Chapter 10
The Architecture of Disadvantage: Poverty and Wealth
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.
David Newman and Rebecca Smith.
(Created September 14, 1999). Copyright Pine Forge Press.
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