Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations And Attainment In A Low-income Neighborhood, Expanded Edition - Tapa dura

This is the story of how American life looks from the bottom - a discouraging mix of immobility and inevitability. It addresses an important question in modern social theory: how is class inequality handed down from one generation to the next? This expanded edition of MacLeod's enthnography follows the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers into adulthood and the world of work. Eight years later, some of the gang members of Clarendon Heights struggle to support families and hold jobs while others cope with unemployment and life on the streets. This book retains the vivid accounts of friendships, families and school experiences that made the first book popular.

A Rhodes scholar, Jay MacLeod holds degrees in social studies and theology. He and his wife, Sally Asher, spent four years in Mississippi, where their work with local teenagers led to the publication of Minds Stayed on Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle in the Rural South, An Oral History (WestviewPress). MacLeod is now an Anglican priest in Chesterfield, a declining mining and market town in Asher's native England.