Alford Young, Jr. Jessica Wiederspan University of Michigan
In the United States, scholars have long argued that the primary way in which individuals collectively explain the process of economic stratification is through the ideology of the American Dream, or the belief that all people have a reasonable chance to achieve economic success based on their own hard work and effort. Yet research suggests that individuals born to parents in the bottom or the top of the income distribution are likely to remain in those positions as adults, placing into serious question whether all Americans have a reasonable chance to achieve economic success. Despite this contradiction, it is unclear how individuals reconcile broader cultural messages about meritocracy with their own experiences and observations in order to construct a worldview that is generally consistent with, or in opposition to, the ideology of the American Dream. Through in-depth interviews with 80 individuals in two Midwestern cities, the investigators will generate a qualitative dataset uniquely capable of addressing the question of how worldviews about economic opportunity are formed. My specific research questions are as follows:
1.How do individuals explain the process of economic stratification in the United States?
2.Under what circumstances do individuals' worldviews tend to reproduce the dominant ideology of individualism, and under what conditions do they tend to challenge it?
3.Are there trends in why certain cultural schemas or personal experiences and observations seem to be more salient than others in the development of individuals' worldviews on economic stratification? What mechanisms and processes seem most prominent in the development of these views?
Studying the dominant way in which the people in a society collectively explain the process of economic stratification can help us understand how and why particular social arrangements are reproduced, especially if those arrangements appear to disadvantage many individuals. This research can also provide insight into the potential that exists for social transformation and help us to make sense of individuals? behavior as economic and civic actors.
Broader Impacts
The issue of what individuals think about economic stratification has been the subject of national surveys (such as a series conducted by the Pew Research Center's Economic Mobility Project in 2009 and 2011) and stories by media outlets such as National Public Radio. Yet because there is no compelling account of why people believe what they do, as well as the mechanisms that lead people to reject or reproduce this dominant ideology, this project has the ability to fill a gap in the public knowledge on this issue and appeal widely outside of academic circles. In addition, the Director of Economic Development for one of the cities in which interviews will be concerned has expressed interest in this research, as it has the potential to provide insight into the types of economic challenges faced by families in the area. The results will also be offered to officials in the second city.
