Tag Archives: social class

Meritocracy vs. structures illustrated by a British rapper who chose LSE over Cambridge

Posted on by

I have seen a number of stories in recent days about a 17 year old British rapper from a disadvantaged area, Franklyn Addo, who had a choice to study at five British universities, including Cambridge. In The Guardian, Addo explains why he chose to study sociology at the London School of Economics (LSE):

The real reasons that lead me to my decision – one I did not take lightly – are much more significant than the lack of a “music scene”. Having meticulously assessed the content of the courses offered at LSE and Cambridge, I decided I would be more suited to the course in London. Crucially, studying at LSE also makes more financial sense, as I would not have to pay for accommodation.

Obtaining an offer from Oxbridge is such a rarity, especially for people like me who come from a relatively deprived area. This causes some to believe that the interview process is bound to be extremely scary. Contrary to this, I found the interview was not frightening; the environment was pleasant and the interviewers welcoming. I enjoyed having a formal conversation about concepts within sociology, a field I am passionate about. After being given time to digest a case study, two interviewers quizzed me about the information I was given and assessed my ability to make links between sociological, psychological and political concepts. If you are knowledgeable about the subject you’re applying for, the interview process is likely to be enjoyable, although indubitably challenging.

Indeed, from my personal experience, Cambridge appears to be meritocratic and non-discriminatory, although the demographics of current undergraduate students may suggest differently. Some of my peers view Oxbridge as a desirable goal to which some aspire, but others see it as an elitist institution; perhaps due to the false belief that it is impossible for them to receive offers to study there. People from deprived areas must assess their way of thinking and begin to understand that society is becoming increasingly meritocratic and that anything is possible with hard work.

Furthermore, schools and colleges should encourage people who have the academic ability to apply and help them with the process – as my sociology teacher at Woodhouse College in Barnet, Nazia Rahim, did with me. She provided me with extracurricular help, a mock interview for Cambridge and was pivotal in developing my understanding that I can achieve what I set my mind to. Schools and authority figures should be active in empowering the local community to aim high from a young age and encourage young people to take part in extracurricular activities so they are attractive applicants to whichever university they decide upon, or whatever career they decide to pursue.

What interests me in this account is how he describes reactions to Oxbridge (referring to Cambridge and Oxford): are they elitist or meritocratic? Addo seems to subscribe to the meritocratic argument, suggesting “society is becoming increasingly meritocratic and that anything is possible with hard work.” But would this be the viewpoint of many sociologists and those who study sociology? On the whole, sociologists would talk about the difficulties of social mobility and how class structures, both in wealth and cultural disparities, influence life chances. But here Addo describes his chances as the result of “hard work” and the efforts of his sociology teacher.

If sociologists were asked about their own successes and not about life chances in the abstract, would they suggest it was because of their own hard work and efforts (the meritocratic side) or because they had structural advantages (the elitist side)? When talking with students or their kids, can sociologists teach about broader structures but then suggest to individuals kids that their life chances are highly determined by their own efforts? Perhaps this is taking the agency vs. structure debate to a personal level to ask whether individuals attribute their successes or maybe just their failures to structures.

The value of inheritances

Posted on by

Megan McArdle talks through issues of inheritance in the United States:

I don’t see by what right people should be allowed to order living people how to dispose of their stuff after they’re beyond caring.  I think people should be allowed to make generous gifts while they’re still alive, without gift tax. (Though I think the recipients of those gifts should have to pay income tax on it; I don’t understand why we’d want to tax income people get by working, but not income people get by being born.  Being born is about the most tax-inelastic thing you can think of.)  But once people are dead, then I can make a pretty compelling case that in a modern economy where extended families are not a major economic unit, there’s little justice case for inheritance…

Inheritance not only hands people valuable income in return for something we don’t really want to further reward–being born lucky–but also, in doing so, it entrenches the least attractive feature of our economy: the fact that people who are born to affluent parents are much more likely to themselves be affluent than children born to the less well-heeled.  Lack of economic mobility is generally regarded as a bad thing that we should combat.
Yet so many of our institutions, from the geographic organization of our schools, to the financial distribution of our inheritances, reinforce it.  Some of those things are not going away (we should not, and will not, order affluent people to move into poor school districts, or shut down research universities for conferring unfair advantages on the mostly affluent students who have the ability to gain admission).  But what are the social benefits that inheritance conveys to offset its drawbacks?  I think they have to be pretty large to justify letting dead people order us to perpetuate the economic status quo.

