Study Guide Exam 2
low SES = donate your time high SES = donate $
"Grandparents" high and low SES
Highlight (yellow) - Page 71 · Location 1308 Whites may be willing to tolerate a few black neighbors , but their tolerance wanes quickly as the potential number increases . Whereas 82 percent of white respondents to a 1992 survey in Detroit said they would feel comfortable living in a neighborhood that was 7 percent black , the figure dropped to 56 percent at one - third black , and to 35 percent at half black ( Farley , Danziger , and Holzer 2000 ) . In Boston the respective figures were 97 percent , 63 percent , and 40 percent ( Bluestone and Stevenson 2000 ) , and in Los Angeles they were 92 percent , 71 percent , and 46 percent ( Charles 2000 ) . In other words , the greater the number of potential black neighbors , the greater the discomfort experienced by whites . Highlight (yellow) - Page 72 · Location 1319 Although white preferences do yield an average neighborhood that is 17 percent black — an improvement over earlier surveys — this figure conceals the fact that some 25 percent of whites in 2000 said their ideal neighborhood would contain no blacks whatsoever ( Charles 2003 ) . Highlight (orange) - Page 73 · Location 1340 These investigators conducted a factorial experiment that systematically manipulated the racial composition of hypothetical neighborhoods along with other social characteristics . Respondents were told to imagine that they had two school - age children , were in the process of house - hunting , and had finally found a home that they liked better than any other , that was close to work , and that was in their price range . Then they were given additional information about the quality of schools in the neighborhood , the crime rate , trends in property values , and racial - ethnic composition . Values for these variables , however , were randomly assigned so that their independent effects could be measured . Nonetheless, when all factors were included in a multivariate regression along with a battery of social, demographic, and economic controls, negative racial stereotyping outperformed all other variables by a sizable margin. Its standardized effect was four times that of class, twice that of perceived threat, and 72 percent greater than that of social distance. Moreover, in this analysis the effect of in-group attachment was essentially zero. Whites do not avoid black neighbors because they prefer their own kind, but because they do not like people who are black. Highlight (yellow) - Page 78 · Location 1416 steering . Steering is indicated , for example , whenever black auditors are shown or offered units in neighborhoods that are poorer , blacker , more dilapidated , and closer to existing black neighborhoods than those presented to whites Highlight (yellow) - Page 85 · Location 1541 This form of discrimination is called statistical discrimination because it takes advantage of statistical correlations between race and certain socioeconomic characteristics ( Blank , Dabady , and Citro 2004 ) . Highlight (yellow) - Page 86 · Location 1545 Employers systematically dismissed residents of housing projects and poor neighborhoods on the city's South and West Sides as unemployable without necessarily mentioning the race of the people who lived there (Kirschenman and Neckerman 1991 ) .
Audit Studies: Neighborhood Variables
204 - Social Mechanisms- Build social networks. Rich social networks create additional opportunities. They do not rely on the other rich for survival, limiting interaction to exchanges that benefit both (socializing and connecting to opportunities that can be repaid at a later date). More social, emotional, and symbolic rewards. Poor socializing hurts economic mobility. Quotes Carol Stack. Neighbors take from you to survive as you take from them. Both lose. Any money gained quickly dissipates in the community. Rich can have a wider social network, using computers, internet, travel, conferences. Poor limited to local connections, who are often segregated into poor areas themselves. Social Mechanisms -distance, timing, and moment of opportunity rather than survival
Carol Stack (2)
