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Mind Playing Tricks: Individualism, Upward Mobility, And The Commitment To Self-Determination Among The Urban Poor, Will Bryerton
Mind Playing Tricks: Individualism, Upward Mobility, And The Commitment To Self-Determination Among The Urban Poor, Will Bryerton
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
The ethos of the American Dream offers a popular and straightforward prescription for success: Work hard, rely on yourself before others, avoid bad choices, and prosperity will follow. It is a decidedly optimistic, largely undefined, and intensely individualistic promise with serious implications for Americans’ views on achievement and upward mobility. For all of these reasons, the validity of this ethos has come under attack. Philosophically, it is seen as illusory, ambiguous, and unrealistically demanding of individual exceptionalism. Sociologically, it is admonished for being too dismissive of structural constraints, systemic inequalities, and the value of relationships, social embeddedness, and mutual dependence. …
Education Ain't Black: The Disidentification Of African American Students, Erica Lynette James
Education Ain't Black: The Disidentification Of African American Students, Erica Lynette James
LSU Master's Theses
In this thesis, I will discuss the influence of education on the identity formation of African American students. Based on the scholarly literature in education theory, I will argue in Bourdieuan theory education, formal education, fails to accommodate the specific needs of African American students because education influences African American students to develop constructions of “whiteness" that education reinforces. As education attempts to uphold the “status quo” of American society, education simultaneously forces African American students to question the relevance of education. In questioning the relevance of education through high-achieving African American students’ use of language and pursuit of academic …