Jessi Streib

Benign Inequality: Frames of Poverty and Social Class Inequality in Children’s Movies

ABSTRACT Media targeted at adults tends to portray poverty and social class inequality as the result of individual merit and moral worth. Research, however, has not uncovered how poverty and social class inequality are portrayed in media targeted at children. Drawing on a content analysis of the highest grossing G-rated movies, this study examines the proportional representation of characters in each class as well as frames of class conditions, characters, and the opportunity structure. These frames suggest that children’s media legitimates poverty and social class inequality in a new way—by presenting them as benign.

Privileged Pathways for Privileged Students

If working-class lads turn into working-class men, many elite children also turn into elite adults. With a nod to Paul Willis’s classic Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, Lauren Rivera reverses the usual question of why the disadvantaged remain disadvantaged. Instead, she asks: In an era when elite class positions cannot be handed down by title or property, how do elites maintain their advantage? The answer Rivera provides is that they do so in a way that is systematic, thorough, and extremely expensive. By studying the hiring practices of firms that award 22year-olds with salaries that double to triple the income of the median American household, Rivera traces the ways that privileged students are escorted from privileged schools to privileged jobs. Jobs that are out of reach to the majority of Americans are the same jobs that are obtained through the path of least resistance by the children of the elite. Drawing on rich ethnographic detail and revealing interviews, Pedigree shows that the process of obtaining a job at an elite professional services firm (EPS)—in banking, consulting, or law—is biased in favor of the privileged. Rivera points out that half of Harvard students come from families in the top 4 percent of household income, while only 4 percent of Harvard students come from families in the bottom 20 percent. Elite professional service firms recruit students exclusively from universities whose student population, like Harvard’s, is dominated by the well-off. Firms saturate elite campuses, spending up to a million dollars per school to convince these graduates to work for them. Yet, not only do EPS firms not make an appearance at less elite schools, they do not even bother to read the résumés of students who attend them. Firms do read the résumés of students who attend elite schools, but this badge of merit alone is not enough to grant students an interview. Firms consider the grades of students at the most elite schools to be irrelevant; students’ admission into a top school, not their performance there, is what counts. Instead, those in charge of hiring reward excellence in expensive and time-intensive activities. Applicants who participate in these activities are viewed as driven and passionate. Applicants who work to support themselves are given a nod, but often overlooked as they are not also Olympic athletes or concert violinists. Students who focus on job-related clubs—often working-class students—are dismissed as uninteresting suck-ups. As high achievement in expensive activities takes substantial resources to cultivate, it is usually those born into privilege who provide the signals of ambition and drive that firms reward. The one in two applicants who pass the résumé screening are advanced to the interview round. Here, untrained interviewers assess candidates’ merit by considering their fit with the company. Fit is never neutral, and applicants are effectively assessed on their class-based activities and presentation styles. Interviewers ask applicants to talk about ‘‘their story,’’ then evaluate some stories as more valuable than others. Stories that suggest that applicants repeatedly made choices to prepare themselves for their selected career are admired. Such stories of individual choice, purpose, and triumph are stories the class-privileged can easily tell. Stories that include luck, constraint, and diversions—stories more common among the less privileged—are evaluated less favorably. Admitting to constraint by suggesting that one wants the job because Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs, by Lauren Rivera. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. 375 pp.

Privileged Pathways for Privileged Students Class Reproduction at the Top

35.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780691155623. 130 Review Essays

Marrying across Class Lines

If working-class lads turn into working-class men, many elite children also turn into elite adults. With a nod to Paul Willis’s classic Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, Lauren Rivera reverses the usual question of why the disadvantaged remain disadvantaged. Instead, she asks: In an era when elite class positions cannot be handed down by title or property, how do elites maintain their advantage? The answer Rivera provides is that they do so in a way that is systematic, thorough, and extremely expensive. By studying the hiring practices of firms that award 22year-olds with salaries that double to triple the income of the median American household, Rivera traces the ways that privileged students are escorted from privileged schools to privileged jobs. Jobs that are out of reach to the majority of Americans are the same jobs that are obtained through the path of least resistance by the children of the elite. Drawing on rich ethnographic detail and revealing interviews, Pedigree shows that the process of obtaining a job at an elite professional services firm (EPS)—in banking, consulting, or law—is biased in favor of the privileged. Rivera points out that half of Harvard students come from families in the top 4 percent of household income, while only 4 percent of Harvard students come from families in the bottom 20 percent. Elite professional service firms recruit students exclusively from universities whose student population, like Harvard’s, is dominated by the well-off. Firms saturate elite campuses, spending up to a million dollars per school to convince these graduates to work for them. Yet, not only do EPS firms not make an appearance at less elite schools, they do not even bother to read the résumés of students who attend them. Firms do read the résumés of students who attend elite schools, but this badge of merit alone is not enough to grant students an interview. Firms consider the grades of students at the most elite schools to be irrelevant; students’ admission into a top school, not their performance there, is what counts. Instead, those in charge of hiring reward excellence in expensive and time-intensive activities. Applicants who participate in these activities are viewed as driven and passionate. Applicants who work to support themselves are given a nod, but often overlooked as they are not also Olympic athletes or concert violinists. Students who focus on job-related clubs—often working-class students—are dismissed as uninteresting suck-ups. As high achievement in expensive activities takes substantial resources to cultivate, it is usually those born into privilege who provide the signals of ambition and drive that firms reward. The one in two applicants who pass the résumé screening are advanced to the interview round. Here, untrained interviewers assess candidates’ merit by considering their fit with the company. Fit is never neutral, and applicants are effectively assessed on their class-based activities and presentation styles. Interviewers ask applicants to talk about ‘‘their story,’’ then evaluate some stories as more valuable than others. Stories that suggest that applicants repeatedly made choices to prepare themselves for their selected career are admired. Such stories of individual choice, purpose, and triumph are stories the class-privileged can easily tell. Stories that include luck, constraint, and diversions—stories more common among the less privileged—are evaluated less favorably. Admitting to constraint by suggesting that one wants the job because Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs, by Lauren Rivera. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. 375 pp.

Class Reproduction by Four Year Olds

35.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780691155623. 130 Review Essays

The Power of the Past: Understanding Cross-Class Marriages

Even when married couples think childhood class differences are in the past, those factors shape how each spouse tackles tasks and allocates resources.