9- "I began to notice a pattern of cooperation and mutual aid among kin during the migration North and formed a hypothesis that domestic functions are carried out for urban Blacks by clusters of kin who do not necessarily live together, and that the basis of these units is the domestic cooperation of close adult females and the exchange of good and services between male and female kin." 22- Most student interpret black family by nuclear model (father-mother-child) or matrifocal model (matriarchy), never questioning cultural validity. 24- Way out of poverty is through jobs. But jobs are seasonal, temporary, low-paying. Only thing stable and consistent is kin network. So it takes a lot to turn your back on this network to seek escape through other means. 24- So many focus on family breakdown. Stack shows strength in kinship. 28- "My purpose in this book is to illustrate the collective adaptations to poverty of men, women, and children within the social-cultural network of the urban black family." 31- "It became clear that the 'household' and its group composition was not a meaningful unit to isolate for analysis of family life in The Flats. A resident in The Flats who eats in one household may sleep in another, and contribute resources to yet another. He may consider himself a member of all three households." 31- * "Ultimately I defined 'family' as the smallest, organized, durable network of kin and non-kin who interact daily, providing domestic needs of children and assuring their survival....An arbitrary imposition of widely accepted definitions of the family, the nuclear family, or the matrifocal family blocks the way to understanding how people in The Flats describe and order the world in which they live." 40- Stack also says that this system of exchanges requires careful coordination and planning. This destroys the culture of poverty thesis that the poor live day-to-day and do not plan. Have to be aware of when people will get resources (pay check, food stamps, payments) and what has been exchanged in the past, what is due in the future, and how much a person will need to make rent and bills. 62- "Shared parental responsibility among kin has been the response [to difficulties of poverty]. The families I knew in The Flats told me of many circumstances that required co-resident kinsmen to take care of one another's children or situations that require children to stay in a household that did not include their biological parents." 62- child-keeping, like other duties in poverty, consists of exchanges and fluctuating responsibility where non-parents take care of children (all or part of child-rearing). 63- "Consequently, the kin terms 'mother,' 'father,' 'grandmother,' and the like are not necessarily appropriate labels for describing the social roles." When a child says that that is my mother, it doesn't always imply the same things (mother's role and responsibilities) as other may think. 115- "When a mother in The Flats has a relationship with a non-economically productive man, the relationship saps the resources of others in her domestic network." 115- Kin network is secure and stable. Marriage is a major risk for women and kin network. 125 "These aspirations can only be realized with accompanying economic opportunity. Consequently, the poor have little opportunity to practice the behaviors associated with affluence."
Carol Stack (3) ****
Carol Stack - lose access to kin network if marry. Think kin and healthcare. How is healthcare organized (e.g., HIPAA). Can kin get access. "The emptiness and hopelessness of the job experience for black men and women, the control over meager (AFDC) resources by women, and the security of the kin network, militate against successful marriage or long-term relationships in The Flats." Post TANF, women in workforce make man a liability. Tirado Julia Roberts
Carol Stacks (1)
Envied Out-Group: Respected but envied (not good). When social order breaks down, people in this group become targets Pitied Out-Group: Liked, but not respected. Cared for generally, but when time of turbulence, neglected. Despised Out Group: social outcasts, drug dealers, welfare recipients, sex offenders, and homeless. Vary from culture to culture. As in, people from a different culture would not have same cognitive arrangement of category of others.
Competence and Warmth
1.Homeless People 2.Poor People 3.Farm Workers 4.Professionals 5.Rich People 6.College Students 7.Housewives 8.Elderly People 9.Undocumented People 10.Asian-Americans 11.African-Americans 12.Eastern Europeans 13.Africans 14.Latino-Americans 15.Mexicans 16.Canadians 17.French People 18.Middle Eastern People 19.South Americans 20.Germans
Competent and Warmth (cont.)
Includes groups of: pitied out-group, esteemed in-group, despised out-group, envied out-group "Despised out-groups thus become dehumanized at the neural level, and those who harbor these feelings thus have license, in their own minds, to treat members of these out-groups as if they are animals or objects." 14 -fundamental attribution error. "the poor are poor because they are lazy, lack a work ethic, have no sense of responsibility, are careless in their choices, or are just plain immoral, not because they lost their job or were born into a social position that not give them the resources hey needed to develop. Because of the fundamental attribution error, we are all cognitively wired and prone to blame the victim—to think that people deserve their location in the prevailing stratification system."
Competent and Warmth (cont.)
