Ketchum, Ben

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Loyola Marymount University

Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiryand PracticeVolume 10 | Issue 1 Article 149-1-2006The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed andWhy, by Dalton ConleyBen KetchumFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceThis Book Review is brought to you for free with open access by the School of Education at Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University andLoyola Law School. It has been accepted for publication in Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice by the journal's editorial board andhas been published on the web by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. Formore information about Digital Commons, please contact digitalcommons@lmu.edu. To contact the editorial board of Catholic Education: A Journalof Inquiry and Practice, please email CatholicEdJournal@lmu.edu.Recommended CitationKetchum, B. (2006). The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why, by Dalton Conley. Journal of Catholic Education, 10 (1).http://dx.doi.org/10.15365/joce.1001142013THE PECKING ORDER: WHICH SIBLINGSSUCCEED AND WHYDALTON CONLEYPANTHEON BOOKS, 2004$24.00, 320 pagesReviewed by Ben KetchumWhen two siblings grow up in the same house and one becomes successfuland the other suffers from economic turmoil and unemployment, who is toblame? Conley (2004) takes the mystery out of this phenomenon in ThePecking Order. Conley begins with a fascinating example of how two sib-lings, Roger and Bill Clinton, emerge from the same home and enter differ-ent socioeconomic lives. Raised by a single, working mother, Roger leads alife of hardship, poor choices, and economic instability, while quick-witted,charismatic, and politically-minded Bill climbs his way to success. This bookattempts to get at the heart of these disparities and others like them by ana-lyzing birth order, family size, social status, and more. As for Roger and Bill, Conley believes “Bill’s success seemed to comeat the expense of Roger’s—particularly when it led Roger to a false sense ofinvincibility” (p. 6). Each person is ultimately responsible for the choicesmade in life. However, there are times when decisions are based on outsideinfluences for which a person has no control. Bill’s success and Roger’s lackthereof is a result of the many social forces surrounding the seemingly pro-tective family. In The Pecking Order, Conley analyzes various Americanfamilies over the past century. Through intensive research and in-depth inter-views, Conley systematically sheds light on the socioeconomic inequalitiesthat exist in today’s society. Over the years, researchers have found ways to explain the causes ofinequity among members of society. Conley takes this research one step fur-ther in order to explain not why inequality exists, but where it begins.Conley’s findings demonstrate that inequalities begin at home between mem-bers of the same family. The reasons that one person may succeed and anoth-er may not have a great deal to do with sibling rivalries. Society views thehome environment as a place of warmth, comfort, and security. It is a placeBOOK REVIEWS 121122 Catholic Education/September 2006to hide and be protected from outside hostilities. Conley takes an opposingview, saying, “The home is no haven in a harsh world—it both creates andreflects that world” (p. 112). The problems of capitalism, racism, sexism, andbigotry that hinder and hurt people in society are the same ills that trickleunnoticed into the home. In order to accurately conduct this study, Conley collected informationand data from three national surveys: the U.S. Census, to measure how stu-dents perform while still in the home; the Panel Study of Income Dynamics(PSID), to survey the economic and social status of families; and the GeneralSocial Survey (GSS), which measures attitudes about demographic andsocioeconomic trends in America. Conley combined the findings with per-sonal research and an extensive collection of in-depth interviews. Theseinterviews provide the framework from which Conley delicately weaves thepersonal stories of real people with research and detailed surveys. The resultsare eye-opening and at times startling.In chapter 4, “Death, Desertion, Divorce,” Conley describes how circum-stances of uncertainty can suddenly affect good children in good families.Conley begins with a simple story of two siblings, Debra and Andre. Theirparents had high expectations for both of them and provided them each withthe opportunity to attend private school. When Debra was a senior she gotaccepted to Princeton University on full scholarship. During her first year,her parents divorced after it was known her father was having an affair.Because of the family’s closeness, this divorce had an immediate impact onthe children’s social and academic lives. Both Debra and Andre saw theirgrades drop for a short period of time. In this case, Debra was lucky becauseshe was already away from the home and in college. She was free from thetrauma and turmoil in the home during the divorce. Therefore, she still hadplenty of time to improve her grades and secure herself a bright future.Andre, on the other hand, was not as lucky. After living through the divorcefirsthand, he was not able to get his grades up in time. After not being accept-ed to the universities of his choice, he was forced to attend the local univer-sity. Today, Andre has turned his life around, but he will forever be on a dif-ferent career route because of this major event in his life. Small events inone’s life can have enormous consequences for the future. In this situationand like so many others, if the eldest has managed to escape the household before…parental death,desertions, or divorce, then he or she is usually better off than those left behind.