Chapter 1: Introduction
Part I The Dreams
Chapter 2: Economic Security
Chapter 3: Freedom To Pursue
Chapter 4: The Next Horizon
Part II The Pathways
Chapter 5: The Landscape of Opportunity
Chapter 6: Upward Mobility
Chapter 7: Cumulative Inequality
Chapter 8: Twists of Fate
Part III The Meanings
Chapter 9: The Significance of the American Dream
Chapter 10: Reshaping the Future
Back Matter
Appendix A: Sources of Data
Appendix B: Additional Analyses
Bibliography
Mark Robert Rank is the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social
Welfare at Washington University in St. Louis. He is widely
recognized as one of the foremost experts and speakers in the
country on issues of inequality, poverty, and social justice. He is
the recipient of numerous awards, and his research has been
reported in a wide range of academic and media outlets.
Thomas A. Hirschl is Professor of Development Sociology at Cornell
University. He is the Director of the Population and Development
Program, coordinator of the Program Work Team on Poverty and
Economic Hardship, and Director of the Teen Assessment Program. His
scholarly focus is on social class differentiation in contemporary
society.
Kirk A. Foster is Assistant Professor of Social Work at the
University of South Carolina. With a background in social work and
theology, he researches how people with little or no income can use
the resources available to them to make systematic change.
"Chasing the American Dream is accessible to those who do not have
a sociology background. It is also relatively free of academic
jargon, easy to read, and provides a wide variety of evidence.
Moreover, the text offers a wide range of interesting and useful
policy suggestions....Overall, this book is quite compelling and is
useful for cultural studies scholars as a context for understanding
how the rhetorical concept of "The American Dream" has stayed
relatively static-and immensely powerful-amidst ever-changing
social and economic conditions. " --Patrick Kent Russell, Journal
of American Culture
"This engaging and thought-provoking combination of thorough
scholarship, narrative journalism, and policy analysis will
resonate with readers interested in understanding American poverty
and opportunity." - Library Journal
"Rank and his colleagues achieve two important tasks in this book.
They describe, in the words of average Americans whom they
interviewed, what the 'American Dream' means. And then they show,
through creative analyses of the hard data, how much that dream is
being thwarted by the political economy of 21st century America. It
makes for a poignant contrast." --Claude S. Fischer, PhD, Professor
of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
"Over the last generation, the ideal of the American Dream and the
reality of the American economy have increasingly clashed. In this
informed, and engagingly written book, Mark Rank takes us deep into
the minds and lives of Americans of all walks of life as they
build-and sometimes watch crumble-their own dreams. A powerful
portrait of the ups and downs of a riskier and more unequal
economy." --Jacob Hacker, PhD, Stanley B. Resor Professor Political
Science;
Director, Institution for Social and Policy Studies; Yale
University
"In his exceptionally important new book, Chasing the American
Dream, Mark Rank shows how rising economic inequality has distorted
the meaning of the American dream and circumscribed the
opportunities of ordinary Americans. Rank combines interview and
focus groups with the life history method he pioneered in earlier
work to show the astonishing rate at which individuals move in and
out of poverty and affluence and how initial advantages and
disadvantages translate into patterns of cumulative inequality
which define their lives. Written with exceptional clarity,
illustrated with vivid individual stories, this book will engage
scholars, students, and
non-specialist readers who want to know what is happening to the
elusive American dream." --Michael B. Katz, PhD, University of
Pennsylvania, author of The Undeserving Poor: America's Enduring
Confrontation with Poverty
Winner of the 2016 Society for Social Work and Research Book Award
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