the difference large enough for us to be confident that it is not simply
a chance occurrence.) But we previously noted that middle-class mothers say
they use physical punishment about as frequently as do working-class
mothers. Therefore, it is not likely that working-class mothers’ propensity
to use physical punishment is sufficiently greater than that of
middle-class mothers to be of serious import. A more important difference
lies in the conditions under which mothers of the two social classes punish
their children physically.
The Conditions under Which Working-Class Mothers Punish Their Sons
Physically. Working-class mothers are apt to resort to physical
punishment when the immediate consequences of their sons’ disobedient acts
are most extreme, and to refrain from using punishment when its use might
provoke an even greater disturbance.
We have noted two actions for which working-class mothers are more
likely than are middle-class mothers to punish their sons physically: wild
play and fighting with their brothers or sisters. In either situation, the
more extreme their sons’ actions, the more likely are working-class mothers
to use physical punishment. Those whose descriptions of their sons’ wild
play indicate that it is nothing more than boisterousness or running around
are no more apt to resort to physical punishment than are middle-class
mothers in the same circumstances. But those whose descriptions of wild
play include elements that we see as aggression or destruction are far more
likely than are middle-class mothers to employ physical punishment.
Similarly, working-class mothers are not appreciably more likely than are
middle-class mothers to punish their sons physically for fights with
brothers or sisters when the "fights" are no more than arguments, but they
are more likely to resort to physical punishment when the fights involve
physical combat.
This suggests that the more extreme forms of wild play and fighting are
particularly intolerable to working-class mothers, and less so to
middle-class mothers. This impression is sustained by the fact that those
working-class mothers who consider themselves unusually strict and "ready
to lay down the law" are especially likely to punish their sons physically
for physical combat with brothers or sisters. And those working-class
mothers who describe themselves as easily angered by their sons’ actions or
unwilling to "give in" to them are especially likely to use physical
punishment for aggressively wild play. They cannot or will not tolerate
these forms of aggressive behavior.
But working-class mothers do not find all aggressive behavior
intolerable. They are far less likely to punish their sons physically for
fights with friends or neighbors than for equally serious fights with
brothers or sisters. It would appear that it is not for aggressive behavior
as such, but for the disturbances arising out of aggressive behavior, that
working-class boys are punished. Their mothers seem unwilling or unable to
tolerate the immediate consequences of their sons’ aggressive acts.
The responsiveness of working-class mothers to immediate consequences is
demonstrated anew by a consideration of the conditions under which they do
not punish their sons. They shun punishment if it might provoke a
disturbance more serious than that already underway.
There is ample evidence presented above that working-class mothers are
prone
to punish their sons physically for acts of disobedience. Furthermore,
they are more likely than are middle-class mothers to report that on the
last occasion they used physical punishment it was invoked in response to
disobedience. But there is a world of difference between punishing a boy
for violating a negative injunction and punishing him for not doing
something he is positively enjoined to do. Working-class mothers appear to
be far more likely to punish their sons for the former type of disobedience
than for the latter. In fact, they are less likely than are middle-class
mothers to punish their sons for refusing to do things they have been
told to do.
The immediate consequences of acquiescing to a son’s refusal may be
trivial—often nothing more than doing a minor household chore when
he will not comply. However, under some conditions—specifically, when
the boy is adamant about his refusal—the consequences of forcing him
to do as he is told may be serious. Working-class mothers are highly
unlikely to punish their sons—physically or in any other way—in
such circumstances. No working-class mother who described her son’s
refusals as prolonged delays under conditions where he had unquestionably
heard the order, or as an act of outright defiance, told us that she
punished him physically, restricted his activities, or isolated him. They
were more likely than were middle-class mothers to tell us that they took
no action at all under these circumstances. Nor does this indicate
indifference. The interview reports indicate that these mothers do make an
attempt to secure compliance, but then back down. This is especially true
of those who say they are "easily upset" by their sons’ actions. They seem
unable to bring themselves to take strong action, but are hardly
indifferent.
