Equality of Opportunity

Below is an essay written during my time studying under Jeff Manza, sociologist and professor at New York University, during the spring semester of 2017. We were prompted to write around a few essential questions posed in response to Jay McLeod’s Ain’t No Makin’ It. My thesis called into question the relationship between the perception of equality of opportunity, and self-esteem and aspirational thoughts.

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Equality of Opportunity: Translating to Self-Esteem and Aspirations

Equality of opportunity, a tenant of the American education system of the present, was a ruling pillar of the lives of the young boys found in Jay MacLeod’s Ain’t No Makin’ It. The Hallway Hangers, adamant that equality of opportunity is just a social myth, saw the futility in schoolwork and education as the means to an end to prosperity and future success. This group ruminated in self-loathing, managing to both regret and support the choices they have made thus far in their educational pursuits. The Brothers, in contrast, felt that equality of opportunity was abounding and that they had a better hand to work with than did their parents. They anticipated passing their parent’s level of success, making strides in the educational and occupational world. 

In a setting that seems to share so many factors, the perception of equality of opportunity lends itself to one of the biggest and perceivable differences among the groups. This point of view sets the tone for and seems to correlate with each group’s self-image. The Brothers, with a positively affected view of opportunity, display greater positive views of other aspects of their lives, whereas the Hallway Hangers, finding opportunity to be nowhere for them, have downcast, negative aspirations and projections for the future. How does the respective perception of equality of opportunity for each group reinforce self-esteem and aspirations?

Jay MacLeod highlights two important assumptions regarding the discipline of Lincoln High School- “efficacy of schooling” and the “equality of opportunity” (MacLeod 98). Buying into the concepts of hard work, good grades, and obedience, it is believed that an individual, despite their low income and standing in the socioeconomic world, can succeed in the education system and become prosperous. This would mean accepting achievement ideology, a concept that infers there is a specific perception of social success that one can reach through hard work and education. MacLeod frequently mentions the belief of the Brothers in the openness of American society, believing that equality of opportunity is a reality and for this reason, they are just as free to pursue an education and ultimately succeed as any white or affluent individual in the education system. The Brothers are rigorously self-disciplined and determined to reach a greater level of success than was previously available for their parents, who were barred by many racial laws and discriminatory processes. MacLeod suggests that, due to their affirmation that equality of opportunity exists, the Brothers “believe that racial injustice has been curbed in the United States” (MacLeod 142). 

This contradicts findings from Michael Hughes and David Demo, authors of “Self-Perceptions of Black Americans: Self-Esteem and Personal Efficacy” for The American Journal of Sociology. According to their study, blacks acknowledge the discrimination of the education system, and for this reason, they blame the system, rather than themselves, for any failings they may experience. The Brothers do not follow this pattern, as MacLeod has repeatedly emphasized their belief in an equal system absent of discrimination for their education. Instead, the Brothers attribute their own poor performances to laziness, lack of hard work, or other factors along those same lines (MacLeod 102). They do not acknowledge the institutional components that may in reality be hindering them, but instead internalize their failures and shoulder the blame individually. However, this also contradicts a concept MacLeod mentions, claiming that in a merit-based school system like that found in his book and even today, students who internalize blame for failure subsequently “lose their self-esteem and then accept their eventual placement in low-status jobs as the natural outcome of their shortcomings” (MacLeod 114). 

The Brothers may internalize their blame, but they do not attribute this to any future failures they may experience, and their aspirations remain elevated, many of them hoping to achieve middle-class jobs after a series of further educational pursuits. MacLeod even suggests that the Brothers aspire to be like the teachers they interact with in Lincoln High School, due to the middle-class status they hold, hoping to one day find themselves in jobs such as computer programming or maybe ending up at an institution of higher education. MacLeod attributes this to the greater likelihood for the Brothers to be obedient in school. There is essentially “no cost” for the Brothers to follow the rules, and in doing so, they might actually gain an educational reward that will aid them further down the line in occupational pursuits (MacLeod 114). Wanting to gain something from their academic endeavors was a norm for the Brothers, giving purpose to their lives. 

