Promoting Mobility

There seems to be such a contrast between how the media portrays the American Dream and actuality. An unemployed man struggling to feed his young children earns a recording contract on a singing competition. Politicians and celebrities have risen to their current wealth, notoriety, and status from a childhood of poverty through their hard work and dedication. Even our president is one of these success stories. What I feel like we don’t see are people like the Brothers, who are staying in school and working hard toward future ambitions instead of using drugs, dropping out of school, and envisioning themselves in prison like the Hallway Hangers, that I suspect won’t actually achieve the success they imagine for themselves. Perhaps this distorted, false perception is why a majority of Americans believe that the American Dream can be realized with hard work, determination, and perseverance. However, as MacLeod points out, the meritocracy is a fallacy because there are insurmountable structural barriers that people must first overcome. Also, though education is thought of a “the great equalizer,” other factors like cultural capital, social capital, and race inhibit or encourage mobility.

Thus, as I was reading about the Brothers and Hallway Hangers, who are older boys, I started to recognize how ineffective the programs touted to encourage social mobility really are. For example, state lottery scholarships, like the HOPE in Tennessee, and federal Pell Grants claim to provide an opportunity for everyone who does well in high school to attend college. However, these programs not only ignore factors that contribute to a person’s ability to do well in high school but disregard aspects like the accumulation of social capital. For the boys in the book, particularly the Hangers, college financial aid would probably not significantly alter their social status. Perhaps focusing efforts on a preschool program for all children would be a good start toward creating a true land of opportunity. Particularly I am thinking of a program like the écoles maternelles system in France. This program is free to all French children and nearly all parents actually enroll their children in the program. Not only would primary school children be able to start out on somewhat equal footing, but in a preschool system, more emphasis can be place upon accruing cultural capital. When there are not as many academic benchmarks that teachers must reach, there may be more time for activities like field trips. Also, in the écoles maternelles system, for example, mealtime provides a valuable lesson because all the children work together to serve a meal to each other which they eat on real plates with real silverware and clean it up together afterward. Although instituting a similar system in the United States would not solve all issues stifling social mobility and would certainly receive significant resistance, I believe that this kind of program could be a more positive step towards creating real social mobility.