◦Family dinners predicted ◦Smoking ◦Drinking ◦Marijuana use ◦Fighting ◦Early sex ◦School suspension ◦GPA ◦Application for college Dinners - Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Washbrook - controlling for other factors, family dinners predicted smoking, drinking, marijuana use, fighting, early sex, school suspension, GPA, and apply for college. Go to page 124 for graph
Family Dinners
This is truly an amazing chapter on families. Says the "traditional family" of the 1950s, which is not the traditional family of American history, transformed in the 1970s. Partially from women working and attending school at a much higher rate, partially from divorce rates, possibly from shifts in the economy. Two new family forms. One is neo-traditional family of upper third of society. Two working parents and mom does more outside work and dad does more house work and spends more time with kids. Woman has children 6 years later than 1960s average to ensure that school is done and career started. Other form is the kaleidoscope family among the lower 2/3. Less structure and certainty. More step siblings and families. Often however there is no marriage at all. Have kids 6 years younger than the 1960s. Feminist revolution and shift in gender and martial norms Women to work for necessity, away from patriarchal norms Less security among lower-class men Individualist push toward self-fulfillment Neo-trad - more equal shared responsibilities of home and family. Egalitarian. Kaleidoscope - "fragile families." High divorce rate. More out-of-wedlock births. Step families or single parent. At the same time, political choices made during the 1980s and 1990s lowered the real value of welfare benefits and set time limits on the duration of income transfers. These structural transformations affected women at the top and bottom of the class structure very differently. Upper-class women streamed into higher education and entered graduate and professional schools in large numbers. The professional and managerial salaries they went on to earn made them very attractive as marital partners in an era of rising inequality, and rates of class endogamy increased (Mare 1991, 1996). Instead of male doctors marrying nurses or male managers marrying secretaries, male and female professionals married one another, often after some period of cohabitation that served as a "trial marriage" to weed out incompatible mates before entering into formal wedlock and childbearing. These new relationships were made possible by access to cheap and effective birth control, which enabled ambitious women to postpone births until their education was completed and their career begun. Unlimited Massey, Douglas S.. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System (A Russell Sage Foundation Centennial Volume) (pp. 237-238). Russell Sage Foundation. Kindle Edition. Unlimited risk-free sex, along with high household income and a sharing of the burdens involved in raising upper-class children, combined to make marriage a very stable institution for well-educated women. Stability was also enhanced by the elimination of much of the drudgery formerly associated with marriage and family life, for access to two high incomes enabled professional couples to purchase caring labor on the market, paying others to cook, clean, launder, change diapers, and mind children. Meanwhile, housework that was not subcontracted was shared more equally by husbands, who by virtue of their education came to support the ideal of an egalitarian marriage. Freed from the burden of household chores, upper-class women actually ended up spending more time with their children, despite their labor force participation (Bianchi, Robinson, and Milkie 2006). The situation for women at the other end of the class distribution was much bleaker. The ability of women to control their fertility made it easier for men to shirk parental responsibilities (McLanahan 2004). Before effective contraception, poor women were in a position to extract a promise of marriage from men in return for sexual access, but with the pill's separation of sex from marriage, this bargaining position was effectively eliminated as marriage lost much of its attractiveness to working-class men (see Akerlof, Yellen, and Katz 1996). At the same time, owing to the rise in male joblessness and the stagnation of men's wages, males became less attractive to women as husbands, a situation that was exacerbated once changes in welfare policy pushed poor women into the workforce to make them economically self-sufficient (McLanahan 2004). With the traditional male role of family provider inaccessible to a growing number of working-class men, they grew more likely than their upper-class counterparts to insist on traditional sex roles in relationships, further reducing their attractiveness to women as mates (McLanahan 2004). Given the shortage of men who were by virtue of low income, sexist attitudes, or incarceration socially deemed "unmarriageable," the only realistic path open to poor women seeking a family was bearing children out of wedlock, a choice that was made easier by the disappearance of the stigma associated with single-parenthood. Although marriage with an emotionally supportive and financially capable husband remained a valued goal among poor women, having children was "a promise they could keep" when the likelihood of a marriage vow seemed remote (Edin and Kefalas 2005). McLanahan (2004) confirmed the shifting pattern of gender and family relations in the upper and lower classes by comparing social and economic trends for women at the upper and lower segments of the educational distribution from 1960 through 2000. Although divorce rates rose for both college-educated and non-college-educated women during the 1960s and 1970s and declined during the 1970s and 1980s, the drop was much sharper for educated women, and the gap in divorce rates widened substantially (McLanahan 2004). Whereas the likelihood of divorce during the first ten years of marriage was 14 percent for college-educated women from 1960 to 1964 and 18 percent from 1995 to 1999, the respective figures for non-college-educated women were 19 percent and 33 percent (Martin 2004). The divorce gap between more- and less-educated women, in other words, nearly quadrupled, rising from four to fifteen points. At present, college-educated women are less likely to be divorced than were non-college-educated women in the early 1960s. Massey, Douglas S.. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System (A Russell Sage Foundation Centennial Volume) (pp. 238-239). Russell Sage Foundation. Kindle Edition.
How does family income influence whether children graduate college (p. 190) Neo-traditional and kaleidoscope families
Scanned brain with fMRI. No activity in medial prefrontal cortex, which recognizes humans. "Whereas out-groups triggering feelings of pity and envy were instantly perceived as human beings and social actors, those who were despised were not seen in social terms at all—at the most fundamental level of cognition. Despised out-groups thus become dehumanized at the neural level, and those who harbor these feelings thus have license, in their own minds, to treat members of these out-groups as if they are animals or objects."