The Conditions under Which Middle-Class Mothers Punish Their Sons
Physically. It is clear that middle-class and working-class mothers
make different discriminations in their use of physical punishment.
Middle-class mothers seem to punish or refrain from punishing on the basis
of their interpretation of the child’s intent. Most indicative of this are
their responses to wild play and loss of temper. They are not likely to
punish their sons physically for wild play, however serious it may be. Nor
are they particularly likely to punish them physically for loss of temper
when it is manifested only as pouting, yelling, or sulking. But a violent
or aggressive outburst of temper is far more likely to elicit physical
punishment. In these circumstances, middle-class mothers are as prone as
their working-class counterparts to punish their sons physically.
The descriptions of temper-loss classified here as "a violent or
aggressive outburst" are quite similar to the descriptions of wild play
classified as "willful aggression or destruction." Working-class mothers
respond to the one much as they do to the other. But middle-class mothers
are far more likely to punish their sons physically for what they call loss
of temper than for behavior defined as wild play. They appear to find the
child’s loss of temper, but not his wild play, particularly
intolerable.
There is one salient respect in which an outburst of temper may be quite
different from wild play: the outburst may be directed against the mother
herself. Short of a frontal assault, however, this is largely a matter of
the mother’s interpretation. The interview reports indicate that the
distinction between wild play and loss of temper was most often made in
terms of the child’s presumed intent, as judged by his preceding actions.
If in the course of play he became very excited, this was not judged to be
loss of temper however extreme his actions. But if his actions seemed to
stem from the frustration of not having his own way, they were judged to
indicate loss of temper. The overt behavior in the two types of
situation might be, and often was, nearly identical.
The Conditions under Which Mothers Punish Their Daughters.
Middle-class mothers appear to respond to their daughters’ actions much
as they do to their sons’. But working-class mothers are more likely to use
physical punishment when their sons play wildly or fight with brothers or
sisters than when their daughters do so. This tendency, however, reflects
the fact that boys’ wild play and fighting are more apt to be extreme.
Daughters are only slightly less likely to be punished physically for
behavior which is actually similar. They are, in fact, more likely
to be punished physically when they swipe something or fight with children
other than brothers or sisters. (Nevertheless, working-class mothers are
far less likely to punish their daughters physically for fights with
friends than for equally serious fights with brothers or sisters. In this
crucial respect, their treatment of boys and of girls is much the
same.)
The most dramatic difference in the working-class mothers’ response to
boys and to girls occurs when the child defiantly refuses to do as he is
told: boys are permitted to have their own way, while girls are punished
physically. Something more is expected of a girl than of a boy—she
must not only refrain from doing what she’s not supposed to do, but must
also carry out actions her mother wants her to do.
There is no indication in these data that working-class mothers are more
prone to examine their daughters’ than their sons’ intent, but clearly, the
actions are evaluated differently. We shall return to the question of why
this is so.
Hypothetical Reactions. Whenever a mother told us that her child
had not performed an action about which we inquired, we asked her
what she thought she would do if the situation did occur. Middle-class
mothers who said that a given situation had not occurred thought that they
would probably respond in ways almost identical to those noted by mothers
who said that it had taken place. This is not the case for working-class
mothers. Although no working-class mother who declared that her son had
swiped something, smoked, or defiantly refused to carry out an order
reported punishing him physically, roughly one-fifth of those who said that
their sons had not done these things expected to use this sanction if the
situation were to occur.
It is possible, of course, that those working-class mothers who are most
prone to use physical punishment are unwilling to admit that their sons
misbehave, or have somehow forestalled their sons’ misbehavior. This does
not seem likely, however, for in circumstances when working-class mothers
are quite likely to use physical punishment—when their sons engage in
aggressively wild play—those who say that they have not faced the
situation are quite unlikely to predict that they would resort to physical
punishment. (Roughly one-fifth of such mothers think that they would do
so—about the same proportion as those who think that they would
punish their sons physically for swiping something, smoking, or being
defiant.)
