Spend It As I Tell You, NOT As I Do: Children, Families and Money In Different Socio-Economic Contexts

This article aims at contributing to a body of work about children and inequality, exploring the importance of socioeconomic context and social capital for understanding the ways in which money is perceived, obtained and used by children. Socioeconomic context seems to influence not only the level and structure of household expenditures but also how money and consumption are valued and understood. Social capital conditions the access to economic capital and embeds the practices of consumers and their social networks, concurring to various forms of inequality. Alleged contrasts, especially between middle and working classes, in terms of money management, consumption priorities and postponement of gratification have been debated. It seems thus relevant to investigate if this presumable relation applies to children and why. Do children from different socio-economic contexts reveal the traits that have been attributed to the socio-economic categories, namely class and income levels, to which their parents and households belong? Authors have considered the importance of socialization for developing notions of money and consumption and their subsequent use in adulthood and theories of consumption have mentioned the importance of social capital, social reproduction and habitus in this process. The material and symbolic world of children is worth closer analysis as it may fall beyond the categorizations usually applied to adults. To this end, a mixed methods research project with 245 children attending different primary schools in Portugal – one private school targeted at upper class children and one state-sponsored school located in a working class area – was developed. The results revealed significant differences by school and household typology.