Prefrontal cortex
◦73- "The greatly reduced economic prospects experienced by poorer, less educated Americans over these four decades (greater job instability and declining relative earnings) have made it far more difficult for them to attain and sustain traditional pattern of marriage. Unemployment, underemployment, and poor economic prospects discourage and undermine stable relationships—that is the nearly universal finding of many studies, both qualitative and quantitative....Breakdown of the working-class family. Divorce rates and non-marital births. And it was primarily the factory closings of the 1980s, not the cultural turmoil of the 1960s, that triggered this collapse." Unintended births. Neo- sex later and more abortions and contraceptives. Sociologist Kelly Musick explain as low-class women's ambivalence toward pregnancy, less person efficacy among poor (feel less in control and powerful), difference access to abortion. In short, neo planned births and kal unplanned. Big impact on resources at start. Non-marital births - Graph on page 66. Less than 10% non-martial births for highly educated compared to 65% in 2007 for HS or less group. For HS African Americans is 80%. For college African Americans is 25%. 73- "The greatly reduced economic prospects experienced by poorer, less educated Americans over these four decades (greater job instability and declining relative earnings) have made it far more difficult for them to attain and sustain traditional pattern of marriage. Unemployment, underemployment, and poor economic prospects discourage and undermine stable relationships—that is the nearly universal finding of many studies, both qualitative and quantitative." 73- Breakdown of the working-class family. Divorce rates and non-marital births....And it was primarily the factory closings of the 1980s, not the cultural turmoil of the 1960s, that triggered this collapse." 73-74 "The ethnographers Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas found that while poor women value marriage as much as affluent women, they also believe (just like their sisters higher up the economic hierarchy) that in order to be successful, marriage must be postponed until couples have achieved economic well-being." Both poor and affluent want to defer marriage until financially stable, but only affluent will ever reach there. Poor defer marriage like rich, but have children b/c initial investment is not huge and can give meaning to life. Seek romance over marriage as respite to poverty and uncertainty. Tirado would be great here. Here I should bring that in from Carol Stack, Liebow. Looks to Great Depression. When men lost jobs marriage rate plummeted. 1940 survey showed 1.5 million women deserted by fathers. So cultural revolutions of 1960s and other are not only cause.
Mothers' Age and Employment Trend
Unintended births. Neo- sex later and more abortions and contraceptives. Sociologist Kelly Musick explain as low-class women's ambivalence toward pregnancy, less person efficacy among poor (feel less in control and powerful), difference access to abortion. In short, neo planned births and kal unplanned. Big impact on resources at start. Non-marital births - Graph on page 66. Less than 10% non-martial births for highly educated compared to 65% in 2007 for HS or less group. For HS African Americans is 80%. For college African Americans is 25%. 73- "The greatly reduced economic prospects experienced by poorer, less educated Americans over these four decades (greater job instability and declining relative earnings) have made it far more difficult for them to attain and sustain traditional pattern of marriage. Unemployment, underemployment, and poor economic prospects discourage and undermine stable relationships—that is the nearly universal finding of many studies, both qualitative and quantitative." 73- Breakdown of the working-class family. Divorce rates and non-marital births....And it was primarily the factory closings of the 1980s, not the cultural turmoil of the 1960s, that triggered this collapse." 73-74 "The ethnographers Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas found that while poor women value marriage as much as affluent women, they also believe (just like their sisters higher up the economic hierarchy) that in order to be successful, marriage must be postponed until couples have achieved economic well-being." Both poor and affluent want to defer marriage until financially stable, but only affluent will ever reach there. Poor defer marriage like rich, but have children b/c initial investment is not huge and can give meaning to life. Seek romance over marriage as respite to poverty and uncertainty. Tirado would be great here. Here I should bring that in from Carol Stack, Liebow. Looks to Great Depression. When men lost jobs marriage rate plummeted. 1940 survey showed 1.5 million women deserted by fathers. So cultural revolutions of 1960s and other are not only cause.
