Jay Macleod
Biographic Data
| ID | 3964388 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jay Macleod |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jay |
| FAMILY NAME | Macleod |
| SIGNATURE | MACLEOD J |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Ain't No Makin' It? The Men at Midlife
The Brothers
In 1984 the Brothers were buoyant with hope. In 1991 most were deflated. In 2006 the picture is mixed. I traveled by train across two states to see James and flew to Utah to speak with Derek. Craig seems to have left his wife, cut ties with his wider family, and found work on the West Coast as a personal fitness trainer. I discovered on the Internet a workout videotape that features Craig, but that’s as close as I got to him. In tracking down Sup…
The Brothers
In 1984 the Brothers hoped that by 1991 they would be on the way to middle-class prosperity. Even more so than the Hallway Hangers, the Brothers have been employed in the service sector of the economy. They have bagged groceries, stocked shelves, flipped hamburgers, delivered pizzas, repaired cars, serviced airplanes, cleaned buildings, moved furniture, driven tow trucks, pumped gas, delivered auto parts, and washed dishes. Mike, the only white m…
Social Immobility in the Land of Opportunity
Hopelessness is the most striking aspect of Freddie&s;s outlook. Erik H. Erikson writes that hope is the basic ingredient of all vitality; stripped of hope, one has little left to lose. The depressed aspirations of Clarendon Heights youngsters are telling. There is a strong relationship between aspirations and occupational outcomes; if individuals do not even aspire to middle-class jobs, then they are unlikely to achieve them. Several decades of …
The Hallway Hangers
This chapter investigates the siege mentality and racism of the Hallway Hangers, and shows how their identities are formed around the axes of race, class, and gender, and recount their experiences of work. In their midtwenties, the seven Hallway Hangers should be in the labor force full-time. The Hallway Hangers have faced a job market completely different from the one their fathers entered as young men. With the restructuring of the US economy, …
The Hallway Hangers
When I spoke with Boo-Boo in the summer of 1991, he was grieving for one daughter and contemplating the deaths of his second daughter and his girlfriend. He didn’t say so, but it was clear that Boo-Boo was also facing up to his own fate. Boo-Boo died in 1994, having first buried Natasha, Connie, and Ginger. During the early days of my 2006 fieldwork, nearly every street-corner conversation alluded to Boo-Boo’s deathbed courage and to his extraord…
The Influence of the Family
As the focal socializing agency, especially in the early years of a child&s;s life, the family plays a crucial role in the process of social reproduction. Boo-Boo also has lived in Clarendon Heights for his entire life. He and his older brother have a different father than his younger brother. Both fathers live out of state and very seldom venture to Clarendon Heights. Frankie&s;s family lived in the Heights for thirty years, and although his mot…
The World of Work
Given that work determines one&s;s social class, the perpetuation of class inequality requires that boys like the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers go on to jobs that are comparable in status to the occupations of their parents. Conventional, middle-class orientations toward employment are inadequate to describe the Hallway Hangers" approach to work. The notion of a career, a set of jobs that are connected to one another in a logical progression, …
Teenagers in Clarendon Heights
On any given day, except during the coldest winter months, the evening hours in Clarendon Heights are filled with activity. Frankie, the acknowledged leader of the Hallway Hangers, is of only medium height and weight, but his fighting ability is unsurpassed among teenagers in Clarendon Heights. Boo-Boo, the other black member of the Hallway Hangers, is a tall, quiet, dark-skinned youth. His serious nature makes him a less frequent target of abuse…
Leveled Aspirations
The regulation of aspirations is perhaps the most significant of all the mechanisms contributing to social reproduction; however, aspirations themselves are largely a function of structural mechanisms that should be considered when possible. In their theoretical formulations, both Weber and Marx touch on the role of ideology in the maintenance of social cohesion. In contemporary America, the educational system, by sorting students according to os…
Conclusion
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discloses that the roots of perceived individual pathology, unruliness in school, alcohol and drug abuse, violence, and crime, actually lie deep within the social structure. It explores how the Hallway Hangers and Brothers fare in the structure of the job market. The book shows clearly that poverty is not a black issue. In…
Reproduction Theory Reconsidered
Conceptualizing reproduction theory as a spectrum, with one end dominated by economically determinist theories and the other by theories asserting the autonomy of the cultural level, we reviewed the work of Bowles and Gintis on the determinist end of the spectrum and progressed through the theories of Bourdieu, Bernstein and Heath, and Willis and Giroux at the other end of the spectrum. Bowles and Gintis do give an excellent account of the hidden…
Reproduction, Redemption, and Respect
Returning to Clarendon Heights in 1991 was a depressing experience. Both the Brothers and the Hallway Hangers were struggling, and their young lives suggested that social inequality is more entrenched in the United States than I’d thought. Thankfully, the picture in 2007 is brighter. The majority of the men may still be mired at the bottom of society, but some have achieved working-class stability and even penetrated the middle class.
