Ain't No Makin' It

by MacLeod, Jay

• ISBN13: 9780813341873
• ISBN10: 0813341876
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-08-05
• Publisher: Westview Pr

Summary

With the original 1987 publication ofAin't No Makin' ItJay MacLeod brought us to the Clarendon Heights housing project where we met the "Brothers" and "Hallway Hangers." Their story of poverty, race, and defeatism moved readers and challenged ethnic stereotypes. MacLeod's return eight years later, and the resulting 1995 revision, revealed little improvement in the lives of these men as they struggled in the labor market and crime-ridden underground economy. This classic ethnography addresses one of the most important issues in modern social theory and policy: how social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next. Now republished with a preface by Joe Feagin,Ain't No Makin' Itremains an admired and invaluable text.

Author Biography

A Rhodes scholar, Jay MacLeod holds degrees in social studies and theology. He and his wife, Sally Asher, spent four years in Mississippi, where their work with local teenagers led to the publication of Minds Stayed on Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle in the Rural South, An Oral History (WestviewPress). MacLeod is now an Anglican priest in Chesterfield, a declining mining and market town in Asher's native England.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Preface	xvii
Acknowledgments	xix
Part One The Hallway Hangers and the Brothers as Teenagers
Social Immobility in the Land of Opportunity	3	(8)
Social Reproduction in Theoretical Perspective	11	(14)
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis: Schooled by Social Class	12	(1)
Pierre Bourdieu: Cultural Capital and Habitus	13	(3)
Basil Bernstein and Shirley Brice Heath: Linguistic Cultural Capital	16	(2)
Paul Willis: The Lads and the Ear'oles	18	(2)
Henry Giroux: Student Resistance to School	20	(2)
Social Reproduction in Clarendon Heights	22	(1)
Notes	23	(2)
Teenagers in Clarendon Heights: The Hallway Hangers and the Brothers	25	(25)
The Hallway Hangers: ``You Gotta Be Bad''	25	(18)
The Brothers: Conspicuous by Their Conventionality	43	(6)
Notes	49	(1)
The Influence of the Family	50	(11)
The Hallway Hangers' Households	50	(3)
The Brothers' Families	53	(7)
Notes	60	(1)
The World of Work: Aspirations of the Hangers and Brothers	61	(22)
The Hallway Hangers: Keeping a Lid on Hope	61	(13)
The Brothers: Ready at the Starting Line	74	(7)
Notes	81	(2)
School: Preparing for the Competition	83	(29)
The Brothers: Conformity and Compliance	88	(4)
The Hallway Hangers: Teacher's Nightmare	92	(5)
The Underlying Logic of Student Behavior	97	(13)
Notes	110	(2)
Leveled Aspirations: Social Reproduction Takes Its Toll	112	(23)
The Hallway Hangers: Internalizing Probabilities, Rescuing Self-Esteem	113	(11)
The Brothers: Internalizing Failure, Shorn of Self-Esteem	124	(4)
The Sources of Variation	128	(6)
Notes	134	(1)
Reproduction Theory Reconsidered	135	(20)
Building on Bourdieu	135	(3)
From Ethnography to Theory	138	(6)
Individuals in the Social Landscape	144	(3)
Cultural Autonomy Within Structural Constraints	147	(3)
Notes	150	(5)
Part Two Eight Years Later: Low Income, Low Outcome
The Hallway Hangers: Dealing in Despair	155	(41)
On the Job	160	(9)
Working the Street	169	(13)
Producing Themselves	182	(12)
Notes	194	(2)
The Brothers: Dreams Deferred	196	(43)
Shortchanged on the Labor Market	196	(15)
Sold on School	211	(6)
Aspiration and Outcome: What Went Wrong?	217	(14)
Groping for the Good Life	231	(6)
Notes	237	(2)
Conclusion: Outclassed and Outcast(e)	239	(31)
Poverty: A Class Issue	241	(2)
Racial Domination: Invidious but Invisible	243	(4)
Race Versus Class: Can They Be Untangled?	247	(3)
Structure Versus Agency: ``No One to Blame but Me''	250	(9)
What Is to Be Done?	259	(6)
Class Dismissed	265	(3)
Notes	268	(2)
Appendix: On the Making of Ain't No Makin' It	270	(33)
Fieldwork: Doubts, Dilemmas, and Discoveries	270	(23)
Second Harvest: Notes on the 1991 Field Experience	293	(10)
Bibliography	303	(7)
About the Book and Author	310	(1)
Index	311