So I can make a moral case for a 100% estate tax.

McArdle then goes on to talk through specific situations where inheritances might make sense and suggests in the end that she is wary of putting this into practice because it is unclear how it would turn out.

I think her earlier points are of more interest as Americans talk about meritocracy but inheritances seem to go against this ideal. From the beginning, Americans have had the populist idea that class doesn’t matter in the same way that it did in England. We argue that there should be mobility between classes (presumably this also means people can go down), not more rigid classes where money is passed down for decades. But we have a less flexible system than we imagine – some people can move up but the numbers are relatively low. This is exacerbated when we look at disparities in wealth between different groups: wealth is not then just about passing along hard-earned benefits to future generations but rather about reinforcing the large existing wealth inequalities that hamper American society.

I would be interested in seeing more data regarding what Americans mean when they say they want their children to have a better life: does this come from actions during their lifetime, like by promoting education or particular values like hard work, or from an inheritance that is passed along in a will?

Quick Review: Nickel and Dimed (theater version)

Posted on by

I recently saw Nickel and Dimed in a local theater production. The text is a staple of Introduction to Sociology classes but I was not aware until recently that the 2001 book had been adapted for the stage. While the New York Times reviewed the play in its 2006 New York City debut, I have a few thoughts about the production I saw:

1. Like the book, the play follows Barbara to her three new professions that pay minimum wage (or a little higher): working as a waitress at Kenny’s, working as a housecleaner for a maids company, and working on the sales floor at Mall-Mart. From what I remember of the book, the basic story is the same: Barbara decides to do this in order to understand the experiences of the American working poor, finds that the work is physically taxing and also takes time to master, and concludes that such a life is quite difficult and unfair.

2. Besides Barbara, the key characters are some of her co-workers. These people are often caught in dead-end jobs that offer little money and few or no benefits. With nowhere else to go, some of the coworkers doggedly follow the rules in order to maintain their jobs, others rebel a bit, while others show Barbara compassion that she was not expecting to need. In the final moments of the play, we hear about some of these workers have fared in the long run even as Barbara has returned to her cushy life.

2a. One of the more interesting scenes from these co-workers comes toward the end of the play when her Mal-Mart manager speaks directly to the audience for a few moments. As a manager, he says “the numbers don’t lie” and suggests that there is little that can be done to improve work for he or his employees as the prices dictate the wages and benefits. Of course, he is suggesting that the problem extends higher up in the company.

3. One of the fun parts of the evening was thinking about how the audience was reacting to these scenes. Barbara plays up some of the class conflict ideas and says some uncomfortable things, particularly to a fairly wealthy, suburban crowd.

4. This particular production included four musical numbers which I don’t believe are part of the typical stage production. While I am not a fan of musicals, I thought these numbers added something to the show. I always find it interesting to hear cheerful-sounding numbers about less-than-cheerful themes such as unjust working conditions.

5. Several of my students saw the show and their comments to me suggested that the play hit an emotional nerve in a way that a lecture on social class in America in my Intro to Sociology course has a hard time doing. In additional conversations, we found that my students and I have worked in some similar jobs but the difference was that we knew that we had better educational and career options down the road.

Overall, I enjoyed thinking about these topics in a new way though the theater. Now that Ehrenreich’s book is 10 years old, is there another book that was recently published or that is in the works that can address some of the same issues while attaining the popularity of Nickel and Dimed? That might be a tall task but such works help keep sociological discussions alive in the public sphere.

(I also found that Ehrenreich’s personal page for the book includes positive reviews from a number of sociologists.)

The effect of motivation on IQ scores, standardized tests

Posted on by

A study suggests that IQ tests are not just testing intelligence but are also indicators of the test taker’s motivation:

The link between our IQs and our fates becomes muddier when we consider motivation – an aspect of test-taking that is often ignored. Simply put, some people try harder in IQ tests than others. If you take this into account, the association between your IQ and your success in life becomes considerably weaker. The tests are not measuring intelligence alone, but also the desire to prove it.