Hughes and Demo claim that the ability to blame the system may result in high self-esteem, despite the presence of low personal efficacy. The Brothers fall out of the range of this claim, being that they take an individualized approach to blame. They do maintain high self-esteem, but not through systematic blame. It is their belief that they have new opportunities previously denied to their parents that motivates them to abide by the achievement ideology. Their affirmation of the equality of opportunity allows them to be confident in making educational strides and ignore any systematic disadvantages they may be experiencing. Even when they are leveled lower than their potential performance suggests, the Brothers ignore this factor and continue to see any academic involvement as an opportunity for achievement and improvement of socioeconomic standing.

The Hallway Hangers, on the other hand, reject achievement ideology for its “forceful assault on their self-esteem” (MacLeod 141). The Hallway Hangers feel that success in school does not translate over into the job world for their socioeconomic standing, many of them are just desperate to at some point find employment in construction or other manual labor positions, such as Stoney’s albeit temporary positions in various pizza shops. This view that education is futile results in leveled aspirations for the Hallway Hangers; they are perpetually stuck in the same socioeconomic standing they find themselves growing up in, being that they do not believe any sort of educational pursuit could bring them success. The Hallway Hangers’ aspirations keep them stagnating. The track records of their various siblings and parents also keep them aspiring to relatively low goals, as no one has set a path of success for them to follow. Instead, they fall into the models of failure scattered around them, getting involved in similar criminal activity as their family and peers and even acknowledging their potential to end up in similar positions as siblings who are in jail or out of work and idle. The Hallway Hangers, in interviews with MacLeod, acknowledge themselves as “fuck ups”, and admit that they would’ve applied themselves more in school, but despite this still remain in the same pattern of behavior and actions that they had been in thus far. 

In a society where the Hallway Hangers do not fit into the category of success, they receive validation from the dominant culture they find themselves in. The Hallway Hangers, to combat any connotation of failure they may deal with from their lack of academic involvement and dedication, rely on the one asset that they can claim for their own: machismo. They “latch onto and inflate the one quality they still have”, accepting the norm that being “bad” is good, vaulting them into a higher status in their culture, where success is based on machismo and not the grades and the American standard of success that the Brothers are buying into (MacLeod 143). Dealing drugs, stealing cars, and scraping by in a menial job that they can find around town earns them respect, unlike the work ethic and diligence the Brothers pursue. 

The Hallway Hangers, in response to the observed academic success of the Brothers, detect the idea of reverse discrimination Edgar Borgatta elaborates on in “The Concept of Reverse Discrimination and Equality of Opportunity”. Borgatta explains that priority is given to only some minority groups, creating the potential for what would be a majority in another context to become alienated into what is defined as the residual category. In the case of Lincoln High School and the system of tracking and leveling that is employed, the Brothers become part of this favored minority, and the Hallway Hangers end up as part of the broad residual category, left to flounder in the Adjustment Program or Occupational Education program if they were willing to maintain their work ethic, which frequently crosses into inconsistency.  

Lincoln High School divided the students based on the concept of ability grouping described by Mieke Van Houtte, Jannick Demanet, and Peter AJ Stevens in their study “Self-esteem of academic and vocational students: Does within-school tracking sharpen the difference?”. Categorizing by ability grouping means the education for a given group of students is tailored to fit their needs, primarily socio-economic. According to their study, “low self-esteem due to being in a low ability group may lead to a total rejection of school and cause a student to drop out or resist school by disruptive or delinquent behavior” (74). This statement is applicable to the Hallway Hangers, whose self-esteem suffers at the hands of the achievement ideology the Brothers readily affirm. Many of the Hallway Hangers do not complete the programs they are enrolled in at the high school, either completely dropping out or continually playing hooky to settle for getting drunk and high, and having a good time. They feel all the intelligence they will need for an occupation is found in their social setting, and that their street smarts will serve them better than any formal lesson they could receive. 