[On the contrary] being first born among those who remain is no advantage inthe case of parental absence or demise. (p. 84) This scenario, like many others in the book, raises many good questionsabout how individuals in the family are affected by events beyond their con-trol. Take for example chapter 6, “Legacies and Role Models, Fat and Skin.”In this chapter, Conley focuses on how different family experiences lead todifferent outcomes in life. Using the effects of differential gender treatment,Conley shows how family attitudes can affect the psychology of individuals,thus influencing the choices they make later in life. The story of Linda andher brother Adam demonstrate this reality. Linda was criticized by her father,while the brother was always praised. There were little differences betweenthe two; however, when the time came to go to college, Linda had low self-esteem as a result of her father’s critiques and only applied to the local com-muter college. Adam, her equally capable brother, had the confidence andsupport to apply and excel at an academically prestigious university. Theyattribute their different paths to personality alone. Adam says about their dif-ferences,I think there was just always a big difference between my sister’s personalityand mine. She always had a little bit of low self-esteem and she never reallyaimed at a high goal for what she could achieve….I don’t know why. (p. 115) Gender bias can affect how children see themselves as they mature to adult-hood. It is this crucial time when children are in the care of their parents, thatwill eventually shape their futures.The strength of this book is Conley’s ability to see the whole picturewhile looking for patterns of behavior across social lines. Conley’s goal is forthe reader to have “a new way of viewing the way pecking orders emerge”(p. 28). Anyone with siblings knows that there is a natural pecking orderinherent to the family. This book is about those orders. But even more, it bril-liantly reveals how “in combination with the decisions of parents, the fami-ly’s resources, class background, racial identity, and so on—household hier-archies forge our place in the larger pecking order called society” (p. 187).Conley points out that more than half of the income inequality in Americatoday exists within families and that children are growing up only to findthemselves separated from their own families by income and class.Conley raises many important social and economic issues related to fam-ilies and society, showing how family dynamics, whether positive or nega-tive, can alter the course of one’s life. It is impossible to point to a single fac-tor in someone’s life that determines the probability of the individual’s abil-ity to succeed or fail. However, it is possible to begin identifying the socialforces that can change or influence one’s decisions in life. BOOK REVIEWS 123124 Catholic Education/September 2006This book was written for parents, teachers, coaches, and anyone work-ing with children. It not only draws the reader to pay closer attention to thesocial needs of children but identifies the attitudes and behaviors that createinequalities within the family. If adults realize the impact that their words,actions, and decisions make on the children they encounter, they can begincreating environments where all children are encouraged, valued, and loved.Ben Ketchum is assistant principal at St. Ann’s Academy in Washington, DC.FAMILY MATTERS: HOW SCHOOLS CANCOPE WITH THE CRISIS IN CHILDREARINGROBERT EVANSJOSSEY-BASS, 2004. $25.00, 320 pagesReviewed by Sandra RojasRecent decades have been saturated with books, articles, and research onhow schools can improve their scores and enable students to achieve highacademic standards while offering a safe and engaging environment. In try-ing to understand why some students succeed academically while othersstruggle to learn, many solutions have been proposed. Parents, teachers, andschool leaders have tried to understand the underlying cause of academicachievement or failure. Schools that are nationally recognized for offeringthe best academic environment are scrutinized to find the magic formula andthe blueprint necessary to educate children successfully according to today’ssociety. Parents often place all responsibility to educate their children inteachers’ hands and either blame or praise them if their children do well. Atthe same time, teachers either complain about the parents of struggling stu-dents or admire parents if the students can accomplish their academic goals. In Family Matters: How Schools Can Cope With the Crisis inChildrearing, Evans (2004) attempts to explain the factors that affect today’sschools, families, and society and that make students “harder to teach andparents harder to deal with” (p. 156). Evans invites the reader to think “aboutwhat our children need and what our schools can do” (p. xix) to cope with

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