A01=Alford A. Young
A01=Alford A. Young Jr.
Adolescence
African Americans
Americans
Author_Alford A. Young
Author_Alford A. Young Jr.
Black people
Career
Category=JBFC
Category=JBSA
Category=JBSF2
Category=JBSL
Category=JHBL
Credential
Criminal record
Criticism
Cultural analysis
Cultural capital
Disadvantage
East Harlem
Editing
Employment
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Ethnic group
Ethnography
Everyday life
Exclusion
Gang
Habitus (sociology)
High school diploma
Household
Human capital
Ideology
Income
Indication (medicine)
Individualism
Institution
Learning
Meaning-making
Motivation
Narrative
Obstacle
Opportunism
Oppression
Personal experience
Personal life
Pierre Bourdieu
Poverty
Quality of life
Racism
Sexism
Social capital
Social class
Social distance
Social environment
Social inequality
Social isolation
Social issue
Social mobility
Social reality
Social relation
Social science
Social status
Social structure
Society
Society of the United States
Socioeconomic status
Sociology
Structuring
Technology
The Minds of Marginalized Black Men
Thought
Uncertainty
Underclass
Unemployment
Vocabulary
Wealth
White people
William Julius Wilson
Product details
- ISBN 9780691127002
- Weight: 425g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 05 Feb 2006
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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While we hear much about the "culture of poverty" that keeps poor black men poor, we know little about how such men understand their social position and relationship to the American dream. Moving beyond stereotypes, this book examines how twenty-six poverty-stricken African American men from Chicago view their prospects for getting ahead. It documents their definitions of good jobs and the good life--and their beliefs about whether and how these can be attained. In its pages, we meet men who think seriously about work, family, and community and whose differing experiences shape their views of their social world. Based on intensive interviews, the book reveals how these men have experienced varying degrees of exposure to more-privileged Americans--differences that ground their understandings of how racism and socioeconomic inequality determine their life chances. The poorest and most socially isolated are, perhaps surprisingly, most likely to believe that individuals can improve their own lot.
By contrast, men who regularly leave their neighborhood tend to have a wider range of opportunities but also have met with more racism, hostility, and institutional obstacles--making them less likely to believe in the American Dream. Demonstrating how these men interpret their social world, this book seeks to de-pathologize them without ignoring their experiences with chronic unemployment, prison, and substance abuse. It shows how the men draw upon such experiences as they make meaning of the complex circumstances in which they strive to succeed.
Alford A. Young, Jr., is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.
