Jennifer L. Hochschild

Hochschild combines survey data and vivid anecdote to clarify several paradoxes. Since the 1960s, white Americans have seen African Americans as having better and better chances to achieve the dream. At the same time middle-class blacks, by now one-third of the African American population, have become increasingly frustrated personally and anxious about the progress of their race. Most poor blacks, however, cling with astonishing strength to the notion that they and their families can succeeddespite their terrible, perhaps worsening, living conditions. Meanwhile, a tiny number of the estranged poor, who have completely given up on the American dream or any other faith, threaten the social fabric of the black community and the very lives of their fellow blacks. . Will the still optimistic majority of poor African Americans eventually follow the alienated minority into neighborhood and even society-wide destruction? Does the new black middle class vindicate the American dream, or does the frustration of its members make apparent the limits of a vision never intended to include African Americans? Hochschild probes these questions, and gives them historical depth by comparing the experience of today's African Americans to that of white ethnic immigrants at the turn of the century. She concludes by claiming that America's only alternative to the social disaster of intensified racial conflict lies in the inclusiveness, optimism, discipline, and high-mindedness of the American dream at its best.

Successful social policies for children are critical to America's future. Yet the status of children in America suggests that the nation's policies may not be serving them well. Infant and child mortality rates in the United States remain high compared with those of other western industrialized nations; child poverty rates have worsened in the past decade; and poor health care, child abuse, and inadequate schooling and child care persist. In this book, a group of renowned scholars presents a new set of social policies designed to alleviate these problems and to help satisfy the needs of all children. The policies deal with the most important domains affecting children from birth through the passage to adulthood: child care, schooling, transition to work, health care, income security, physical security, and child abuse. Although nearly everyone agrees that children are in trouble, there is considerable debate over what kind of trouble they are in, why this is so, and whether government can or should more actively seek to solve these problems. Americans are evenly divided on the question of whether children's problems are more economic or moral in origin. The seven proposals in this volume both reflect and cut across ideological disagreements. Some for more government, others for less; but all call for different government methods for achieving socially agreed-upon goals to help America's children.

"A democracy falters when most of its citizens are uninformed or misinformed, when misinformation affects political decisions and actions, or when political actors foment misinformation -- the state of affairs the United States faces today, as this timely book makes painfully clear. In Do Facts Matter? Jennifer L. Hoschschild and Katherine Levine Einstein start with Thomas Jefferson's ideal citizen, who knows and uses correct information to make policy or political choices. What, then, the authors ask, are the consequences if citizens are informed but do not act on their knowledge? More serious, what if they do act, but on incorrect information? Analyzing the use, nonuse, and misuse of facts in various cases ... Hochschild and Einstein argue persuasively that errors of commission (that is, acting on falsehoods) are even more troublesome than errors of omission. While citizens' inability or unwillingness to use the facts they know in their political decision making may be frustrating, their acquisition and use of incorrect 'knowledge' pose a far greater threat to a democratic political system. Do Facts Matter? looks beyond the individual citizens to the role that political elites play in informing, misinforming, and encouraging or discouraging the use of accurate or mistaken information or beliefs. Finally, the authors consider policy levers and political actions that leaders and citizens can use to disseminate politically relevant knowledge, connect information to action, and correct or compensate for the use of misinformation. As Will Rogers once remarked, 'It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble. It's what we know that ain't so.' Hochschild and Einstein show that if a well-informed electorate remains a crucial component of a successful democracy, the concealment of political facts poses its greatest threat."--Jacket.

"Genomic science is moving out of the laboratory and into societal uses, ranging from gene therapy for terrible diseases, to evidence determining guilt or innocence in a courtroom, discovery of one's racial and ethnic ancestry, prenatal testing, and much more. Genomics promises great benefits. It also entails great risks, ranging from surveillance to a revival of eugenics, the threat of bioterrorism, and the distortions brought about by understanding life as mechanically determined rather than freely chosen. This book explores the range of views in the American public, among social science experts, and among scientists and political leaders, about social uses of genomic science. It also examines views about how genomics should be governed and who can be trusted with this new capacity to shape the future of life itself. Genomic Politics portrays four responses to genomics: Enthusiasm about the benefits of using the science of genetic influence; Scepticism about the risks of using the science of genetic influence; Hope about developing social programs separate from genetic influence, and Rejection of the hubris of both genetic science and social programming. Using surveys, experts' judgments, and interviews with political and policy actors, the book shows that Blacks and Whites, as well as Democrats and Republicans, vary slightly in their views of genomics-but that the four crucial stances matter more. Hochschild concludes with observations about how genomic science might best be managed to provide medical, criminal justice, and societal gains while avoiding race, class, and genetic discrimination"-- Provided by publisher.

This title brings together a multidisciplinary group of researchers. Each develops a systematic model permitting the study of who is an immigrant, what is politics, and how incorporation occurs or is blocked. Ranging across North America and Western Europe, it is indispensable for analysts and activists alike.

"The American racial order--the beliefs, institutions, and practices that organize relationships among the nation's races and ethnicities--is undergoing its greatest transformation since the 1960s. Creating a New Racial Order takes a groundbreaking look at the reasons behind this dramatic change, and considers how different groups of Americans are being affected. Through revealing narrative and striking research, the authors show that the personal and political choices of Americans will be critical to how, and how much, racial hierarchy is redefined in decades to come. The authors outline the components that make up a racial order and examine the specific mechanisms influencing group dynamics in the United States: immigration, multiracialism, genomic science, and generational change. Cumulatively, these mechanisms increase heterogeneity within each racial or ethnic group, and decrease the distance separating groups from each other. The authors show that individuals are moving across group boundaries, that genomic science is challenging the whole concept of race, and that economic variation within groups is increasing. Above all, young adults understand and practice race differently from their elders: their formative memories are 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Obama's election--not civil rights marches, riots, or the early stages of immigration. Blockages could stymie or distort these changes, however, so the authors point to essential policy and political choices. Portraying a vision, not of a postracial America, but of a different racial America, Creating a New Racial Order examines how the structures of race and ethnicity are altering a nation."--Jacket.