Many standardized tests assume that the people who take them are alert and motivated. As such, their scores reflect the height of their abilities. IQ tests are no different. The questions are ordered by difficulty to keep people’s morale up. Edward Thorndike, a pioneer of intelligence testing, wrote that “all our measurements assume that the individual in question tries as hard as he can to make as high a score as possible”, although he admitted that no one knew if that was the case…

Duckworth herself recognizes that people who actually administer the tests will be well aware of the issue of motivation. She says, “Where the problem lies, in our view, is in the interpretation of IQ scores by economists, sociologists, and research psychologists who have not witnessed variation in test motivation firsthand. [They] might erringly assume that a low IQ score invariably indicates low intelligence.”

Is this view common? Sternberg thinks so, pointing to the fact that Duckworth’s study was newsworthy enough to be published in PNAS, one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals. “[This shows] how off-track our society has gone in its acceptance of commercial persuasive appeals to buy into standardized tests as some kind of panacea for predicting almost any outcome in life that we value.

I would be interested in hearing more about what helps determine a test-taker’s motivation. This report hints at this: “motivation is itself affected by a person’s background, and their beliefs in their future options and their chances of success.” This sounds like it is tied to social class and might fit with Annette Lareau’s work regarding the “concerted cultivation” of middle- and upper-class parenting versus the “natural growth” approach taken by lower-class parents.

The last two paragraphs of the quoted section above gets at two broader issues: academics (including sociologists?) who might take IQ tests as signs of intelligence and the public’s faith in standardized testing. I can’t imagine too many sociologists would say that IQ tests are a great measure of intelligence but the larger issue regarding standardized testing is an important one. But if standardized tests are also picking up the effect of motivation, is this necessarily bad – wouldn’t higher levels of motivation be seen as a good thing for most uses of standardized tests?

Additionally, I think I have heard of elementary school teachers trying to boost the motivation levels of students for standardized tests. But does the same thing happen at higher levels, like high school or college? Is this something that college professors should pay more attention to?

Update on affordable housing debate in Winnetka

Posted on by

The Chicago Tribune reports on Tuesday’s meeting in Winnetka regarding a proposed affordable housing ordinance. Here is how the comments at the meeting were summarized:

Rick McQuet, a Winnetka resident, said at the meeting that the affordable housing plan is intended to help young families and recent college graduates.

“That young family was me about 15 years ago, a new degree in hand and aspirations of becoming a member of a truly great community,” he said.

Northfield resident June O’Donoghue received applause after she said she opposes the proposal because it interferes with the housing market.

“Housing is affordable to the people who can afford it. That is a simple thing,” O’Donoghue said. “I think you need a referendum for people to vote to see if they want to go through all this social engineering.”

In recent weeks, the plan’s opponents have said it amounts to “hand-outs” for people with lower income that could result in Section 8 housing, decreased property values and increased crime. Supporters have lashed out at the opposition as bigoted, arguing that the plan would allow teachers, clergy and other employees to live in the community in which they work.

Some thoughts about these comments (which may or may not represent everything that was said at the meeting):

1. The first comment I included above is interesting in that it refers to a common understanding of affordable housing in suburbs: it is not about helping the disadvantaged in society but rather “young families,” “recent college graduates,” and often elderly residents of the community. While this may be a good goal for a community (particularly if residents want their own family members in these categories to live in the community), this is a different understanding of “affordable housing.” Perhaps this is what has to be done in many suburbs order to counter the plan’s opponents who are quoted as saying this is really about helping lower-income people. But overall, there are needs for cheaper housing in society beyond people who might fit a profile of a community but simply don’t have the money.

The plan seems to play to this more suburban understanding of affordable housing:

The proposed plan would apply to new developments, in which 15 percent of owner-occupied units must be affordable to households earning at least $75,000 per year, while 15 percent of rental units would be affordable to those earning at least $45,000. Current residents and senior citizens would receive priority, the plan says.

According to the Census, the 2009 median household income was $49,777 so the part of the plan for people making at least $45,000 is still drawing from near the top 50% of American incomes.

