Why Location Matters When It Comes to Social Mobility

The New York Times (July 22, 2013) reports: "A study finds the odds of rising to another income level are notably low in certain cities, like Atlanta and Charlotte, and much higher in New York and Boston....

"Climbing the income ladder occurs less often in the Southeast and industrial Midwest, the data shows, with the odds notably low in Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Raleigh, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus. By contrast, some of the highest rates occur in the Northeast, Great Plains and West, including in New York, Boston, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, Seattle and large swaths of California and Minnesota.

"'Where you grow up matters,' said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the study’s authors. 'There is tremendous variation across the U.S. in the extent to which kids can rise out of poverty.'

"All else being equal, upward mobility tended to be higher in metropolitan areas where poor families were more dispersed among mixed-income neighborhoods.

"The researchers concluded that larger tax credits for the poor and higher taxes on the affluent seemed to improve income mobility only slightly. The economists also found only modest or no correlation between mobility and the number of local colleges and their tuition rates or between mobility and the amount of extreme wealth in a region.

"[But] Income mobility was ... higher in areas with more two-parent households, better elementary schools and high schools, and more civic engagement, including membership in religious and community groups.

"Lawrence Katz, a labor economist who did not work on the project, said he was struck by the fact that areas with high levels of income mobility were also those that established high school earliest and have long had strong school systems."

Is a "Competitive" Black Male a "Problem" for Social Services?

Do social services fear the qualities that most empower their clients and colleagues?

Recently I had a conversation with three other Black Americans who are involved in the social services that illustrated how some helping professionals fear the type of behavior that they should actually encourage.

One of the social service professionals worked for the government, another worked for a non-profit, and the third worked in the private sector.

In the course of the conversation I asked whether or not it was their impression that African American males who are “competent and competitive” in Western Pennsylvania tend to be perceived as being “intimidating” and are marginalized in the professional workforce.

I was prepared for the usual round of denials from social service professionals, but what I was not prepared for was the intensity of their reaction to the particular phrase: “competent and competitive”. It was as though the phrase, itself, embodied social dysfunction.

My professional friends jumped all over the word “competitive”, and interpreted it as meaning a poor upbringing leading to bad public behavior.

They hyperventilated about poor work habits, bad attitudes, and not being able to get along with others in the workplace. Mind you, I had used the terms “competent” and “competitive” — and I was clearly referring to professionals like themselves. Yet their reaction was one that would have been appropriate if I had been talking about someone who was ill-mannered, unprepared, and lacked basic social skills. It was as if I had asked why gang members being sidelined by the professional workforce.

Although they were not directly addressing me, at least I hope not, their response was in full lecture mode, “You have to know how to act. You have to know how to dress. You have to know how to get along with people. You have to know how to behave in the workforce.”

Later, I replayed the conversation over and over in my mind and it was clear that the word that set them off was the word “competitive,” and when used to describe the behavior of Black males they saw it as an unqualified negative attribute. Do social service professionals believe that Black males should not be competitive? Would that make them feel more comfortable?

I retold this conversation to a friend and he nodded and confirmed that  the phrase “competent and competitive” sounded odd in reference to Black male professionals. Not that it was problematic, or signaled something that was dysfunctional to him — just that it was odd.

I searched my memory, trying to recall when and where I first picked up that phrase. Suddenly it hit me. I picked it up from a recording of a meeting between Senator Robert F. Kennedy, back in the  late 1960s, and advocates for education reform. Kennedy said that he wanted to see schools that would produce Black graduates who could “deal competently and competitively with their environment.”

In that context, to be competitive did not mean to be bad mannered or poorly socialized, rather it was the very measure of social competence and was essential for getting a foothold in the mainstream of American society. It was a necessary virtue on the road to social equality. To be competitive, in Kennedy’s day, was at the very core of self-esteem.

My frame-of-reference for the term came from Senator Robert F. Kennedy during  a recorded meeting on education reform

I realize that much has changed in the United States since the late 1960s. There is a more negative connotation to “competitive” behavior in anything other than sports. It seems to suggest, to many people, being self-absorbed and being a poor “team player”. The social services are particularly suspicious of competitive types as being ill suited for the “global village” or for membership in a community. Yet, the United States remains a highly competitive society. Even members of dominant groups must compete in order to survive. What chance do minorities have if they are not competitive also?

This sense of competition does not mean the lack of teamwork or community spirit — a basketball team is highly competitive, yet it will never win without cooperation and coordination between its members — but it does mean that one should be able to hold one’s own among others who are holding theirs.

Judging by the intensity of the negative emotional reaction from my colleagues I can’t help but to wonder whether or not many of us have lost sight of this. I can’t help but to wonder whether or not the social services prefer to have what they consider to be “well-adjusted” black males to interact with, as opposed to competent and competitive ones — who might be a little too independent-minded for their comfort.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Ways of Reading Black Unemployment

Image credit: Dailycaller.com

There are many was of "reading" any social issue or problem. Three of the most obvious ways of reading an issue are: (1) that it is individual, (2) that it is environmental, and (3) that it is systemic.