Social Reproduction in Theoretical Perspective
In the review of reproduction theory, this chapter begins with Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, who represent the economic determinist end of the spectrum, progress through the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Basil Bernstein, and Shirley Brice Heath. For all its distinctiveness, Bernstein&s;s work is understood most easily in the context of Bourdieu&s;s theory of cultural capital. Through the concepts of cultural capital and habitus, Bourdieu seeks to…
School
School is an institution in which the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers are forced into daily contact. Many of the attitudes we already have uncovered are played out in school and made manifest in the boys&s; conduct. Lincoln High School students from all four grades in the main academic program are sorted randomly into the four main houses of the school, as are staff members from all the academic areas. Enterprise Co-op is an alternative, career-…
Ain’t No Makin’ It
In articulating one's aspirations, an individual weighs his or her preferences more heavily; expectations are tempered by perceived capabilities and available opportunities. The definitions of aspirations and expectations given suggest that an assessment of the opportunity structure and of one's capabilities impinge on one's preferences for the future. The Hallway Hangers often draw attention to specific incidents that support their general and v…
Ain't No Makin'It
This classic text addresses one of the most important issues in modern social theory and policy: how social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next. With the original 1987 publication of Ain't No Makin' It, Jay MacLeod brought us to the Clarendon Heights housing project where we met the 'Brothers' and the 'Hallway Hangers'. Their story of poverty, race, and defeatism moved readers and challenged ethnic stereotypes. MacLeod's retu…
Minds Stayed on Freedom
Bridging Street and School
Driving down a city street it is all too easy to glance over at teenagers lounging in public housing doorways and dismiss the young men and women one sees as ignorant, lazy losers. That sort of causal simplicity is attractive-deficient individuals lead to wasted lives. What one sees on the streets, however, is actually complex; the further one pushes beneath the surface texts of teenagers' lives, the more complicated the picture gets. We begin to…
Ain't No Makin'It
This classic text addresses one of the most important issues in modern social theory and policy: how social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next. With the original 1987 publication of Ain't No Makin' It, Jay MacLeod brought us to the Clarendon Heights housing project where we met the 'Brothers' and the 'Hallway Hangers'. Their story of poverty, race, and defeatism moved readers and challenged ethnic stereotypes. MacLeod's retu…
Bridging Street and School
Driving down a city street it is all too easy to glance over at teenagers lounging in public housing doorways and dismiss the young men and women one sees as ignorant, lazy losers. That sort of causal simplicity is attractive-deficient individuals lead to wasted lives. What one sees on the streets, however, is actually complex; the further one pushes beneath the surface texts of teenagers' lives, the more complicated the picture gets. We begin to…
Bridging Street and School
Driving down a city street it is all too easy to glance over at teenagers lounging in public housing doorways and dismiss the young men and women one sees as ignorant, lazy losers. That sort of causal simplicity is attractive-deficient individuals lead to wasted lives. What one sees on the streets, however, is actually complex; the further one pushes beneath the surface texts of teenagers' lives, the more complicated the picture gets. We begin to…
Minds Stayed on Freedom
Ain't No Makin' It? The Men at Midlife
The Brothers
In 1984 the Brothers were buoyant with hope. In 1991 most were deflated. In 2006 the picture is mixed. I traveled by train across two states to see James and flew to Utah to speak with Derek. Craig seems to have left his wife, cut ties with his wider family, and found work on the West Coast as a personal fitness trainer. I discovered on the Internet a workout videotape that features Craig, but that’s as close as I got to him. In tracking down Sup…
The Brothers
In 1984 the Brothers hoped that by 1991 they would be on the way to middle-class prosperity. Even more so than the Hallway Hangers, the Brothers have been employed in the service sector of the economy. They have bagged groceries, stocked shelves, flipped hamburgers, delivered pizzas, repaired cars, serviced airplanes, cleaned buildings, moved furniture, driven tow trucks, pumped gas, delivered auto parts, and washed dishes. Mike, the only white m…
Social Immobility in the Land of Opportunity
Hopelessness is the most striking aspect of Freddie&s;s outlook. Erik H. Erikson writes that hope is the basic ingredient of all vitality; stripped of hope, one has little left to lose. The depressed aspirations of Clarendon Heights youngsters are telling. There is a strong relationship between aspirations and occupational outcomes; if individuals do not even aspire to middle-class jobs, then they are unlikely to achieve them. Several decades of …
The Hallway Hangers
This chapter investigates the siege mentality and racism of the Hallway Hangers, and shows how their identities are formed around the axes of race, class, and gender, and recount their experiences of work. In their midtwenties, the seven Hallway Hangers should be in the labor force full-time. The Hallway Hangers have faced a job market completely different from the one their fathers entered as young men. With the restructuring of the US economy, …
The Hallway Hangers