Neo-traditional and kaleidoscope families
◦"Children pay the cost of early childbearing and multi-partnered fertility in the form of diminished prospects for success in life. Children who grow up without their biological fathers perform worse on standardized tests, earn lower grades, and stay in school for fewer years, regardless of race and class. They are also more likely to demonstrate behavioral problems such as shyness, aggression, and psychological problems such as increased anxiety and depression." Not that women had kids for welfare benefits. Welfare went up in late 1960s and 1970s, dropped from 72-92, further after TANF in 1996. But single-parent households went up at this time. 75- "Moreover, since many mothers who experienced the collapse of the traditional family were not on welfare, the welfare system cannot have been the major cause." 75-76 - "'Family values' conservatives have sometimes argued that liberalism and secularism cause family disintegration. But unwed births and single-parent families are widely distributed across the country, and are concentrated neither in secular areas nor in 'blue' states, which presumably have pursued more progressive policies. If anything, the opposite seems to be true: divorce and single-parent families are especially common in the Southeastern, heavily Republican, socially conservative Bible Belt." 76- What did contribute to breakdown of family was War on Drugs and War on Crime. Huge jump in incarceration rates after 1980, despite fall in violent crimes at the same time. 76 -Looks to cohorts from 1978 and 1990. Kids born in 1990 to high school dropouts were more than 4X more likely to have a parent sent to prison than college-educated parents. African Americans (high school educated parents) had 1 in 2 chance of parent in prison. 78- "Children pay the cost of early childbearing and multi-partnered fertility in the form of diminished prospects for success in life. Children who grow up without their biological fathers perform worse on standardized tests, earn lower grades, and stay in school for fewer years, regardless of race and class. They are also more likely to demonstrate behavioral problems such as shyness, aggression, and psychological problems such as increased anxiety and depression." 79- Family specialist Isabel Sawhill "Generalizations are dangerous; many single parents are doing a terrific job under the circumstances. But on average, children from single parent families do worse in school and in life."
Prison and Family stability
- 25% of America's poor live in the Midwest - Earn 71% of urban residents - Average $11,000 less a year ◦No Ambulance, Police force, Library, Public Transportation
Rural Poverty
Rugged and Individualism and structural constraints: challenges the stereotype of poverty cycle due to behavior, dependence, and lack of motivation. Function as Worldview Values of rural and poverty "There is widespread denial of poverty, a fierce hold on independence and rugged individualism as cherished personal values, distant or nonexistent locally based social services, intolerance of differences, predominance of kin relationships as a chief source of social support, lack of anonymity, and less mobility. 7" Problems defining rural poverty. Rural poor don't think of themselves as poor. Done self-identify. Rural have money in land, but no cash (look like worth 6 or 7 figures but earn less than $20,000 a year). Can grow own food that is cheaper and healthier (whereas urban poor cannot). In most part structural with little control over weather, markets, availability of jobs. Note - Feeding Candy to the Cows > Page 62 · Location 2062 Challenges the stereotype of poverty cycle due to behavior, dependence, and lack of motivation.
Rural Poverty (cont.)
Separation and isolation within cities to separate, in rural setting not always possible. Edin: Small town situation. Few part-time jobs in grocery store, gas station, and Dollar General. Little in agriculture. Some schools (cafeteria or bus driver). A few factories (but you need a car to get there). Bad schools, often no ambulance, no police force. Business will not move in. No charity services, no scrap yards, no homeless shelter, no plasma clinic, libraries either absent, far away, or with limited hours. No public transportation. Few computers at library for job applications. Few food pantries. Duvail "Most rural communities are "one-job towns" when it comes to reliable, sustained employment...The rural reality is that the chances for pulling out of poverty are grim when the nearest job possibilities are more than 50 miles away, don't pay much more than minimum wage" 418 Midwestern poor make up about 25% of America's poor. and per capita income averages 71 percent of that of urban residents. 31 The unemployment rates tend to exceed the ongoing national average and the average non-farm income is less than 50 percent of their urban counterparts. Although they are some of the hardest working folks I know, rural Americans earn, on average, $ 11,000 less than their urban counterparts.
Rural Poverty (cont.)
Highlight (yellow) - Go to School or Go to Work? > Page 165 · Location 4387 The most likely explanation for educational spending failing to impact rural poverty rates is that successful students from poor homes in rural areas leave to go where the jobs are and rarely return to their communities. As a result, money spent on rural education does not directly impact the rural poverty rate; instead it contributes to an exodus of successful students. Highlight (yellow) - Go to School or Go to Work? > Page 165 · Location 4390 "Good jobs are what help rural areas come out of poverty, not quality education," a rural Wisconsin school district administrator observed. "Quality Note - Go to School or Go to Work? > Page 165 · Location 4390 So the big challenge here is that education does not help world poverty. How many jobs do. However, it is incredibly difficult to bring jobs to rural areas. They are not financially sustainable. Highlight (yellow) - America's Heartland > Page 46 · Location 1759 "Living in a metropolitan area usually guarantees plenty of safe drinking water, a working sewer system, promptly snow-plowed streets, speedy access to medical care and other services, and the security of knowing that, if you collapse while mowing your front lawn, or fall off your roof, within minutes someone with a cell phone will walk by and call 911. Rural life isn't nearly this secure. If you roll your tractor chances are nobody will know about it until you fail to show up for dinner. Even if someone does find you sooner, it will take a while for the volunteer rescue squad to get to you, and even longer to transport you to the nearest hospital, which might be fifty or more miles down a two-lane road congested with tractors, manure spreaders, combines and semis. The hospital probably won't have the latest medical equipment or be up to date on current emergency medical practices."