When a social issue is interpreted as being an individual issue the focus is on what an individual has done to create the problem, and how that individual can correct it. This approach focuses on personal values, motivation and personal initiative to develop the skills and resources to alleviate the problem.

When a social issue is interpreted as being environmental the focus tends to be on the surrounding community and the social network that the person has access to. This interpretive approach tends to focus on who one knows, what is in one's social network, and what is happening the community that one is part of. People who are part of a supportive and well-resourced social network are said to have "social capital".

A third method of interpreting a social issue is to focus in the systemic nature of the situation. This approach focuses on larger structural and historical changes that impact both individuals and communities (environments). If a nation, as a whole, has undergone the process of de-industrialization, for example, it matters little how much motivation or experience a person has -- or how well connected they are -- in terms of their ability to hold onto an industrial job. The social system or structure has changed and the individual and his or her social environment will be swept along with that change.

Here are a few examples of how the issue of African American unemployment is framed by different sources reporting on the issue.

In this first clip, from CBS News in 2011, the problem of African American male unemployment is framed as being a problem of not having completed school. The reporter also notes that lack of money to go to college is a factor in being unemployed. At the end of the piece, however, there is an interesting twist -- the reporter says that "In this economy where jobs are scarce even having a real skill is no guarantee of having a job."

This NBC report, the same year, frames the problem as being a bit more complicated. In this report a man is interviewed who has experience but the rules of the game changed on him. Employers used to hire applicants based on their ability to do the job but now they require certification or a credential. A credential does not necessarily prove that an applicant can do the job, nor is it true that an applicant cannot do the job without one. Going to school in order to secure a credential has become a profitable business for colleges, universities, and post-secondary trade schools. At the end of the clip the reporter suggests that the willingness of blacks to work for free might give them a foothold on the job market.

This City Limits report, in 2010, points to a more complicated problem. The person who is the point of focus in this piece has both experience and credentials, still he is unable to get a job.

The following clip presents the most complicated inquiry into the issue yet. This clip was posted by "Aggressive Fruit" in 2009. It includes a wide range of interviewees who discuss racial stereotypes, social and cultural assimilation, the individual "survival instinct" that prevents people from helping others to find jobs, the impact of reduced funding for education, and the lack of a social network that would include potential employers or people who can tip one off to job openings.

This clip identifies systemic factors (an overall weak economy), environmental factors (social networking within a social and cultural environment), and individual factors (personal motivation and attitudes).

For more on this topic see "What are real measures of diversity and inclusion?" in my Current History Journal.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Are Cultural and Systemic Factors Driving Increased Diagnoses for DSM V?

Image Credit: American Psychiatric Association

The fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V) is about to be released. An article in the current issue of Slate, titled "Abnormal is the New Normal"shows the expansion of mental health categories in DSM V. If most people can now be labeled "abnormal" then what can we now say constitutes the "norm"?

Beyond the notion that we have gotten better at detecting mental illness; and somewhat connected to the notion that more of us suffer from mental illness than in the past, this article points to increased pressure at work sites, where many of us are under greater pressure to get more done with fewer co-workers (and less pay and fewer or no benefits). And because we still have a stubbornly high unemployment rate we can easily be replaced, which may add to our anxiety. 

The article also mentions that we have a culture of instant gratification and quick fixes. The expectation that all problems can quickly be resolved and that all wants and desires can instantly be met was not something that people had been led to believe two or three generations ago. 

Some analysts suggest that the mental health profession is over-diagnosing people for mental illness. The categories for mental illness, over the past 50 years, have grown rather impressively. There has also been a loosening of the definition of mental illness, so that more people fall within the existing categories for mental illness than 50 years ago. 

In this vein, there is also an aspect of what is happening that may be sensitive for social service providers to talk about: having more diagnosiible  "mental illnesses" brings more clients to the "helping professions" and more customers to the pharmaceutical companies -- it is good business to medicalize, and pathologize behavior that was once considered within the realm of the "normal". The article points out the requirement to have a diagnosed illness before treatment can be covered by insurance companies. A person must also have a diagnosible "problem" before they can qualify for disability benefits from the government. 

All of these macro and systemic factors may be driving the sharp increase in the statistics on mental illness over the past half century. What do you think?

Three Big Themes for Studying Urban Environments

Image Credit: Philadelphia Foundation

In my Squidoo webpage on Human Behavior in the Urban Environment I have identified a series of questions under the sub-heading “What Type of Intervention in Urban Environments?” These questions identify some of the major themes for thinking and writing about the city. It could be useful to simplify these themes by clustering them together, creating three mega-categories: (1) Professionals and Institutions; (2) Deviancy, Tolerance and Social Integration; and (3) Demographics, Resources and Public Space.

Each cluster suggests a series of interrelated questions one can use as a guide, or to generate ideas, when writing about the urban environment.

Professionals and Institutions: What are some of the underlying ideas and assumptions behind different anti-poverty initiatives? What are some of the roles of professionals and non-professionals in community intervention and problem-solving? How do these roles come into conflict with each other? How might communities and social institutions be made more humane and responsive to human needs? What are some of images, in the public mind, concerning the intimacy or impersonality of social life in the city?

