Race, Class, Parenting and Children’s Leisure: Children’s Leisurescapes and Parenting Cultures in Middle-class British Indian Families (Sociology of Children and Families)

Children’s leisure lives are changing, with increasing dominance of organised activities and screen-based leisure. These shifts have reconfigured parenting practices, too. However, our current understandings of these processes are race-blind and based mostly on the experiences of white middle-class families. Drawing on an innovative study of middle-class British Indian families, this book brings children’s and parents’ voices to the forefront and bridges childhood studies, family studies and leisure studies to theorise children’s leisure from a fresh perspective. Demonstrating the salience of both race and class in shaping leisure cultures within middle-class racialised families, this is an invaluable contribution to key sociological debates around leisure, childhoods and parenting ideologies. Front Cover Half-title Series information Race, Class Parenting and Children's Leisure: Children’s Leisurescapes and Parenting Cultures in Middle-class British Indian Families Copyright information Dedication Table of contents List of figures Acknowledgements 1 Introduction Why study children’s leisure? Childhood and parenthoods at the intersection of race and class Middle-class Indians in the UK Researching middle-class British Indian children’s leisure The place and the people The study My own identities in the field Tour of the book 2 Critical Sociology of Children’s Leisure Sociology of childhood: debates and direction Adult-centrism and leisure theory: going beyond an add-children-and-stir model Genres of children’s everyday leisure: a conceptual map Structured or organised leisure Family leisure Casual leisure Operationalising a critical sociology of middle-class British Indian children’s leisure 3 Concerted Cultivation the Indian Way? Making up a ‘skilled’ child through leisure Children’s ethnic and racial socialisation through organised leisure Transmission of ethnic cultural capital through organised leisure (Anti)Racism and organised leisure Rethinking concerted cultivation 4 The Fun, the Boring and the Racist Name Calling Negotiating leisure choices with parents Fun and boring: the idioms of leisure ‘Indians smell like poo’: children navigating peer racism in leisure spaces A child-centred sociology of children’s leisure experiences 5 Negotiated Temporalities Time crunch and busyness: making family leisure possible Navigating ‘screen-time’ and screen-based leisure ‘Alone time’ and the ‘being and becoming’ of children Remapping the timescapes of leisure 6 Relating, Place-Making and the Cultural Politics of Leisuring Leisuring as relating: social relationships as relationships of play Leisuring as place-making in the diaspora Thinking of cultural politics: leisure beyond an individualistic lens 7 Concluding Thoughts Middle-class parenting and race Race, class and cultural capital The politics of children’s leisure Relational dynamics of child agency References Index