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Research Seed Grant | 2002-2003

Making It Isn't Enough: Strategies for Intergenerational Class Transfer among Latinos

by Nicole Marwell (Sociology) and Rodolfo De la Garza (Political Science)

This project will examine the processes of intergenerational class transmission from middle-class Latino parents to their adult children. Our study draws on Pattillo's (1999) groundbreaking study of the African American middle class, in which she argues that middle-class African Americans face higher barriers to remaining middle class across generations than do their white counterparts. She points to a number of aspects of community social structure that make it more difficult for the children of the black middle class to reproduce their parents' economic status. We intend to explore the ways in which similar - or related - processes affect the ability of middle-class Latinos to transmit their class status to their children. We will use an extended, open-ended interview method for our research. The outcome of interest is whether or not the adult children of middle-class parents have achieved middle-class status as well. We will interview both parents and their adult children for the study. We expect to capture two younger-generation trajectories in the study: children who have replicated their parents' class status, and children who have been downwardly mobile. We are particularly interested in understanding the processes by which these outcomes occurred. This topic has important implications for understanding the declining socioeconomic position of Latinos in the United States, and there currently is no research available on it.