She is the author of Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education (1989), coeditor of Journeys through Ethnography: Realistic Accounts of Fieldwork (1996), and author of Class, Race, and Family Life (2003). She conducted field work between 1993 and 1995 with 10- and 11-year-old children, and then followed up with them 10 years later when the children were 20 and 21 years old.

Unequal Childhoods

Her field research was the basis for her book Unequal Childhoods, which explained in detail her research and interviews with 88 children and their parents. The subjects included white and black children from middle class, working class, and poor families. Through her observations she discovered differences in parenting styles that related to class distinctions. Specifically, she observed how different family circumstances influenced the children's performance and interactions in and out of school. Her findings allowed her to draw a major distinction between the parenting styles of working class / poor parents and middle class parents. In this book, she highlights the benefits and shortcomings of raising children through either concerted cultivation or natural growth.

"Concerted Cultivation" is the type of childrearing that middle class parents practice. This childrearing practice consists of parents participating in the organization of their child's after school activities and providing a structured life for their child. The parents generally have a better education and try to impress this upon their child on a daily basis. Parents teach their children things that are not taught in school that will help them to perform better and get better grades on tests and ultimately do better in school. The main advantage to this type of childrearing is that children are taught lessons through organized activities that help prepare them for a white collar job and the types of interactions that a white collar worker encounters. Some examples of this type of parental teaching is engagement in critical thinking such as asking challenging questions, the use of advanced grammar, and help a stronger family support structure. The main disadvantage of concerted cultivation is that often the child becomes bored easily and cannot entertain themselves.

"The Accomplishment of Natural Growth" is the type of childrearing that working class and poor parents practice, and not necessarily by choice. They are less involved with the structure of their child’s after school activities and generally have less education and time to impress values upon their children that will give them an advantage in school. This type of childrearing involves less organized activities and more free time for their children to play with other children in the neighborhood.

The book Unequal Childhoods includes detailed descriptions of her encounters and organized data from her analysis. She compiled a list of formal and informal activities that specific children were involved in, whether they were middle class, working class, or poor, and whether they have requested a teacher for their children. There is also information about whether or not the parents knew people who are psychologists, doctors, lawyers, or teachers. The book contains a great deal of quotes, stories of her experiences while observing, and connections that explain why particular children might act a certain way. Each chapter is an in-depth analysis of a different family, concerning the specific situation surrounding the child and how it has affected their life. From all her observations and analysis, Lareau concludes that the different types of childrearing have more to do with class than race. Through her research she has found that the childrearing ways of the middle class perpetuate inequality because of the advantages that the children have through participation in extracurricular activities, engagement in critical thinking and problem solving. These practices of more parental involvement are what perpetuate inequalities from one generation to the next. Lareau stresses the importance of parents being involved in their children's lives and talks about how middle class children benefit from having a sense of entitlement and the practice of gaining access to scarce resources. She also stresses the importance of literacy as a huge factor in a child's success.

In 1989-1990 she observed white and black children from two third grade classrooms in a small Midwestern town, Lawrenceville, and interviewed the mothers, fathers, and guardians of the children as well as the school professionals working with the children. Then in 1992-1993 she received a grant from the Spencer Foundation to study a third grade classroom in Lower Richmond, an urban school district. In order to do this, she hired and trained 5 research assistants in 1993, who would carry out in-depth interviews with the families. Lareau and her research team started out with 40 families and later chose 12 of the 40 families for more intensive visits. In early 1994, they visited the families 20 times each, roughly two to three hours at a time, and accompanied them on various outings and appointments. The research assistants analyzed the data, transcribed the interviews, and wrote papers on the findings in 1996. Lareau wrote the first draft of her book Unequal Childhoods in 1999 and completed the book by 2002. She cut out over half of the pages in the final copy in order to compile a book with 12 chapters and three parts.

Lareau has won several awards over her career. Most notably she won the AESA Critics Choice award from the American Educational Studies Association. She also won the Sociology of Culture Section Best Book Award as well as the William J. Goode Best Book Length Contribution to Family Sociology Award, both from the American Sociological Association. Recently, in 2004, she won the Distinguished Contribution to scholarship Award, American Sociological Association section on children and youth. American Sociological Association.