The study further details that students in lower ability groups, like the Hallway Hangers, manifest more negative self-worth ideas than those in high achieving ability groups. This would explain their constant self-badgering and admitting to MacLeod in closed interviews that they have made bad choices; regardless they make little or no effort to change, acknowledging that they have made bad choices in terms of school attitude but also openly labeling it as a waste of their time. When asked by MacLeod if he would have done anything differently, Boo-Boo openly responds, “Yeah, lots. Wouldn’t screw up in school as bad as I did, wouldn’t get high with my friends as much” (MacLeod 134). Chris, Frankie, and Steve give similar responses expressing regret for their conduct as well, and it is in Jinx’s response, when he says, “I’d probably get more interested in school, but it’s too late now”, that we see the mentality of what’s done is done. The chance to find any sort of academic success has already passed, and the Hallway Hangers must stick to their guns and settle for failure even in the Adjustment Program, the lowest possible rung of education at Lincoln where little attention is paid to the students on account of the inevitability of their failure. The desire to succeed is virtually nonexistent here, being that the faculty turns a blind eye to them with the exception of Jimmy, who hails from a similar background as the boys and who gives them a sense of understanding that they had never before experienced with the middle-class teachers who had mentally condemned them to failure from the very beginning. In-school tracking expands the disparity between academic and vocational students, which can be found between the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers (84). Those belonging to the academic field tend to be vaulted higher than those in the vocational field, receiving greater attention from staff members as there is a general consensus that these students are abiding by the American standard of success, anchored in education and work ethic. 

It is argued by George Ansalone in his study, “Tracking, Schooling and the Equality of Educational Opportunity”, that different educational curriculum is offered to groups on the basis that it will better socialize them based on their class standings. This pattern of socialization into the same class standing holds for the Hallway Hangers, who are unable to motivate themselves for academic success and are doubted at an institutional level, whereas the Brothers, are able to seek out greater educational opportunities. The Brothers find themselves in higher tracks than their predominantly white counterparts, and receive greater value from society due to their desire for success, compared to the Hallway Hangers who become a “stigmatized other” for belonging to the lower rung (Van Houtte, Demanet, and Stevens 78). Erving Goffman, who wrote on stigma, explained that the stigmatized feel their difference to be defined when they feel the need to live up to the normal of the other group, and feel shame when they fail to do so (Goffman 132). The stigmatized feel shame when they cannot live up to the standards set and become aware of their inferiority. The Hallway Hangers are conscious of this stigma through their awareness of the differences in academic tracking between the two groups. They watch the Brothers succeed relative to their own group, whose members gradually become stragglers and even undesired members of the academic and vocational community. 

There is the opposite point of view that George Ansalone proposes, where being separated from the same oriented peers promotes “self-development rationale”, improving self-concept and motivation (Ansalone 178). However, in the case of the Brothers and Hallway Hangers, this separation into different educational programs, combined with the ideas of equality of opportunity that are shared between each respective group, reinforces the stigmatization experienced by the Hallway Hangers. In being stigmatized, the Hallway Hangers feel a need to revert to their masculinity, commit petty crimes, get high and drunk, and constantly sit in Hallway #13, the domain in which they can remain in control and escape the stigma present in a world that accepts the conduct of the Brothers as a norm. The Hallway Hangers retreat into the habitus that they have grown up with. They live by the conception of Bourdieu, which states that the power of learning comes from the subconscious and “the thoughtlessness of habit and habituation” rather than from “explicit teaching” (MacLeod 139). This would account for the constant reiteration of street smarts and learning in a social context that the Hallway Hangers attest to. Slick, in response to MacLeod’s inquiry as to if any of the Hangers believe the Brothers are smarter, says no, then states, “Because they’re smarter in some areas just like we’re smarter in some areas. You put them out here, right? And you put us up where they’re living-- they won’t be able to survive out here” (MacLeod 71). Slick’s response, reflected in the answers of other group members, shows the group’s belief in the teachings they have absorbed from their surroundings as being just as valuable. Their education takes place in the doorway, the streets, and any place they decide to gather as a group, whereas the Brothers, in their eyes, are confined to the learning atmosphere of the classroom. Frankie responds after the fact, protesting that he could succeed in business “if I had fucking money to start out with like some of these fucking rich kids”, showing that he identifies his socioeconomic standing as a barrier to equality of opportunity and educational success, unlike the Brothers who almost use their standing to adopt aspirations of upward trajectory (MacLeod 72). 

