Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

The author maintains that the “transmitters of socioeconomic status that are so potent today (economic insecurity, family instability, neighborhood distress, financial and organizational barriers) were unimportant” (9) in the 1950s. Is this consistent with your understanding of 20th-century American history? If not, why do you think the author’s methodology leads him to this conclusion?

The book includes stories of families in various parts of the country experiencing similar opportunities (or lack thereof) to families living elsewhere in the same class. It also details stories in which families left one area of the country to find better opportunities elsewhere, such as Jesse and Cheryl’s families who fled the South for better opportunities in Ohio. How much of a role does geography have in equality of opportunity? Does the author’s methodology reflect this? 

Philosophers often debate whether free will or determinism is the bigger factor in a person’s future success. Is either of these views more prominent in the author’s explanation of trends in upward mobility? Can the existence of free will explain the differences in success among people in the same class?