Concepts and Implications in Jay Macleod's Ain't No Makin' It

One of the major causes of underachievement is the lack of economic capital, proposed by Pierre Bourdieu (1984), that a working class family possess. As item A states, ‘sociologists claim that factors outside the school, such as parental attitudes and parental income, are the main causes of working class underachievement.’ Children who belong to a working class background may not be able to afford the necessary equipment or meet the

What does social class mean? Social class means a division of a society based on social and economic status. Now, what does hidden curriculum mean? Hidden Curriculum means a side effect of education, such as norms, values and beliefs in the classroom. Accordingly, Jean Anyon’s, author of “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” claims that each and every social class has it’s own very different way of teaching in schools. Anyon states a plethora of strengths and weaknesses in this article. She believes that all children have been taught to learn, comprehend, and behavior in plenty of different ways due to the social class’s they have been thrown into. Anyon examined each social class which have been named The Working Class, The Middle Class, The Affluent Professional Class, and lastly The Executive Elite Class. An educational perspective came well from her work view point and based off it - I have thrown in my own opinion by agreeing with her during this essay.

The Brothers are a group of mostly black boys (with the exception of one) who so not smoke, drink regularly, and value education as they all attend high school. Though they are merely a peer group and not their own subculture as they value academics and athletics and are not as bothered by the stigma of living in the projects. Describing the differences in the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers, the MacLeod points out that the Hallway Hangers rarely have parental supervision, many have lived in public housing for several years, many have absent fathers, and the educational attainment of their families is very low. The Brothers on the other hand have more parents and siblings who graduated high school and attended at least some college, more have father figures living in the house, and their average time living in Clarendon Heights is less than the Hallway Hangers.

The article “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” by Jean Anyon is about research conducted in five different schools of four different social classes; the Working Class, the Middle Class, the Professional Class, and the Executive Class. In the data collected, Anyon discovered the various ways that these five schools teach the children. First, the two Working Class Schools taught the children really poorly, often telling the children to follow steps to get the right answer, and always yelling at them when they’re out of line. The Middle Class School teaches the kids a little better, by making the children actually work to get the right answer. The Professional School sought to get the children to be more creative with their work. And finally, the Executive Class school will tell the children that they are fully responsible for their work, and they will not keep up with children if they miss assignments.

The book Unequal Childhoods describes observations made by Annette Lareau to shed light on the significance of social class and how it affects student’s learning. Lareau presents her observations by highlighting the two dominant ways of parenting that ultimately affect how successful students become as they transition into adulthood. These styles of parenting consist of Concerted Cultivation where parents put through kids through structured activities, and Accomplishment of Natural Growth where unrestrictive freedom and directives are exercised (20-22).

control, such as financial issues, segregation, suspensions and drop-outs rates, subtractive schooling, and school climate negatively impacts their overall performance. Jay MacLeod brings to light these issues in his book, Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood. The book, which reports the author’s findings on fifteen boys living in public housing and their overall educational and life success over several years. The book centered around the achievement ideology, which is the belief that success can be obtained through hard work and education. Under this belief, factors such as race and socioeconomic status do not impact one’s success so long as there is a strong work ethic. He described two groups who had a different perspective of the achievement ideology (MacLeod, 2009). The white boys, called the Hallway Hangers, did not agree with ideology and believed they were being cheated out of what was rightfully theirs by minority students. They put no effort into their schooling and were highly involved in criminal life. Meanwhile, the Brothers, were black males who strongly believed in the Achievement theory. They worked hard not only with school but in other things as well and believed they would soon be rewarded for their efforts. Another theme that MacLeod covered was the idea that these boys were “pushed into jumping.” He describes that this idea is based on the fact these individuals in spite of the circumstances in which they were born are either able to does they please and see it, also known as jumping or are forced to do certain things therefore, “pushed into jumping.” In utter agreeance, minority individuals are “pushed into jumping” and if they are at any point failing, then educators and schools need to collaborate with the community to assure these students stay in school.

Those who remain on the less privileged, less educated side of the black community resent their peers who have degrees and white collar jobs. They feel that these successful black men and women no longer have a connection to where they came from. This “class” rift is not only limited to black adults, but occurs in school age children and teenagers. Many small black children who dress well and have high grades in school are made fun of and picked on by their less fortunate peers. Black high school students who drive nice cars and live in upper-class neighborhoods are sometimes labeled as “bourgeois” by their peers who come from working or lower class families.

