Chapter 10

The Architecture of Disadvantage: Poverty and Wealth

Sociologists at Work

 


Scott Cummings and Del Taebel

Learning About the American Economic System

Americans believe in competitive individualism: Success is based entirely on individual merit. This belief is fostered not only by the messages transmitted through the media but also by the socialization children receive in school.

Sociologists Scott Cummings and Del Taebel surveyed children from grades 3 through 12 to see how they learn about economic life and social stratification in the United States.1

The researchers found that even young people can articulate the idea that private ownership and individual productivity are necessary components of a smooth-flowing economy. As one ninth-grader put it:

People that own their own businesses will work harder because they want to make more money; if no one can own anything they aren't going to work so hard and so nobody will make much money and then the economy falls apart.2

Although younger children enthusiastically support the idea that the government ought to do more to help poor people, by the 12th grade many of them have come to hold the individual responsible for his or her own economic destiny. Character flaws and motivational deficiencies are often seen as the causes of poverty and economic insecurity, as these student quotes indicate:

People are rich because they have the know-how and the opportunity, and to an extent most of them are wealthy because of some type of motivation that causes them not to settle at one step or one degree; they wanted to reach higher heights. . .

People are poor because they are not educated enough to know that there is something for them out there; that they can make money. . .

They are ignorant and uneducated; a lot of them just don't care . . . they're happy the way they are . . . if you really want to have some money, you can get it no matter how poor you have been.3

This study shows the dark side of cultural beliefs about poverty: When children internalize the belief in competitive individualism, they are also learning to adopt a perhaps unjust explanation of why rewards are distributed unequally and why there is poverty.

1 Cummings, S., & Taebel, D. 1978. "The economic socialization of children: A neo-Marxist analysis." Social Problems, 26, 198-210.

2 Cummings, S., & Taebel, D. 1978. "The economic socialization of children: A neo-Marxist analysis." Social Problems, 26, 198-210. p. 205.

3 Cummings, S., & Taebel, D. 1978. "The economic socialization of children: A neo-Marxist analysis." Social Problems, 26, 198-210. p. 207.



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David Newman and Rebecca Smith. (Created September 14, 1999). Copyright Pine Forge Press.
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