Ep. 41: Parenting in Privilege or Peril w/ Dr. Pamela Bennett

Amy Barnes27min

Dr. Ian Anson

00:04

Hello and welcome to Retrieving the Social Sciences, a production of the Center for Social Science Scholarship. I'm your host, Ian Anson, Associate Professor of Political Science here at UMBC. On today's show, as always, we'll be hearing from UMBC faculty, students, visiting speakers, and community partners about the social science research they've been performing in recent times. Qualitative, quantitative, applied, empirical, normative. On Retrieving the Social Sciences we bring the best of UMBC's social science community to you.

Dr. Ian Anson

00:40

As a social scientist, I'm a natural expert at hedging my claims. I'm well-practiced and using phrases like "There's partial evidence to support" or "The literature remains in disagreement" or even "Future studies are poised to clarify." But you know, if there's one claim that I will boldly and unequivocally state to anyone willing to listen, it's this: parenting is really hard. If any of you listeners out there happen to be blessed with the responsibility and joy of parenting, I offer you my weary salute. Our society has created some rather challenging conditions for child rearing. And perhaps it's no surprise then that birth rates are declining precipitously in the United States. Now, don't get me wrong. Becoming a parent is the most joyful thing that I've ever done. But I'm sure I speak for all parents out there in saying I also really need a nap.

Dr. Ian Anson

01:42

On today's episode, I'm eager to bring you my recent interview with Dr. Pamela Bennett, Professor in the School of Public Policy here at UMBC. Dr. Bennett's fascinating and highly acclaimed research examines social stratification centered on race, ethnicity, and social class. Her work in these areas has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the American Sociological Association among other high profile funders. And these projects have resulted in a wide variety of publications and important scholarly outlets. In our conversation, I asked Dr. Bennett to tell me about her recent book, entitled, "Parenting in Privilege and Peril: How Social Inequality Enables or Derails the American Dream," published in 2022, by Teachers College Press. Dr. Bennett's engaging book explains how parents from different socioeconomic backgrounds engage in the hard work of parenting and how their strategies and their children's outcomes are driven by deeply rooted social forces. This is an important and engaging topic, and I'm eager to jump into our conversation right now.

Dr. Ian Anson

02:56

So I'm delighted to welcome to the podcast, Dr. Pamela Bennett, here to tell us a bit about her co authored book that has recently come out that is titled: "Parenting in Privilege and Peril" and I think this is a really attention grabbing title. It's something that immediately caught my eye when I saw the announcement of its publication. And first of all, Dr. Bennett, thank you, again, so much for being here. I want to jump right in and ask you about this title. What's going on here? How is it that parents are exposing themselves to both privilege and peril?

Dr. Pamela Bennett

03:31

Well, thank you for the invitation. I'm so happy to join you to talk about this work. So the title references the social contexts in which parenting is taking place. And the reference to privilege is to the social context that we document that middle class and upper middle class families are able to live in and to provide for their children by way of their financial and other resources. And peril refers to the context in which working class and working poor families, too often find themselves raising their children. So I'm glad to hear that the title caught your attention. We're, we don't want to be hyperbolic about it. But these are really important issues. And parents are working very hard and raising their children, but they do raise them in very different social contexts.

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