It seems, then, that working-class mothers are unable to envisage either
the conditions under which they would be very likely to use physical
punishment or the conditions under which they would be very unlikely to do
so. Considering the degree to which they are responsive to immediate
circumstances, this conclusion should not be surprising.
PATERNAL AUTHORITY
In considering fathers’ reactions to their children’s behavior, we rely
on interviews both with a sub-sample of eighty-two fathers and the much
larger sample of
mothers. The small number of interviews with fathers limits us severely
in attempting to take account of the sex of the child and the father’s
description of the child’s behavior. Thus we are forced to interweave the
analysis of fathers’ self-reports with wives’ reports on their behavior.
This procedure is not entirely satisfactory, for reasons presented in the
next section.
Working-class fathers are appreciably less likely than are their wives
to say that they punish their sons physically for wild play. In fact, they
are no more likely than are middle-class fathers to report using physical
punishment in this situation. This reflects the fact that few working-class
fathers describe their sons’ wild play as anything more than
boisterousness—for which they are most unlikely to punish boys
physically. However, those few working-class mothers who indicate that
their husbands are exposed to aggressively wild play are far more
likely than are middle-class mothers to report that in these extreme
circumstances their husbands resort to physical punishment. It would appear
that working-class fathers respond in two ways: if the child’s behavior
does not compel their attention, they are apt to ignore it; but if it is
sufficiently disruptive, they are very likely to use physical punishment.
They may be even more responsive to immediate consequences than are their
wives.
Middle-class fathers apparently are a good deal more likely than are
their wives to punish sons physically for fighting with their brothers or
sisters. This seems to be true however serious the fights. Thus,
middle-class fathers are as likely as are working-class fathers to resort
to physical punishment when their sons fight. Nevertheless, working-class
fathers are somewhat more likely to report using physical punishment, and
considerably more likely to report using isolation or restriction, when
their sons’ fights are serious. The wives’ reports lead to the same
conclusion.
In other respects as well, our information indicates that the major
conclusions about the conditions under which mothers of the two social
classes punish their children physically, noted above, also apply to
fathers. In particular, middle-class mothers say that their husbands are
far more likely to punish their sons physically for severe loss of temper
than for aggressively wild play. (The small number of fathers’ reports on
reactions to severe loss of temper prevents our determining whether or not
fathers agree.) Working-class mothers, furthermore, tell us that their
husbands are not likely to punish their sons’ defiant refusals to do as
they are told, but are likely to punish their daughters physically for
similar behavior. (The few fathers’ reports relevant to this issue are
consistent with this finding.)
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE DATA
Although we have reports from all three relevant persons in a
representative sub-sample of these families, there remains the question as
to whether or not disinterested observers would present similar
descriptions. Moreover, interview responses are in their nature limited: we
cannot differentiate reliably among various types of verbal behavior; we
cannot tell whether or not a parent expresses his displeasure by
grouchiness, assuming an air of martyrdom, or simply "acting differently;"
and we do not know to what degree any of a parent’s actions may be
interpreted by his child as a withdrawal of love.
Each respondent has summarized a number of his own and another’s
actions. We do not know how frequently situations of a given type have
occurred,3 or how
consistent a parent’s reactions have been. Nor can we, for example,
assume from a parent’s description of his child’s fights as arguments, that
the child never fights physically.
On the other hand, the parents’ ability to differentiate between what
they generally do and what they do in more pressing circumstances gives
reason for confidence in the findings. So does the fact that the
relationships we have found between social class and mothers’ reactions are
not appreciably modified by controlling other relevant variables (including
mother’s age, size of the family, ordinal position of the child in the
family, length of time the family has lived in the neighborhood, the
socio-economic status of the neighborhood, whether or not the mother has a
job, and if so what type of job, whether or not she has been socially
mobile or feels socially mobile, her social class identification, her level
of education, her religious background, whether her background is rural or
urban, whether or not she reads popular literature on child-rearing, and
whether or not her husband works for the government.)
