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Date of Award

2-2013

Access Type

Campus Access

Document type

dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Program

Sociology

First Advisor

Sanjiv Gupta

Second Advisor

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey

Third Advisor

David Cort

Subject Categories

Other Sociology | Sociology

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the role of early time use socialization on social class reproduction and status attainment. I investigate the relationship between parents' class position and children's early (ages 6-12) time use patterns based on Lareau's (2003) discussion of different parenting styles across social classes. Contrary to Lareau's findings about the aversion middle class parents have to television, I find that children of more educated parents spend more time watching television than children of less educated parents, except on Fridays. Similar to Lareau's findings about increased homework time with parental education, I find that more educated parents' children spend more time doing homework than children of less educated parents, except on Fridays. This significant decline in both television and homework time on Fridays suggests that more educated parents' children trade these two activities for other activities. I also find that the traditional way of calculating the weekly time spent on a given activity ((weekday time*5)+(weekend time*2)) assumes that each day is identical (Hofferth & Sandberg, 2004), and overlooks the differences in within weekdays and weekends days, respectively. In addition, I find that controlling for type of diary reporter (adult vs. child) introduces a possible reporter bias related to the un/desirability of certain activities.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/xf1d-kz10

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