Rural poverty (contttt.)
Don - star quarterback. Played basketball. (Setting up soft skills lesson from later in book). Son of working class family. Dad worked two jobs but always made it to his games. Worked at manufacturing factory. House paid off. Kids in bed when dad gets home. Ate dinner together. He connected with other kids. Did not know he was poor until took economic in college. Graduated and became minister. Successful. Upward mobility of the 1950s.
Soft Skills
-Babysit, clean homes, cook meals, and trade sex for income, Street hustlers, underground labor, protect stores for money, fixing flat tire for money, selling homemade food in park, helping prepare a resume 124- Work without a job. Meaning some may not be employed, but they work tirelessly getting water, scrap metal, cleaning, growing food, traveling by foot, and the like. Off the Books Not wholly legal or illegal, transfers between both. Babysit, clean homes, cook meals, and trade sex for income Street hustlers, underground labor, protect stores for money, fixing flat tire for money, selling homemade food in park, helping prepare a resume, Survival but increasing alienation from mainstream world "book's central hypotheses: that the underground economy in Maquis Park is a logical and necessary adaptation to forced isolation from the economic and political resources of mainstream"
Underground Economy
"choose to help or not"
limbic
Wealthier people don't seem to understand it when some poor person pairs up with some other poor person who maybe isn't so perfect. Maybe doesn't have the greatest teeth, or the most steady employment, or the best attitude about the world. They seem to think that for every Julia Roberts, there's a Richard Gere just waiting to catapult her into respectability. It's only among the wealthy that most people could potentially model for clothing catalogs. Marry up as a life strategy—sure! In real life, Julia would have married a recently laid-off cab driver. We choose from what's available, after all. It's not like laureates and models are thick on the ground, and Richard Gere isn't going to show up to whisk me out of the strip club anytime soon. So I wind up with people who are as flawed as I am; people who work where I do and shop where I do and socialize where I do. It doesn't lend itself to meeting a millionaire and running off to a happily-ever-after in the Hamptons, or even the suburbs. That doesn't mean we're indiscriminate. We do not simply drop trou and rut like animals upon spotting another human that we might be able to ****. We have sex for the same reasons rich people do—we are in love, we liked someone's smile, someone made us laugh. Sometimes they're cute and there's a spark. Of course the kind of cliché downward spiral about poor women is that once things get really bad, they have nothing left to sell but their bodies. That's probably the worst thing most rich people can imagine a poor person having to sink to. Well, that and starving to death. But don't we all trade sex for something? Even rich people do that—just ask one of those women you see with a big fat diamond on her finger and a boring and unattractive husband to go with it. Tirado, Linda. Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America (pp. 97-98). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. "What really riles me is this idea that poor people are somehow inherently more selfish when we have children. There are plenty of rich people who have kids for exactly the same reasons I just described—because they want someone who will love them unconditionally, and with whom they can share that kind of all-encompassing love. But somehow, because they have money, rich people are entitled to feel that way without being derided. Let's not kid ourselves, though, that it's any less selfish or self-centered." Tirado, Linda. Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America (pp. 118-119). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. Okay, quick lesson time. Welfare isn't a thing. That is to say, welfare is a lot of things as opposed to one thing. And each of these things has different requirements. It's not hard to qualify for some things, relatively speaking. If you're starving, you can pretty much count on qualifying for SNAP or food bank services. Now, access to those things can be sketchy, but that's a different point. The point here is that food benefits can be spent only on food; the benefit card blocks anything that isn't approved. Cash benefits, the ATM-withdrawal kind of welfare—money that you can use on rent, gas, the water bill, clothing—are actually damn near impossible to qualify for. And to get them, you've got to jump through a lot of extra hoops. Cash benefits are the ones tied to work or looking for work or training for work or working for the state. If you are desperate enough to be breeding for cash benefits, you are for all practical purposes having kids in order to be poor enough for the government to give you a full-time job. See, the reason everyone says that you get more money for having kids is that your benefits are determined by both your income and household size. So, to make it an income stream, you have to decrease your non-benefit income and/or increase your household size sufficiently. That, I think, is probably pretty rare. And if you think about it for a few seconds, I think you will see how ridiculous the whole idea of it is. It would be like breaking your leg so you can go to the hospital because they'll feed you while you're there. I definitely have told that joke once or twice—that I was having kids for the sweet, sweet government cheese—but hello? I meant it as a joke. Granted, I do think there are many stupid people out there. There are stupid rich people and there are stupid poor people. The stupid rich people think that welfare queens are breeding like rabbits. And sure, there are probably a few people out there who did not realize even after Kid One that kids are a giant pain in the ass. Maybe a few of those idiots thought they'd make an easy paycheck by having another kid. But I'd argue that there are a lot fewer of these poor idiots than those rich idiots think there are. And by a "lot fewer," I mean a statistically insignificant number of poor people are doing this. Can I prove this? No. But nor can I prove that people aren't breaking their legs just to get some lunch. I'm not even certain how people think it's possible that someone would have kids for welfare benefits. Do these people not have kids of their own? Did they manage to sleep through the colic somehow, or did they simply block it out? I mean, if you're going to pay me in multiple tens of thousands of dollars a year to have a kid, okay, maybe it's worth thinking about. But a few thousand dollars extra, best-case scenario, and that's my entire income and I'll still be living this desperate life? Yeah, no, I'll pass on that deal. Tirado, Linda. Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America (p. 121). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.