2. “Social engineering” is always an interesting term to think about. In finishing my taxes for this year, I was reminded that our tax code is riddled with all sorts of “social engineering” in terms of promoting or incentivizing certain activities. We as Americans value homeownership so we have a home mortgage interest deduction (which some argue should be taken away). We give deductions for giving money to charities. Is all social policy “social engineering” or just policies that some people don’t like?

Data on the growing conservatism of the American public

Posted on by

A number of commentators have explored recent data from Gallup regarding America’s increasing conservatism. Richard Florida takes a stab at the data here. Here are Florida’s conclusions:

Conservatism, at least at the state level, appears to be growing stronger. Ironically, this trend is most pronounced in America’s least well-off, least educated, most blue collar, most economically hard-hit states. Conservatism, more and more, is the ideology of the economically left behind.  The current economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism’s hold on America’s states. This trend stands in sharp contrast to the Great Depression, when America embraced FDR and the New Deal.

Liberalism, which is stronger in richer, better-educated, more-diverse, and, especially, more prosperous places, is shrinking across the board and has fallen behind conservatism even in its biggest strongholds. This obviously poses big challenges for liberals, the Obama administration, and the Democratic Party moving forward.

But the much bigger, long-term danger is economic rather than political. This ideological state of affairs advantages the policy preferences of poorer, less innovative states over wealthier, more innovative, and productive ones. American politics is increasingly disconnected from its economic engine.  And this deepening political divide has become perhaps the biggest bottleneck on the road to long-run prosperity.

Interesting thoughts. A few questions about this:

1. Is this a long-term trend or a relatively recent development that could be reversed relatively quickly?

2. How might these demographics tied to each party interact with the public image of the parties that suggests Republicans are about the wealthy and Democrats are on the side of the working class?

3. Does this suggest that the economic engines of America are primarily in Democratic areas (which I assume Florida would see as being located in central cities and the surrounding areas)? Is this the case because of particular Democratic policies or is this the result of other factors?

4. What would an analysis beyond correlations reveal? How do these different factors interact?

The sociological pitch for the Oakland A’s: green-collar baseball

Posted on by

We have blue-collar, white-collar, and pink-collar. In time for Opening Day of the 2011 baseball season, how about “green-collar baseball“:

There’s a sociological genius at work in the Oakland Athletics marketing department. The current slogan for the franchise, “green collar baseball,” speaks volumes about the culture of the bay area, and why I have become such a devoted fan of the Oakland A’s…

Across the Bay Bridge, you’ll find a better stadium (AT&T Park), a team with a higher payroll, fancier concessions, and fancier fans. You’ll find doctors, lawyers, and San Francisco techie types taking in an afternoon game, reveling in the see and be seen crowd. On the San Francisco side, baseball is very much en vogue. If you search hard enough, you might even find a fan in the crowd who can tell you what a change-up is or explain the infield fly rule.

Trot back over to the Oakland side, and you’ll see where that marketing slogan is coming from. The Oakland Coliseum is clearly a Soviet spin on the baseball stadium, a concrete gulag if there ever was one. The concession options are minimal, the team operates on a shoestring payroll, and the fans are decidedly less cosmopolitan.

All these shortcomings are what bring me to love the authentic experience of Oakland Athletics baseball, and loathe the corporate, plasticized feel of the Giants. There’s an old Taoist saying that it’s “better to be alive in the mud than dead in the palace.” Count me as one who’s happiest to feel alive in the mud of the Oakland A’s.

Having spent time watching both the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park and the Oakland Athletics at Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, I have a few thoughts on this subject:

1. There is no comparison in stadiums: AT&T Park is nice and has great views while the A’s play in a concrete circle. One website goes so far as to say that the A’s stadium “represents everything that’s wrong with baseball stadiums.”

2. The two teams do seem to have differences in the number of fans: AT&T Park is regularly full while the A’s struggle to even fill the bottom portion of the stadium, even when the team was good in the early 2000s.

3. Both teams have potential: the Giants, of course, won the World Series last year while the A’s seem to have put together a dark horse candidate to win the AL West based around young pitching (just like the Giants). The baseball in each place should be relatively similar.

