Learning about work at dinnertime: language socialization in dual-earner American families

The relation between work and family is a topic of considerable research and analysis across disciplines. Yet, few studies have examined how children are socialized into working family life through routine social interactions with family members. This study integrates the lives of children more fully into the literature through a language socialization approach. It analyzes video-recorded dinnertime conversations among 16 middle class working families in Los Angeles to illuminate how children are apprenticed into discourses and ideologies of work. Children acquire work-related values and expectations, as well as related narrative and analytical skills, through taking part in and overhearing their parents’ conversations about work.