family income?
- "educated" use reasoning and guilt - "less educated" use physical punishment Frank Furstenberg: -upper use "promotive" strategies in a safe environment -lower use of "preventative" to keep kids safe in dangerous environment
hug/spank ratio
Extra curricular activities huge. Soft skills built. But keep cutting budgets. Rich can fill that money gap, poor cannot. Pay to play. Estimate $400 an sport or activity per year. Have to buy equipment, uniform, instrument. Football, chorus, debate club teach lessons. 179- "In our new era of budget belt-tightening, high-stakes testing, and academic 'core competencies,' however, school boards everywhere have decided that extracurricular activities and soft skills are 'frills.'" 180- Survey of Midwest states found cost went 2007 ($75) and 2012 ($150) per sport. State of California ruled pay to play unconstitutional. In Painesville, Ohio cross-country is $521, football $783, and tennis $933. Equipment costs are $350 on top of that. For a family with two kids playing two sports, that is $1600 a year. Amounts to 1-2% of top 20% income groups annual income but nearly 10% of lowest 20% earners. 181- In pay to play was introduced 1 in 3 kids in homes with $60000 or under dropped out of sports. Only 1 in 10 in families making more than $60000.
low and high SES (cont.)
When we get to sports, the important influence of Title 9 on women and soft skills (leadership and managerial positions). This is a connection to women in this chapter. Soft skills key. 174 Lead to "higher grade-point averages, lower dropout rates, lower truancy, better work habits, higher educational aspirations, lower delinquency rates, greater self-esteem, more psychological resilience, less risky behavior, more civic engagement (like voting and volunteering), and higher future wages and occupational attainment." Grit, teamwork, leadership, and sociability. Extra curricular activities huge. Soft skills built. But keep cutting budgets. Rich can fill that money gap, poor cannot. Pay to play. Estimate $400 an sport or activity per year. Have to buy equipment, uniform, instrument. Football, chorus, debate club teach lessons.
low and high SES (cont.) title 9
◦Eat meals together ◦Read ◦Talk with children ◦Discipline through encouragements Question, if you are going into pediatrics, what can I do. Eat meals together, read, serve and return, discipline through encouragements 112- Stress - "stress caused by unstable and consistently unresponsive caregiving, physical or emotional abuse, parental substance abuse, and lack of affection can produce measurable physiological changes in the child that lead to lifelong difficulties in learning, behavior, and both physical and mental health, including depression, alcoholism, obesity, and heart disease." Annette Lareau Unequal Childhoods - Natural growth and concerted cultivation 119-121- Richer and educated parents focus on self-reliance (autonomous, independent, self-directed, high self-esteem) and poorer less-educated obedience (conformity to pre-established rules). 130-131- Behavioral economists Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir Scarcity. Brain like bandwidth. Like having too many apps open, brain like scarcity causes inability to grasp, manage, and plan. (Putnam) "What we usually understand as an impoverished parent's lack of skills, care, patience, tolerance, attention, and dedication can actually be attributed to the fact that the parent's mind is functioning under a heavy load." (Mullainathan and Shafir) "Good parenting requires bandwidth. It requires complex decisions and sacrifice. Children need to be motivated to do things they dislike, appointments have to be kept, activities planned, teachers met and their feedback processed, tutoring or extra help provided or procured and then monitored. This is hard for anyone, whatever his resources. It is doubly hard when your bandwidth is reduced."
