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Rating: 
Summary: Moving and Troublesome
Review: I read this years ago in an anthropology/sociology class in college, and I can say that it still carries as much weight today as it did then. Jay manages to weave entertaining narration with factual reporting, resulting in a moving work that points a critical finger at our society. I've actually met the author, and can say that he is an honest, engaging and professional writer. At no point did he milk the drama angle of this work, nor use it to further his own agenda. I noticed another reviewer called this book "socialist junk"; to this person I say: just because this work is a testament to some of the failures of America's precious capitalist model does not immediately make it socialist. Moreover, if socialism means having a conscience about racism and socioeconomic discrimination, then sign me up!
Rating:
Summary: Moving and Troublesome
Review: I read this years ago in an anthropology/sociology class in college, and I can say that it still carries as much weight today as it did then. Jay manages to weave entertaining narration with factual reporting, resulting in a moving work that points a critical finger at our society. I've actually met the author, and can say that he is an honest, engaging and professional writer. At no point did he milk the drama angle of this work, nor use it to further his own agenda. I noticed another reviewer called this book "socialist junk"; to this person I say: just because this work is a testament to some of the failures of America's precious capitalist model does not immediately make it socialist. Moreover, if socialism means having a conscience about racism and socioeconomic discrimination, then sign me up!
Rating: 
Summary: In the steps of R.H. Tawney,,,old time Socialism....
Review: Question: Does this work have any value at all?
Answer: Yes, and for several reasons. MacLeod documents a period of time in American history and a slice of American society. But by far and away the most interesting part of the book is the constant recourse to old English Socialists like R.H. Tawney and other European and British sociologists and authors of the Left who basically are anti-American and anti-Capitalist in their bent. One of the things I resented about the book was the constant printing of the vulgar language of the teachers and students. Hasn't this fellow ever heard of a dash or an asterisk?
Another thing that annoyed me was the constant disparagment of military service as a "last resort" for the dregs of society. MacLeod is very ignorant on this issue. getting full pay and benefits. MacLeod is simply biased and misinformed.
But of course I never cease to be amazed at scholars like Macleod who trot out the example of Andrew Carnegie without apparently any deep historical knowledge of Carnegie's educational background or biography. I cam quite certain that while some of Carnegie's classmates in his parish school in Scotland became factory workers that not a single one ever "pumped gas".
The examples of persons who rose from rags to riches if not as numerous as in Horatio Alger stories are still numerous enough that I could make an endless list, Booker T. Washington, Lincoln, George Gershwin, Helen Keller, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Dickens etc. etc.
Ogbu makes this clear that exceptional individuals always seem to find a way to get the most out of the education offered to them.
Social class, according to Marx Is based on economic factors such as ownership of the means of production and of capital but in fact this narrow approach doesn't address factors such as gender, physical beauty, artistic or athletic talent, ethnicity, religion and race. All of these factors can affect class mobility and educational opportunity. You can marry up. You can work yourself up the ladder with special expertise or training or merely by dint of hard persistent labor and thrift.
There is such a thing as choice and free agency. Reading "Ain't no making it" I felt like entering into the story and giving what Macleod apparently did not dare to do when headed towards his favorite purlieu of "social reproduction" "Clarendon Heights" and give his boys tough love and a wake-up call. One can choose chastity and sobriety over promiscuity and drunkenness. One can choose books over booze. One can choose activity over sloth. One can choose to begin the day with prayer and end it with prayer in proper reverence to God. Or Not.
One individual may put his or her God-given talents to study or to work in the production of wealth or other goods, while another, equally gifted may squander his or her talents, producing little or nothing, saving nothing, learning few skills, nothing and thus achieving and producing less. That's teh story of the "Hallway Hangers".
Belief in determinism and social reproduction has one serious problem: it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't deny that some kids start life with two strikes but in America when you have two strikes you roll up your sleeves and choke up. And if you swing and just tip it -you are still alive to try something else. "Many a good horseman has fallen off and gotten back on again, " I have told my students at hundreds of times in several languages. "The final proof of a good horseman and his courage is the finishing of the journey."
It is also amazing that anyone, like MacLeod can still quote Marx as if he were an authority on anything. But that is just one man's opinion. Some beliefs die hard.
Sheldon's In His Steps is dated also like this book and naive but on one point Sheldon is right. If people are vice-ridden and drunken they will never get out the slums. People have to have belief in something bigger than they are. Schools must inculcate values. Kids need families, the need churches -and other houses of worship- and they need schools that have a real philosophy of education a paideia which the wimp, enervated schools in the book with the piecemeal programs did not have.