4. San Francisco and Oakland are very different kinds of cities. Both have a grittiness to them but Oakland is known for crime and gangs while San Francisco has more glittering pieces. Ultimately, I think this is really what is behind this idea of “green-collar baseball”: Giants’ fans are painted as plastic because this is how Oakland residents view their neighbor across the bay. Oakland, both the city and its baseball team, are the underdogs, the team with a limited number of fans, limited funds, and a limited stadium. What is sociological about the use of this marketing slogan is that it invokes issues of social class and status.

I wonder if these sorts of descriptions only pop only in cities that have multiple franchises in the same sport. Almost the same argument occurs in Chicago: the Cubs fans are only at Wrigley Field because it is the cool thing to do while the White Sox fans are the working class people who really care about baseball.

Battle in Winnetka over affordable housing plan

Posted on by

The community of Winnetka, Illinois is a northern suburb of Chicago that is quite wealthy: the Census says the median household income is $201,650 (in 2009 inflation-adjusted dollars). The Chicago Tribune reports on a recent debate over a plan to introduce affordable housing to the wealthy suburb:

Winnetka’s plan calls for a land trust to provide for-sale and rental property to those who make far less than the median household income of $201,650.

Under Winnetka’s proposed plan, owner-occupied units must be affordable to households earning at least $75,000. Rentals must be affordable to those earning at least $45,000 or more. Current residents and senior citizens would receive priority.

A lot of suburban communities talk about affordable housing but few propose plans like this. It would be interesting to know how the local government was able to even put this plan forward.

The plan itself describes the change that has occurred in Winnetka over recent years as the community has become even more exclusive:

Over the past several decades, Winnetka has become less diverse in age and income, and it contains a more transient population, according to the plan. The report states that Winnetka lost much of its housing market diversity with the demolition of older, smaller homes that were replaced with larger, more expensive houses. Between 1980 and 2000, the village also lost 262 rental units — a 38 percent reduction — due to the conversion of downtown apartments into commercial offices.

Between 1990 and 2000, the number of homes valued at less than $500,000 declined to 975 from 2,004, according to the report.

“Winnetka’s housing stock increasingly serves only one kind of resident — a family at the peak of its earning years and with school-age children,” the report states.

It sounds like teardowns have become quite an issue.

There has been some vocal opposition to the plan:

“There is plenty of affordable housing in neighboring communities,” said Carry Buck, chairman of WHOA, or Winnetka Home Owners Association. “Most people in Winnetka are conservative and they do not want more involvement from government.”

In a 25-page publication mailed to Winnetka residents last week, the homeowners association called the village Plan Commission’s proposal un-American, predicting it will lower property values, attract criminals and force residents to subsidize those who rely on “hand-outs.”

While this language might be more blunt than what one might typically find in such NIMBY debates, there are plenty of suburbanites who hold such views. Anything that might lower property values or might detract from the community that they bought into is seen as a threat.

The Tribune story suggests that an interfaith group is on the other side of the debate:

The lightning rod for complaints is the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs, a Winnetka-based nonprofit that supports the plan. The center, which advocates for fair and affordable housing and investigates housing discrimination complaints, is accused by WHOA of infiltrating village boards and commissions with “social engineers” who depend on federal funding.

Interfaith’s executive director, Gail Schechter, described the opposing arguments as absurd.

“Social engineering is what got us to look the way we do,” she said. “The way Winnetka looks today is not just pure market forces.”

Sociologists would tend to fall on this side: the suburbs were not just created by people voting with their dollars and feet. Rather, the whole suburban system is upheld by a massive system of government policy (building highways, promoting homeownership, tax breaks or incentives for developers and those with financial resourcse) and cultural values (emphasis on the single-family home and automobiles, an anti-urban bias, a desire to move away from problematic areas, etc.).

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. In my own research on suburban communities, I found such open debates (where each side clearly lays out their intentions and/or fears) to be relatively rare. Additionally, such debates are rarely just about particular development proposals; rather, they are about the broader character of the community. Here, it sounds like the debate is also about the image and status of Winnetka: is it just a upper-class suburb or should it be something different?

