Who Believes in the American Dream?

Author(s):  
Carol Graham

This chapter goes on to ask who still believes in the American Dream. It begins with a review of what we know about the relationship between inequality, well-being, and attitudes about future mobility. It summarizes what we know from survey data on attitudes about inequality and opportunity in the United States, and then places those attitudes in the context of those in other countries and regions, based on new data and analysis with a focus on individuals' beliefs in the role of hard work in future success. Evidence suggests that the American Dream is very unevenly shared across socioeconomic cohorts. The poor and the rich in the United States lead very different lives, with the former having a much harder time looking beyond day-to-day struggles and associated high levels of stress, while the latter is able to pursue much better futures for themselves and their children, with the gaps between the two likely to increase even more in the future.

Author(s):  
Mirelsie Velazquez

The education of Latina/o/x populations in the United States has been the focus of debates, struggles, and community engagement for over 100 years. From linguistic inequalities, deficit perspectives, and community battles, to contemporary rhetoric on access, this entry explores the relationship between schools/schooling and Latina/o/x communities, both historically and in the contemporary context. Important to these narratives is the role of Latinas. To understand their centrality, it is important that the works of Latina and Chicana theorists and scholars are in conversation with one another to contextualize the role of Latinas, whether as community organizers, educators, or mothers, in the education of Latina/o/x populations, and by extension in the overall well-being of their communities. Similarly, the scholarship on and by Latinas complicates the role of stories and their positionality in education research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Vasika Hananti ◽  
Bambang Subandrijo

Abstract: Harvey J. Sindima observed Liberation Theology as it flourished in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the United States. The social situation in that society has some similarities in Luke's community. According to Philip Francis Esler's research, Luke's theology seeks to answer the social situation in Luke's community, especially regarding the relationship between the rich and the poor. This study aims to review Sindima's review of Liberation Theology based on Philip Francis Esler's thoughts on the relationship between rich and poor in Luke's Gospel. In Sindima's writings, the involvement of the rich has not been found as an effort to minimize the suffering of the poor. In this study, the author uses an analytical method. The result is that the good news for the poor in Liberation Theology is in line with the good news in Luke's Gospel. Moreover, in Luke's Gospel the liberation of the poor is not only the responsibility of the poor themselves as in the Theology of Liberation in Sindima's description, but also the responsibility of the rich as part of a sharing community.  Abstrak: Harvey J. Sindima mengamati Teologi Pembebasan yang berkembang di Amerika Latin, Afrika, Asia, dan Amerika Serikat. Situasi sosial dalam masyarakat tersebut memiliki beberapa kesamaan dalam komunitas Lukas. Menurut penelitian Philip Francis Esler, teologi Lukas berupaya menjawab situasi sosial dalam komunitas Lukas, terutama menyangkut hubungan orang kaya dan orang miskin. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk meninjau uraian Sindima tentang Teologi Pembebasan berdasarkan pemikiran Philip Francis Esler berkenaan dengan hubungan orang miskin dan kaya dalam Injil Lukas. Dalam tulisan Sindima masih belum ditemukan keterlibatan orang kaya sebagai upaya meminimalisir penderitaan orang miskin. Dalam penelitian ini, penulis menggunakan metode analitis. Hasil tinjauan ini adalah bahwa kabar baik bagi orang miskin dalam Teologi Pembebasan sejalan dengan pemberitaan kabar baik dalam Injil Lukas. Lebih dari itu, dalam Injil Lukas pembebasan terhadap orang miskin bukan hanya menjadi tanggung jawab orang miskin itu sendiri sebagaimana dalam Teologi Pembebasan dalam uraian Sindima, tetapi juga merupakan tanggung jawab orang kaya sebagai bagian dari komunitas yang saling berbagi.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Rigoli