When I spoke with Boo-Boo in the summer of 1991, he was grieving for one daughter and contemplating the deaths of his second daughter and his girlfriend. He didn’t say so, but it was clear that Boo-Boo was also facing up to his own fate. Boo-Boo died in 1994, having first buried Natasha, Connie, and Ginger. During the early days of my 2006 fieldwork, nearly every street-corner conversation alluded to Boo-Boo’s deathbed courage and to his extraord…
The Influence of the Family
As the focal socializing agency, especially in the early years of a child&s;s life, the family plays a crucial role in the process of social reproduction. Boo-Boo also has lived in Clarendon Heights for his entire life. He and his older brother have a different father than his younger brother. Both fathers live out of state and very seldom venture to Clarendon Heights. Frankie&s;s family lived in the Heights for thirty years, and although his mot…
The World of Work
Given that work determines one&s;s social class, the perpetuation of class inequality requires that boys like the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers go on to jobs that are comparable in status to the occupations of their parents. Conventional, middle-class orientations toward employment are inadequate to describe the Hallway Hangers" approach to work. The notion of a career, a set of jobs that are connected to one another in a logical progression, …
Teenagers in Clarendon Heights
On any given day, except during the coldest winter months, the evening hours in Clarendon Heights are filled with activity. Frankie, the acknowledged leader of the Hallway Hangers, is of only medium height and weight, but his fighting ability is unsurpassed among teenagers in Clarendon Heights. Boo-Boo, the other black member of the Hallway Hangers, is a tall, quiet, dark-skinned youth. His serious nature makes him a less frequent target of abuse…
Leveled Aspirations
The regulation of aspirations is perhaps the most significant of all the mechanisms contributing to social reproduction; however, aspirations themselves are largely a function of structural mechanisms that should be considered when possible. In their theoretical formulations, both Weber and Marx touch on the role of ideology in the maintenance of social cohesion. In contemporary America, the educational system, by sorting students according to os…
Conclusion
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discloses that the roots of perceived individual pathology, unruliness in school, alcohol and drug abuse, violence, and crime, actually lie deep within the social structure. It explores how the Hallway Hangers and Brothers fare in the structure of the job market. The book shows clearly that poverty is not a black issue. In…
Reproduction Theory Reconsidered
Conceptualizing reproduction theory as a spectrum, with one end dominated by economically determinist theories and the other by theories asserting the autonomy of the cultural level, we reviewed the work of Bowles and Gintis on the determinist end of the spectrum and progressed through the theories of Bourdieu, Bernstein and Heath, and Willis and Giroux at the other end of the spectrum. Bowles and Gintis do give an excellent account of the hidden…
Reproduction, Redemption, and Respect
Returning to Clarendon Heights in 1991 was a depressing experience. Both the Brothers and the Hallway Hangers were struggling, and their young lives suggested that social inequality is more entrenched in the United States than I’d thought. Thankfully, the picture in 2007 is brighter. The majority of the men may still be mired at the bottom of society, but some have achieved working-class stability and even penetrated the middle class.
Social Reproduction in Theoretical Perspective
In the review of reproduction theory, this chapter begins with Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, who represent the economic determinist end of the spectrum, progress through the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Basil Bernstein, and Shirley Brice Heath. For all its distinctiveness, Bernstein&s;s work is understood most easily in the context of Bourdieu&s;s theory of cultural capital. Through the concepts of cultural capital and habitus, Bourdieu seeks to…
School
School is an institution in which the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers are forced into daily contact. Many of the attitudes we already have uncovered are played out in school and made manifest in the boys&s; conduct. Lincoln High School students from all four grades in the main academic program are sorted randomly into the four main houses of the school, as are staff members from all the academic areas. Enterprise Co-op is an alternative, career-…
Ain’t No Makin’ It
In articulating one's aspirations, an individual weighs his or her preferences more heavily; expectations are tempered by perceived capabilities and available opportunities. The definitions of aspirations and expectations given suggest that an assessment of the opportunity structure and of one's capabilities impinge on one's preferences for the future. The Hallway Hangers often draw attention to specific incidents that support their general and v…
Ain't No Makin'It
This classic text addresses one of the most important issues in modern social theory and policy: how social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next. With the original 1987 publication of Ain't No Makin' It, Jay MacLeod brought us to the Clarendon Heights housing project where we met the 'Brothers' and the 'Hallway Hangers'. Their story of poverty, race, and defeatism moved readers and challenged ethnic stereotypes. MacLeod's retu…
Sociology (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Biology (3 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (3 works) · Ecology (3 works) · Race, History, and American Society (3 works) · Reproduction (3 works) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (3 works)