Rating: 
Summary: Socialist Junk
Review: This book did a great job of showing how research can be distorted any way one desires. I was forced to read this text for a Social Anthropology class. The boys that MacLeod follows throughout his research fail because the just didn't try hard enough. The one boy who almost succeeds fails not because of social constraints but because he could not shed his tendancy towards poor behavior- such as having children at too young an age.
This book only reinforces the "poor me" mantra- "its Capitalism's fault, it creates poverty."Coming from "ahem" less than savory roots myself, I can tell you that Capitalism's fostering of competition does nothing but good in society. Those who have the drive to succeed, do so (I'll be attending my first year of law school in the fall), and those that have no self dicipline don't succeed. No amount of education can change that. While the boys followed in the text didn't have the greatest educational beginnings, one of them did make it to a community college and could have made it further, but blew it by getting a girl pregnant. That's not capitalism's fault - I think its more the fault of the "free love" culture. This book is a socialist's best friend - claiming that free markets don't really produce social mobility, and producing examples to "prove" it. Too bad the failures of these examples had nothing to do with capitalism - and everything to do with a lack of drive.
Rating:
Summary: Great Reading
Review: This book explores the lives of two groups of inner-city teenagers. One group adamently believes in the achievement ideology, and the other group rejects it. Hence the title, the outcome for both groups is the same. I recommend this book to those who refuse to cast away their pre-conceived notions that those who live in poverty are lazy and stupid. This book is a painfully real account of the different ways in which society plays a detrimental role in the lives of the less fortunate, while allowing the upper class to place the blame on the victims themselves (in the name of the acheivement ideology).
Rating: 
Summary: The American Achievement Ideology is False
Review: This book explores the lives of two groups of inner-city teenagers. One group adamently believes in the achievement ideology, and the other group rejects it. Hence the title, the outcome for both groups is the same. I recommend this book to those who refuse to cast away their pre-conceived notions that those who live in poverty are lazy and stupid. This book is a painfully real account of the different ways in which society plays a detrimental role in the lives of the less fortunate, while allowing the upper class to place the blame on the victims themselves (in the name of the acheivement ideology).
Rating:
Summary: The Truth About Poverty in America
Review: This book gives an excellent insight into the lives of teenagers living in a low-income neighborhood. The book calls into question the American achievement ideology and forces the reader to reconsider his or her pre-concieved notions on poverty and its causes. The truth is that people aren't poor because they are lazy; they are poor because of numberous structural barriers in society that basicly trap them into poverty. This book is excellent for anyone interested in the social structure, but it would be better for someone who has never thought about the way society works and has the kind of closed-mindedness that cause many upper and middle-class people to view people of lesser social standing as lazy.
Rating:
Summary: A study of the persistance of poverty in a housing project
Review: This book provides a thorough account of the aspirations and expectations of two male peer groups residing in a public housing project. Both peer groups, although originating from similar class locations, have distinct aspirations resulting from their racial lived experiences. The peer group consisting mostly of young black men (The Brothers) supported the achievement ideology that we live in an open society. They viewed the hardships faced by previous generations was a result of racial discrimination barriers that (theoretically) cease to exist. They applied themselves in socially acceptable practices such as excelling in school and keeping out of trouble. In contrast, the peer group consisting of mostly young white men (Hallway Hangers) rejected the achievement ideology and had low aspirations of their position in the labor market. They realized through family and friends that their chances of getting out of the projects is slim leading most of the Hallway Hangers dropped out of school and smoked dope, among other illegal activities. Despite the disjuncture of both groups' levels of aspirations, both failed to get out of poverty. MacLeod hung out with both of these male peer groups in an effort to understand their daily meanings of the role of education and their future aspirations rather than relying exclusively on statistical data. I give this book four stars because MacLeod failed to take into consideration the aspirations and expectations of young women. Instead he concentrated solely on the role of race and class. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to understand how societal structures restrict and limit the actions of individuals. Furthermore this book challenges the myth that education creates a level playing field for all regardless of race or class (and gender too ~ although not addressed here).
Rating:
Summary: Great Reading
Review: This book shows the lives of two groups of teens living in poverty and low-income areas. This book gives their perspective of the acheivement ideology and how everyone just is not meant to climb the ladder of social mobility.
Rating:
Summary: this book was off the heezy-4-shezzy
Review: THIS BOOK WAS TIGHT JOE, YALL NEED TO CHECK THIS OUT. IT WAS ALL THAT. IT TOLD IT STRAIGHT LIKE IT IS. I WAS ALL GOOD. A TRUE DEPICTION, STRAIGHT UP,YO. *JESUS IS LORD*
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