After-School Activities Make Educational Inequality Even Worse [View all]

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http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/after-school-activities-make-educational-inequality-even-worse/281416/



It’s not just what happens inside the classroom that determines a child’s status as an adult. Accomplishments outside the classroom can be just as influential. Yes, a basic public education is in principle free to all (though of course quality correlates with property values). But activities outside of school are not free, so they largely benefit already advantaged kids. While we talk a lot about inequalities between the rich and the poor, and the role school quality plays in perpetuating class divisions, one often overlooked factor is the opportunities middle- and upper-middle-class kids get to strengthen their life skills through organized competitive activities outside of the school system.

I spent 16 months on soccer fields and in dance studios and school basements, conducting nearly 200 interviews with parents, children, teachers, and coaches associated with competitive chess, dance, and soccer. Millions of American children engage in these three competitive after-school activities each year (travel soccer alone has over 3 million children playing on U.S. Youth Soccer teams), in addition to a multitude of other athletic and artistic options from music competitions to tennis to shooting.

The group of 95 families I met almost all belong to the broadly defined “middle class,” although a few were lower-income and many were upper-middle class. Training a lens on more affluent families helps us understand how and why the professionalization of children’s competitive after-school activities has become an important way that the middle class has institutionalized its advantage over others.

Parents identified five skills they want their children to learn through participation in competitive after-school activities that help develop the “all-around (wo)man” in the 21st century. Together, I call these skills “Competitive Kid Capital;” this Competitive Kid Capital helps distinguishes middle- and upper-middle class children from their less fortunate peers as they compete in various credentialing tournaments that will determine their place in the socio-economic hierarchy as adults.