Research has shown that stress impacts on people’s religious beliefs. However, several aspects of this effect remain poorly understood, for example regarding the role of prior religiosity and stress-induced anxiety. This paper explores these aspects in the context of the recent coronavirus emergency. The latter has impacted dramatically on many people’s well-being; hence it can be considered a highly stressful event. Through online questionnaires administered to UK and USA citizens professing either Christian faith or no religion, this paper examines the impact of the coronavirus crisis upon common people’s religious beliefs. We found that, following the coronavirus emergency, strong believers reported higher confidence in their religious beliefs while non-believers reported increased scepticism towards religion. Moreover, for strong believers, higher anxiety elicited by the coronavirus threat was associated with increased strengthening of religious beliefs. Conversely, for non-believers, higher anxiety elicited by the coronavirus thereat was associated with increased scepticism towards religious beliefs. These observations are consistent with the notion that stress-induced anxiety enhances support for the ideology already embraced before a stressful event occurs. This study sheds light on the psychological and cultural implications of the coronavirus crisis, which represents one of the most serious health emergencies in recent times.


2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142199840
Author(s):  
Tara D. Warner ◽  
Tara Leigh Tober ◽  
Tristan Bridges ◽  
David F. Warner

Protection is now the modal motivation for gun ownership, and men continue to outnumber women among gun owners. While research has linked economic precarity (e.g., insecurity and anxiety) to gun ownership and attitudes, separating economic well-being from constructions of masculinity is challenging. In response to blocked economic opportunities, some gun owners prioritize armed protection, symbolically replacing the masculine role of “provider” with one associated with “protection.” Thus, understanding both persistently high rates of gun ownership in the United States (in spite of generally declining crime) alongside the gender gap in gun ownership requires deeper investigations into the meaning of guns in the United States and the role of guns in conceptualizations of American masculinity. We use recently collected crowdsourced survey data to test this provider-to-protector shift, exploring how economic precarity may operate as a cultural-level masculinity threat for some, and may intersect with marital/family status to shape gun attitudes and behaviors for both gun owners and nonowners. Results show that investments in stereotypical masculine ideals, rather than economic precarity, are linked to support for discourses associated with protective gun ownership and empowerment.


2020 ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Maxine Eichner

This chapter considers a number of indicators relating to the well-being of American children and adults in order to examine the extent to which the American Dream is fulfilling its promise. For children, it considers levels of happiness, academic achievement, mental health, and economic mobility. For adults, it considers happiness, mental health, and life expectancy (including the rise of “deaths of despair”). All these indicators show that the United States is failing radically with respect to both children’s and adults’ well-being. These results are not surprising, the last section of the chapter shows, when we take into account the health of the nation’s families. Neither adults nor children can thrive without sound family ties. Yet indicators show that American families are in bad shape, and in considerably worse shape than families in other countries.


2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert N. Lupton ◽  
Steven M. Smallpage ◽  
Adam M. Enders

The correlation between ideology and partisanship in the mass public has increased in recent decades amid a climate of persistent and growing elite polarization. Given that core values shape subsequent political predispositions, as well as the demonstrated asymmetry of elite polarization, this article hypothesizes that egalitarianism and moral traditionalism moderate the relationship between ideology and partisanship in that the latter relationship will have increased over time only among individuals who maintain conservative value orientations. An analysis of pooled American National Election Studies surveys from 1988 to 2012 supports this hypothesis. The results enhance scholarly understanding of the role of core values in shaping mass belief systems and testify to the asymmetric nature and mass public reception of elite cues among liberals and conservatives.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Ahmed M. Asfahani

This research assesses the relationship between intercultural exposure variables—the length of time spent in the United States, the length of previous experience outside Saudi Arabia, the length of time studying English as a second language, and the frequency and nature of interactions with Americans—and intrapersonal identity conflict. To assess this relationship, the researcher conducted a survey of Saudi Arabian students studying in the United States, which collected information on exposure variables, as well as employing Leong and Ward’s (2000) Ethno-Cultural Identity Conflict Scale (EICS). A Pearson correlation test was conducted to examine the relationship between the Saudi sojourners’ intercultural exposure and their identity conflict scores to conclude that there is not a relationship between exposure and identity conflict.


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