Self-Esteem and the Reproduction of Social Class.

Prior research has demonstrated the multiple pathways through which social class reproduction occurs, with children1 tending to attain social statuses similar to those of their parents—a trend attributed to parents’ socioeconomic resources and, their parenting practices and attitudes, as well as social, human, and cultural capital (Breen, 2005; Devine, 2004; Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992; Lareau, 2003). However, sociological considerations of social class reproduction have largely ignored the role of psychological mechanisms in this process. Only a handful of studies have examined this possibility (Bynum and Durm, 1996; Demo, Small, and Savin-Williams, 1995; Gecas, 2003; Rosenberg et al., 1995), and such studies have not been able to employ large, national data sets. Thus, whether and how psychological mechanisms are related to the reproduction of the contemporary class structure in the United States remains an unanswered question. This article aims to begin to fill this gap in the literature by examining the role one important psychological mechanism—self-esteem—plays in social class outcomes. To address the role that self-esteem plays in social class attainment, we used data from three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to evaluate a model that focused first on the influence of parenting practices and attitudes on offspring's self-esteem. We then estimated how these variables affected college attendance. Because offspring were aged 18 to 35 at the final wave, we employed college attendance (completion or current enrollment) as an indicator of social class attainment, due to the prominent role of tertiary education in future occupational and financial prospects (Blau and Duncan, 1967; Fischer and Hout, 2006). Figure 1 displays the theoretical model that guides this article. Note that this figure can be regarded as a visual representation of our expectations for the statistical model. The model mirrors the traditional socioeconomic attainment model, with its focus on indicators of parents’ socioeconomic attainment, such as education and income (Blau and Duncan, 1967), but builds on it in two important ways. First, it hypothesizes that offspring's self-esteem plays a role in the reproduction of class advantage, both through a direct effect on college completion or current enrollment and by potentially mediating the influence of both social class and parenting practices and attitudes. Second, it explicitly describes how family processes influence children's social class attainment. Thus, although social class and childrearing practices and parents’ attitudes are assumed to have a direct influence on educational outcomes (Lareau, 2000), they also may have indirect effects through children's self-esteem. FIGURE 1 Hypothesized Model of Social Class Reproduction via Self-Esteem In what follows, we touch briefly on social reproduction theory, and then focus on the delineated paths of Figure 1. One section examines how parental characteristics influence children's self-esteem, followed by another section that explores the role self-esteem may play in social class outcomes, particularly the attainment of a college education. Social reproduction theory seeks to explain the intergenerational persistence of social class positions by focusing on how families equip children with the skills that, when coupled with individual effort, make socioeconomic attainment possible (Althusser, 2006; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990; Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992; Willis, 1981). Parents’ educational attainment, class location, and parenting practices and attitudes play a critical role in education and eventual social class outcomes. Scholars have identified a host of factors associated with the likelihood of social class reproduction, and particularly of obtaining a college degree (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992; Fischer and Hout, 2006; Lareau, 2003). Much research on the intergenerational reproduction of social class has focused on how children of parents with higher levels of education, income, and occupational status tend to have better socioeconomic outcomes than children whose parents enjoy fewer economic and social advantages (Blau and Duncan, 1967; Devine, 1997, 2004; Goldthorpe, 1996), particularly because parents with more socioeconomic resources are better able to support and finance their children's educations. Prior research has also identified other characteristics that impinge on social class outcomes, including school-based activities (Choi et al., 2008; Dumais, 2008; Southgate and Roscigno, 2009), peer networks (Riegle-Crumb and Callahan, 2009), and neighborhood effects (Sharkey, 2008), although these are beyond the scope of the current study. Thus, research has demonstrated that parental social class substantially influences patterns of educational attainment and social class outcomes—this claim appears uncontroversial (Nakhaie, 2000); it is rendered further salient in light of the growing income disparity between those with a high school and college education (Krueger, 2006).