Furthermore, the information provided by the sub-sample of fathers and
children enables us to check some of the inferences we have drawn from
mothers’ reports. We asked each father, for example, "What does your wife
generally do when [child] fights with his brothers or sisters?" Although
the question parallels "What do you generally do …?", it was
put immediately after we asked him what he does in circumstances other than
those that usually prevail. Most parents seem to have answered with the
latter circumstances in mind. This precludes a comparison of what fathers
say they do with what they say their wives do in exactly the same
circumstances. But it does give us some basis for judging whether or not
our inferences about social class differences in the conditions under which
mothers use physical punishment are supported by what husbands tell us.
The only respect in which the fathers’ reports of their wives’ reactions
raise a question about the inferences we have drawn is that two of the nine
working-class fathers who say that their sons defiantly refuse to do as
they are told also report that their wives punish the boys. Perhaps, then,
we have overstated the case in concluding that working-class mothers are
singularly unlikely to punish their sons for defiance.
Concerning the fathers’ reactions, it appears that interviews with
fathers and with mothers yield much the same conclusions. This holds even
for the conclusion that working-class fathers are unlikely to punish their
sons for a defiant refusal.
The children, too, were asked about their parents’ reactions in three of
the situations: fights with brothers and sisters, fights with other
children, and loss of temper. The information provided by middle-class
children, although based on few interviews, is entirely consistent with
their parents’ reports. But working-class boys are rather unlikely to tell
us that their mothers punish them physically for fighting with
brothers or sisters or for loss of temper. They acknowledge that their
fathers do so, but they report that their mothers isolate or restrict them
for such actions.
INTERPRETATION
Neither middle- nor working-class parents resort to punishment as a
first recourse when their children misbehave. It seems, instead, that
parents of both social classes initially post limits for their children.
But children sometimes persist in their misbehavior despite their
parents’ attempts to forestall them. At this juncture, parents may turn to
physical punishment.
The conditions under which they punish their children physically, or
refrain
from doing so, appear to be quite different for the two social classes.
Working-class parents are more likely to respond in terms of the
immediate consequences of the child’s actions, middle-class parents in
terms of their interpretation of the child’s intent in acting as he does.
This should not be interpreted to imply that while middle-class parents
act on the basis of long-range goals for their children’s development,
working-class parents do not. On the contrary, we believe that parents of
both social classes act on the basis of long-range goals—but
that the goals are quite different.
In an earlier study we have examined the relation of social class to the
values parents most wish to see incorporated into their children’s
behavior.4 We concluded that parents are most likely to accord
high priority to those values which seem both important, in the sense that
failure to achieve them would affect the child’s future adversely, and
problematic, in the sense that they are difficult to achieve. For
working-class parents, the "important but problematic" centers around
qualities that assure respectability; for middle-class parents, it
centers around internalized standards of conduct. In the first
instance, desirable behavior consists essentially of not violating
proscriptions; in the second, of acting according to the dictates of one’s
own principles. Here the act becomes less important than the actor’s
intent.
We believe that the reactions of parents of both social classes to their
children’s undesired behavior are entirely appropriate to their values. To
say that working-class parents are particularly responsive to consequences
and relatively unconcerned about intent, is equivalent to saying that their
efforts are directed to enjoining disobedient, disreputable acts. To say
that middle-class parents are more concerned about intent is equivalent to
saying that their efforts are directed to encouraging their children to
develop internalized standards and to act on the basis of these standards
rather than externally imposed rules.
To see parents’ reactions to their children’s misbehavior as a function
of their values helps to answer several questions which otherwise may be
perplexing.
First, why are working-class parents so much more likely to punish their
children physically for fighting than for arguing with their brothers or
sisters?—or for aggressively wild play than for boisterousness? The
answer seems to be that dis-reputability is defined in terms of
consequences: the measure of disreputability is the degree to which the act
transgresses rules of propriety. Fighting and wild play are disobedient,
disreputable behaviors only when sufficiently extreme to be seen as
transgressions of rules.