parenting style
8-"The roots of social stratification thus lie ultimately in the cognitive construction of boundaries to make social distinctions, a task that comes naturally to human beings, who are mentally hardwired to engage in categorical through." 9- "Human beings are psychologically programmed to categorize the people they encounter and to use these categorizations to make social judgements." Acute when under conditions of danger or uncertainty. 10- Discussion of brain. Limbic system is emotional. Neocortex is rational. Connected through neutrally interconnections. Faster from limbic to neocortex than other way. Emotions stir thoughts, less so the other way. Feel scared, threatened, or in peril. If you ever thought that way, the pathway has been created.
schemas, limbic system, and prefrontal cortex
204 - Social Mechanisms- Build social networks. Rich social networks create additional opportunities. They do not rely on the other rich for survival, limiting interaction to exchanges that benefit both (socializing and connecting to opportunities that can be repaid at a later date). More social, emotional, and symbolic rewards. Poor socializing hurts economic mobility. Quotes Carol Stack. Neighbors take from you to survive as you take from them. Both lose. Any money gained quickly dissipates in the community. Rich can have a wider social network, using computers, internet, travel, conferences. Poor limited to local connections, who are often segregated into poor areas themselves.
social network and informal mentors
Social networks. Rich have more informal social networks of acquaintances that can help you with jobs and school. Poor's networks are often small and more redundant (the people you know also know the same people—less a friend of a friend situations). Top 20% have 20-25% more close friends than bottom 20%. White parents have 15-20% more close friends than nonwhites. Broader social networks. Graph on page 209. Richer kids have broader network of mentors - page 215 206- "We Americans like to think of ourselves as 'rugged individualists'—in the image of the lone cowboy riding toward the setting sun, opening the frontier. But at least as accurate a symbol of our national story is the wagon train, with its mutual aid among a community of pioneers. Thoughout our history, a pendulum has slowly swung between the poles of individualism and community, both in our public philosophy and in our daily lives. In the past half century we have witnessed, for better or worse, a giant swing toward the individualist (or libertarian) pole in our culture, society, and politics. At the same time, researchers have steadily piled up evidence of how important social context, social institutions, and social networks—in short, our communities—remain for our well-being and our kids' opportunities." "gain emotional satisfaction, material support, and symbolic rewards, what differs by class is the degree to which their network connections possess capital—financial, social, cultural, and physical—to share." Massey, Douglas S.. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System (A Russell Sage Foundation Centennial Volume) (p. 203). Russell Sage Foundation. Kindle Edition. Social networks thus operate as a means of redistributing uncontrollable economic shocks and diversifying the risks across time and space. Massey, Douglas S.. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System (A Russell Sage Foundation Centennial Volume) (p. 203). Russell Sage Foundation. Kindle Edition. Under these circumstances, network members who do manage to accumulate a small cushion of emotional, material, and symbolic resources are at constant risk of having their meager surplus disappear in response to the incessant demands from friends, relatives, and acquaintances in desperate need of assistance. Under conditions of concentrated deprivation, therefore, networks function as a mechanism of social leveling and undermine the odds of individual advancement. Massey, Douglas S.. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System (A Russell Sage Foundation Centennial Volume) (p. 203). Russell Sage Foundation. Kindle Edition. Bring in examples from Dark Ghetto and Talley's Corner Internet usage differs. Educated use for jobs, education, political and social engagement, health, and news, not recreation and entertainment. Others play important role. Cheryl helped by older white women whose house she cleaned. Don help from pastor with college. Andrew and fire chief. Clara help from college professor who directed her to graduate school. Madeline help from Penn professor of writing. Youth pastor for Lisa and Amy. Robert D. Putnam Our Kids 206- "We Americans like to think of ourselves as 'rugged individualists'—in the image of the lone cowboy riding toward the setting sun, opening the frontier. But at least as accurate a symbol of our national story is the wagon train, with its mutual aid among a community of pioneers. Throughout our history, a pendulum has slowly swung between the poles of individualism and community, both in our public philosophy and in our daily lives. In the past half century we have witnessed, for better or worse, a giant swing toward the individualist (or libertarian) pole in our culture, society, and politics. At the same time, researchers have steadily piled up evidence of how important social context, social institutions, and social networks—in short, our communities—remain for our well-being and our kids' opportunities."
social network and informal mentors (cont.)
Extra-curricular activities - soft skills: "higher grade-point averages, lower dropout rates, lower truancy, better work habits, higher educational aspirations, lower delinquency rates, greater self-esteem, more psychological resilience, less risky behavior, more civic engagement (like voting and volunteering), and higher future wages and occupational attainment"
view of people from low and high SES on whether others are helpful or looking out for themselves