13.1 Chapter Reading Guide
Elizabeth B. Pearce
The authors hope that this chapter is especially relevant to you as a current student. Many college students have contributed to this text on topics such as childcare, federal financial aid, and military families. Choosing childcare and kindergarten through 12th grade (K–12), schools are decisions that almost every family will face. We also look at education and employment through an intersectional lens, a topic we first discussed in Chapter 1. We also take a close look at care work: the work that is done caring for family members and the home.
The reading is designed to help you meet the following chapter objectives. Preview those to have an idea of where you are headed. You may also want to preview the key terms that follow. These terms will be bolded the first time they appear in the chapter. You can read the definitions here and also in the hyperlinks.
[epigraph]
With gratitude to the Linn-Benton Community College students in the “Contemporary Families in the U.S.” class of spring 2023, who gave insightful feedback and suggestions to this chapter– Elizabeth B. Pearce
[/epigraph]
Chapter Learning Objectives
- Describe the variability in equality and access to childcare and education.
- Explain why the quality of childcare matters.
- Explain the ways that access to college and college costs affect individuals, families, and the economy.
- Describe the ways that generational inequities in education affect families.
- Analyze the ways that gendered work expectations affect families.
- Explain how parenting and care work interact with paid work.
- Analyze childcare, education, employment, and workplace practices from an equity perspective.
- Apply theoretical concepts related to education and employment to your own observations and experiences.
Key Terms Preview
- Achievement gap: significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students.
- Care work: the daily work that keeps a household running and the adults and children within it well cared for.
- Childcare: usually used to refer to non-parental care of a young child, often in a paid provider’s home or in a childcare center.
- Childcare trilemma: the acknowledgment that it is difficult to provide affordable, accessible, and high-quality care without some kind of subsidy or support.
- Educational debt: the cumulative impact of fewer resources and other harm directed at students of color.
- Emotional labor: the regulation or hiding of emotions as a part of a work role.
- Glass ceiling: an artificial, unseen, and often unacknowledged discriminatory barrier that prevents otherwise qualified people such as women and minorities from rising to positions of leadership and power, particularly within a corporation.
- Glass cliff: purposeful promotion of women into positions with high risk for failure.
- Glass escalator: quick movement from entry-level to power-holding, higher-paying leadership jobs.
- Kin-keeping: effort to build and maintain relationships between family members.
- Public school: maintained through public funds to educate children living in that community or district without cost to families.
- Student debt: a loan taken to attend college that has not yet been repaid.
- Voucher: supplied by the government or other public entity for families to use to offset the cost of a private school.
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Reading Guide
Open Content, Original
“Chapter Reading Guide” by Elizabeth B. Pearce. License: CC BY 4.0.
usually used to refer to non-parental care of a young child, often in a paid provider’s home or in a childcare center.
the daily work that keeps a household running and the adults and children within it well cared for.
ensuring that people have what they need in order to have a healthy, successful life that is equal to others. Different from equality in that some may receive more help than others in order to be at the same level of success.