Second, why are working-class parents more likely to administer physical
punishment when their daughters fight with friends, swipe something, or
defiantly refuse to do as they are told than when their sons act in these
ways? The answer seems to lie in different conceptions of what is right and
proper for boys and for girls. What may be taken as acceptable behavior
(perhaps even as an assertion of manliness) in a pre-adolescent boy may be
thought thoroughly unlady-like in a young girl. Working-class parents
differentiate quite clearly between the qualities they regard as desirable
for their daughters (happiness, manners, neatness, and cleanliness) and
those they hold out for their sons (dependability, being a good student,
and ambition). They want their daughters to be "little ladies" (a term that
kept recurring in the interviews) and their sons to be manly. This being
the case, the criteria of disobedience are necessarily different for boys
and for girls. Obedience is valued highly for both. But working-class
mothers who value obedience
most highly punish their daughters physically for refusing to carry out
parental requests and orders, while they are much less likely to take any
action when their sons do so.
Middle-class parents make little or no distinction between what they
regard as desirable for boys and for girls—the issue for both sexes
is whether or not the child acts in accord with internalized principles.
Therefore, the conduct of both boys and girls should be judged by the same
criterion: intent. Our evidence supports this interpretation.
Finally, why do middle-class parents react so differently to
aggressively wild play and to outbursts of temper? Why do they interpret
these overtly similar behaviors as implying radically different intent? The
answer is provided by the fundamental importance they attach to internal
standards for governing one’s relationships with other people and, in the
final analysis, with one’s self.
Wild play, however extreme, does not necessarily represent a loss of
self-control, although it may indicate that the parent has lost
control over the child. It may be regarded as a childish form of emotional
expression—unpleasant, but bearable, since there are virtues in
allowing its free expression in a ten- or eleven-year old. This is
evidenced by the fact that those middle-class mothers who accord highest
priority in their scheme of values to their children’s happiness are least
likely to punish wild play. An outburst of temper, however, may signal
serious difficulty in the child’s efforts at self-mastery; it is the type
of behavior most likely to distress the parent who has tried to inculcate
in his child the virtue of maintaining self-control. Again, the evidence
supports the interpretation: those parents who value self-control most
highly are most likely to punish their children for loss of temper.
If middle-class parents are to act in accord with their values, they
must take explicit account of subjective and emotional factors, including
the possible effects of punishment. They give considerable evidence that
they so do. For example, when asked if there are any ways in which they
would prefer to act differently toward the child, they are likely to cite
the desirability of fuller understanding. When the child does poorly in
school, they often try to be supportive, while working-class parents are
likely to respond negatively. Of course, parents can rationalize. It is
easy to believe that behavior which is at the moment infuriating ought to
be punished. One gains the impression, however, that although middle-class
parents may punish when angry, they try to restrain themselves—as
they apparently do when they believe their children’s actions to be wild
play.
The working-class orientation, on the other hand, excludes or minimizes
considerations of subjective intent, and places few restraints on the
impulse to punish the child when his behavior is out of bounds. Instead, it
provides a positive rationale for punishing the child in precisely those
circumstances when one might most like to do so.
1 From ,
1959, 24:352–366.
By permission.
2 Urie Bronfenbrenner, "Socialization and Social Class Through Time
and Space," in Eleanor E. Maccoby, Theodore M. Newcomb, and Eugene L.
Hartley, editors, Readings in Social Psychology, New York: Holt,
1958, p. 424. This article provides a fine analytic summary of past
research on class and family, as well as a bibliography of the major
studies in this field.
3 It is primarily for this reason that one cannot draw from
our data on parents’ reactions to specific types of situations the
inference that working-class parents use physical punishment more often
than do middle-class parents.
4 Melvin L. Kohn, "Social Class and Parental Values,"
American Journal of Sociology, 64 (January, 1959), pp.
337–351.