How social class might affect a family’s view of its pet

Posted on by

Some sociologists have examined the relationship between people and their pets. Indeed, there is even an American Sociological Association section titled  “Animals and Society” (read their rationale here).  Here are the thoughts of two sociologists on this dynamic between pets and their owners:

Sociologist Elizabeth Terrien discovered in a study of dog owners that people from rural backgrounds view dogs more as guardians that should be kept outside. More affluent people tend to see their pets more as children and describe them in terms such as “child,” “companion” or “partner in crime.”

Terrien found that those with Latino backgrounds were more likely to use the term “protector” or “toy” to describe their pet’s role.

Carey also refers to sociologist David Blouin’s three main categories of pet owners:

“Dominionists,” who view pets as useful but replaceable helpers. Many of the people in this category in Blouin’s study were immigrants from rural areas.

“Humanists,” who pamper their pet much like a human child, let their pets sleep in their beds or leave money in their will.

“Protectionists,” who have strong opinions about how animals should be treated and decide what they think is “best” for an animal (untying a dog tethered to a tree, for instance, or determining when a dog should be put down).

I wonder if we could map these ideas on top of Annette Lareau’s ideas about class and parenting styles in Unequal Childhoods. Lareau suggests that lower-class parents practice the accomplishment of natural growth, a more independent view of children and not encouraging children to challenge external authorities, where middle- and upper-class parents practice concerted cultivation where children are encouraged to speak up and parents give children the activities and cultural tools to get ahead. These categories seem to line up with the idea of these two sociologists: pets are more replaceable and functional for lower-class people (“dominionists”) while pets take are much closer to family members in more wealthy families (“humanists” and “protectionists”).

I also wonder if there is work comparing the treatment of children in families to treatment of pets. What might the impact of this be on children?

Additionally, it sounds like there could be some value judgment regarding which of the three approaches is most appropriate. How do “humanists” and “protectionists” view “dominionists”?

Grant Hill, Jalen Rose, and race and class

Posted on by

ESPN recently aired the documentary The Fab Five which earned the network its highest ratings for a documentary (though its unclear how this stacks up against their typical Sunday night programming). One part of the documentary that has drawn attention are the comments Jalen Rose made regarding Grant Hill, Duke, and race. Here is what Rose said in a short segment:

I hated Duke and I hated everything Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn’t recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms … I was jealous of Grant Hill. He came from a great black family. Congratulations, your mom went to college and was roommates with Hillary Clinton. And your dad played in the NFL — a very well-spoken and successful man. I was upset and bitter my mom had to bust her hump for 20-plus years. I was bitter that I had a professional athlete that was my father that I didn’t know. I resented that more than I resented him. I looked at it as they are who the world accepts and we are who the world hates.

Hill responded to Rose’s comment on the New York Times website. Here are a few relevant points:

In his garbled but sweeping comment that Duke recruits only “black players that were ‘Uncle Toms,’ ” Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle-class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today…

This is part of our great tradition as black Americans. We aspire for the best or better for our children and work hard to make that happen for them. Jalen’s mother is part of our great black tradition and made the same sacrifices for him…

To hint that those who grew up in a household with a mother and father are somehow less black than those who did not is beyond ridiculous. All of us are extremely proud of the current Duke team, especially Nolan Smith. He was raised by his mother, plays in memory of his late father and carries himself with the pride and confidence that they instilled in him…

I caution my fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped them back then for their appearance and swagger. I wish for you the restoration of the bond that made you friends, brothers and icons.

While this appears to be a conversation about race, I wonder how much of this might be about social class. While Rose used terms that invoked race (particularly the reference to “Uncle Toms”), what also might have been describing differences in social class: Grant Hill grew up in more of an upper-class family where his dad was a known athlete and his mom had connections. Rose did not have the same opportunities that Hill’s family provided and felt bitter about Duke, a private school known for its wealth (according to the National Association of of College and University Business Officers, Duke is #15 in its 2010 endowment with over $4.8 billion).

In the long run, both men have done well for themselves: Hill is still playing in the NBA while Rose is an analyst for ESPN and also played 13 years in the NBA. But these discussions about opportunities and race and class are ongoing in sociology: is it race that is the primary issue or is it social class? A sociologist like William Julius Wilson has written about this, most recently here, invoking a lot of discussion over the last few decades. How this particular discussion ends up between  Rose and Hill remains to be seen but there will be plenty of ongoing talk about these larger issues.