Hilary Levey

Department of Sociology
hlevey@princeton.edu

"Children's Participation in Cultural Activities"
Hilary Levey's dissertation focuses on the history and development of children's competitive activities in the United States during the twentieth century, with a special emphasis on the contemporary period. In particular she closely examines parents' own interpretations and developed scripts about why their children participate in such activities, and what the children themselves think about their participation, by qualitatively studying families with elementary school-age children who participate in soccer, dance, and chess. Working with CACPS, Hilary is comparing and contrasting those families involved with the arts and those involved with other activities. Since we know that early arts participation leads to greater arts consumption later in life, the information we can learn from parents who have their children involved with dance and those who do not is particularly important. (2006)