Payne indicates that all individuals brings with him/her the hidden rules of the class in which he/she was raised. Even though the income of the individual may rise significantly, many of the patterns of thought, social interaction, cognitive strategies, etc., remain with the individual. Schools and businesses operate from middle-class norms and use the hidden rules of middle class. The norms and hidden rules are not directly taught in schools or in businesses.

financial issues, segregation, subtractive schooling, and the overall school climate may negatively impact their overall performance. Jay MacLeod brings to light these issues in his book, Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood. The book, which reports the author’s findings on fifteen boys living in public housing and their overall educational and life success over several years. The book centered around the achievement ideology, which is the belief that success can only be obtained through hard work and education (MacLeod, 2009). Under this belief, factors such as race and socioeconomic status do not impact one’s success

In his research Jay Macleod, compares two groups of teenage boys, the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers. Both groups of teenagers live in a low income neighborhood in Clarendon Heights, but they are complete opposites of each other. The Hallway Hangers, composed of eight teenagers spend most of their time in the late afternoon or early evening hanging out in doorway number 13 until very late at night. The Brothers are a group of seven teenagers that have no aspirations to just hang out and cause problems, the Brothers enjoy active pastimes such as playing basketball. The Hallway Hangers all smoke, drink, and use drugs. Stereotyped as “hoodlums,” “punks,” or “burnouts” by outsiders, the Hallway Hangers are actually a varied group, and much

All families want their children to be happy, healthy, and grow. Social classes make a difference in how parents go about meeting this goal. In Annette Lareau book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, she promotes middle class parents as concerted cultivation. Middle class parents encourage their children’s talents, opinions, and skills. For example, engaging their children in organized activities and closely monitoring children’s experiences in school. According to Lareau, middle class children gain an emerging sense of entitlement through this pattern of converted cultivation. This causes a focus on children’s individual development. There are signs that the middle class children gain advantages from the experience of concerted cultivation. However, the working class and poor children do not gain this advantage.

Second, Williams introduces other works in order to explain how social and economic class affects the academic discourse. For example, he directly quotes J.P. Gee, who says “Children cannot belong at school when their valuable home-based practices [the dominant discourses]...are ignored, denigrated, and unused” (Gee 344). In other words, schools must implement social values into the academic discourses. Additionally, Williams mentions Bourdieu's approach of the term habitus, which Bourdieu describes as “the internalized form of class condition and of the conditionings it entails” (Bordeau 345). Essentially, Bourdieu believes “cultural and social capital cannot be separated from economic and material conditions” (Bourdieu 345). Therefore, by

Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital has been extremely influential, and has garnered a great deal of literature, both theoretical and empirical. Like Marx, Bourdieu posited that capital was the foundation of social life and dictated people’s position within the social hierarchy (Bourdieu 1986). According to Bourdieu, the more capital one possesses, the more prestigious a position one occupies in social life (Bourdieu 1986). In addition to that, Bourdieu extended Marx’s idea of capital beyond the economic and into cultural symbolism (Bourdieu 1986). Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital that refers to the collection of symbolic elements (e.g. skills, tastes, clothing) one acquires through being part of a particular social niche and his concept of habitus that refers to the physical manifestation of cultural capital owned by individuals due to life experiences are his major influential concepts that are very useful in deconstructing power in development and social change processes. However it must be recognized that these concepts also propagate social inequalities at the same time. This essay will closely examine his concepts of capital that comes in three forms - embodied, objectified, and institutionalised, and habitus in the fields of education and stratification have made of it. Bourdieu’s work will be analysed in the context both of the debate on class inequalities in educational attainment and of class reproduction in advanced capitalist societies.

Pierre Bourdieu developed the concept of cultural capital in order to attempt to explain the differences in educational outcomes in France during the 1960’s. Cultural capital is theorised as the forms of knowledge, skill, education; any advantages a person has which, give them a higher status in society, including high expectations (Nick Stevenson, 1995.pp.46-48). This differentiates economic and social status from the class agenda which, is rigidly sustained through an exclusive cycle. Cultural capital itself can be used in analysis of the class system, and how the dominant aesthetic and ideology is sustained from generation to generation.

Pierre Bourdieu is a French Theorist. Bourdieu’s theory is to emphasize constructivist structuralism and he was influenced by Karl Marx by cultural capital. Bourdieu presents the question of class. Bourdieu claimed that capital forms the foundation of social life. Bourdieu thinks the more capital a person have, the more powerful they will be, and Marx had the same view as well. Bourdieu went on to claim that it had something to do with the symbolic realm of culture. When Bourdieu brings culture into it he means the peoples attribute to the world, structured by inequality and culture structures of inequality, also states that is a big part of social inequality. Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital is skills, tastes, posture, clothing, mannerisms, material belongings, credentials, etc. You usually receive them through a social class. Bourdieu divides capital into three forms embodied, objectified, and institutionalized. He gives an example of embodied cultural capital, while a luxury car is an example of cultural capital in its objectified state. In its institutionalized state cultural capital would be credentials and qualifications (degrees or titles that shows cultural authority and acceptance.