In a sense, the Hallway Hangers invert the findings of Hughes and Demo’s research, taking the place that they originally designated to be filled by blacks in low-income areas. The Hallway Hangers rely on “interpersonal relationships”, the quality of relations with family and friends fostering their self-esteem, similar to the black individuals of the study (Hughes and Demo 146). Their research showed black Americans follow the pattern of having relatively high self-esteem, equal to their white counterparts, but low personal efficacy in comparison in the education system. The Hallway Hangers, the predominantly white youth group, more accurately depict this. Lacking efficacy in the education system, they find their fuel of self-esteem in the subculture of their group, which exists independently of the culture that the Brothers buy into. The Brothers are able to fill the position the white individuals of the study are in because of their adoption of American ideology, and their ability to generate self-esteem on the grounds of academic success and other tenets of predominant American culture. 

 With the subversion of the situation as presented in Ain’t No Makin’ It, Billy is the only member of the Hallway Hangers who becomes an outlier. Billy, whose interpersonal relationships ultimately fall apart, must find fulfillment for his self-esteem elsewhere, so he turns to the academic route rejected by his peers and affirmed by the Brothers. Following the death of his father, separation from his mother, and brutal murder of his best friend, Billy decided to change the trajectory of his life. Billy represents a situation in which the forces affecting habitus must mediate among each other- when the balance of school, family, and peer group is upset, as is the case, a “ripple occurs in other areas of the individual’s life”, which caused Billy to alter his aspirations (MacLeod 149). Billy changed his point of view despite the steadfast nature of the points of view his peer group had, virtually abandoning the fraternity of the Hallway Hangers for what he now defined as a life of success. Criminal activity and idleness became empty for Billy,  and academic involvement became the new parameters for his definition of success, bringing him into the dominant American achievement ideology that had once been appalling. After making this shift, the Hallway Hangers openly acknowledge his change, approving of it but not bothering to muster enough motivation to make the change for themselves- the bedrock of their habitus remained the same, thus leaving no cause for an upset in their comfortable way of life. 

In evaluating the relationship between equality of opportunity and self-esteem, it is easy to see that the Brothers and the Hallway Hangers are constantly in dialogue with each other as well as the dominant cultural ideology. There is no simple explanation of factors that contribute to the molding of ideas for either group, but rather there is a complicated web of interrelated social forces and institutional factors that further the development and identity of these young men. However, in examining both the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers, the difficulty to break from either of these two polarized social standings is apparent. The Hallway Hangers and Brothers operate with a predominant group mentality, displayed in the alignment of their opinions and the similar pathways that they adopt in their educational pursuits and social lifestyles. When an individual breaks away, such as Billy, a rift is created in the normal. In the case of two distinct groups, a change of mentality seems rare and virtually impossible, and the ability to exist in between both extremes of thought is unthinkable, as can be seen in Billy’s absolute change and his inability to remain a member of both groups simultaneously. 

Equality of opportunity comes into conversation with race, socioeconomic standings, and even institutional components to yield a complicated, and at times conflicted, sense of self. This product only truly comes about when an individual is a member of a subculture that violates the standards of American ideology, exemplified by the Hallway Hangers. The Brothers, whose ideology runs parallel to the dominant culture, find themselves on the right foot for the most part. These two groups, with many similar surface-level qualities, the most prominent being socioeconomic, show the importance of multidimensional considerations for success and failures as well as show the risks of oversimplification of struggle. 

Works Cited

Van Houtte, Mieke, Jannick Demanet, and Peter AJ Stevens. "Self-esteem of Academic and Vocational Students: Does Within-school Tracking Sharpen the Difference?" JSTOR. Sage Publications, Ltd., Mar. 2012. Web. Apr. 2017.

Hughes, Michael, and David Demo. "Self- Perceptions of Black Americans: Self-Esteem and Personal Efficacy." JSTOR. The University of Chicago Press, July 1989. Web. Apr. 2017.

Borgatta, Edgar. "The Concept of Reverse Discrimination and Equality of Opportunity." JSTOR. American Sociological Association, May 1976. Web. Apr. 2017.

Ansalone, George. "Tracking, Schooling, and Equality of Educational Opportinuty." JSTOR. Jean Ait Belkhir, Race, Gender, & Class Journal, 2009. Web. Apr. 2017.

Goffman, Erving. Stigma. New York: J. Aronson, n.d. Print.

MacLeod, Jay. Ain't No Makin' It: Leveled Aspirations in a Low-income Neighborhood. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2009. Print.