Deviancy, Tolerance and Social Integration: How are populations stigmatized in the social environment? What are the limits of tolerance for social deviancy, and how is tolerance and intolerance expressed? How do communities place formal or informal sanctions against deviant behavior? How do deviant populations cope with community sanctions? What are some of the images of the urban environment, in the public mind, concerning social deviance?

Demographics, Resources and Public Space: What are some of the tensions that arise concerning diversity and assimilation in urban environments? How might population diversity be correlated to increases or decreases in property value? How is public space used and contested by different demographic groups (this can be cultural, generational, racial/ethnic, gendered, etc.)? How does the diversity of a population affect, and how is it affected by, scarcity or abundance of social resources?

These clusters of themes, and associated questions, should help you to think about how you can observe and write about urban environments. You may think of your own clusters of themes that work better for you than the ones I have here. Give it a try and see what you come up with.

Social Workers as Change Agents

As social workers, we often define ourselves as being "agents of change", yet this role often comes with a level of frustration. As we try to function as change agents in society we invariably encounter resistance. If people, or social service agencies, or larger social systems wanted to change they would have done so long before we arrived on the scene. So the nature of our job is to try to get people to make changes that at least a part of them resists. No wonder so many social workers get burnt out.

Presumably "the light bulb" is either the client or the social system that affects the client. If the light bulb is the client, then the above statement could be empowering, even though the social worker in this is image is looking rather peeved. If social workers acknowledge that they can't change the client against his or her will, then this would be a basic acknowledgment of the right of the client to self-determination.

But why the petulant look on the social worker's face?

On the other hand, maybe the child in the image is not the social worker. Maybe the child is the social worker's perception of the client. In that case, the image suggests a paternalistic attitude on the part of the social worker. The social worker thinks the client is an obstinate child, who doesn't know what is good for him or her. This paternalistic attitude toward the client may contribute to clients' reluctance to trust social workers.

But maybe the image is of a whole social system that needs to be changed. Some social workers focus mostly on trying to change larger social systems and the agencies that deliver social services. They do this in an attempt to make those social systems, or those agencies, more responsive to the needs of the client. If "the light bulb" is the social agency or system, and it resists changing in order to meet client needs, this can also be a source of frustration for the social worker.

In any case, to say "the light bulb has to want to change," suggests that if the light bulb doesn't want to change then the social worker can wash his or her hands of the whole thing. There is nothing more to be done. Blame the client or blame the system; but the social worker is absolved from any responsibility for the intractable problems the client faces. The social worker cannot be effective until the client, or the system, wants the worker to be effective.

Can this be right?

If the only time the social worker can be effective is when the light bulb wants to change, what do we need a social worker for in the first place? If the social worker accepts credit for clients, systems, and agencies that already want to change then what is the value-added from having a social worker?

Doesn't value come from scarcity -- the kind of scarcity that occurs when one is able to confront, and overcome, some type of difficulty that would discourage most people before the task was completed? Isn't it  the difficulty of the task that makes the social worker's intervention valuable?

So, why is the "light bulb", whether it is a social system, a social service agency, a group, a family, or an individual, reluctant to change, when they know that change would probably be beneficial in the long run?

Maybe anthropologists can help us out on this.

Mary Catherine Bateson, in Peripheral Visions, writes about the narratives we create about our lives. We simultaneously create narratives of continuity and discontinuity; it all depends on the lens we use as we reflect on the course of our lives. We can note the series of events in our lives, many of which were unexpected, that seem to have led us to where we are today -- as if this were our destiny. On the other hand, we can point to the many fits and starts, dead-ends and new beginnings we have had, which suggest that our lives are compilations of random events which appear to be going nowhere.

One the one hand, our lives seem to unfold in ways we never would have anticipated when we were children, teenagers, or young adults. Yet other elements of our lives seem stubbornly familiar and unchanging.

The interesting thing about narratives of discontinuity is that they often engender a sense of fragmentation, which can be unsettling, disorienting and frightening. They can make us feel as though our lives are no longer under our control, if they ever were. We can feel adrift; at the mercy of the winds, the river current, or blind fate.

Why are people resistant to change? Bateson suggests that people fear the loss of the sense of security and groundedness. When social workers ask people to change, we are also asking them to give something up -- something that may be very important to them, even if it is only a memory, or a way of understanding reality. We are asking them to let go of something that is familiar in order to embrace something that has not yet proven itself. Even under the most dysfunctional circumstances, few people are willing to take the risk of change without serious reservations.

We often fear the unknown and the unfamiliar, despite it's potential to give us a new start. We may fear the outcome if we stand still and just allow things to continue to happen to us, but at least we can feel as though we did not bring disaster on ourselves -- something outside of us did it, even though it occurred as a result of our own inaction. If we take the risk of inaction, the risk is based on what other people and things might do to us. If we take the risk of change, the risk is something we incur of our own choosing.

It takes a leap of faith to initiate change. But, as Bateson points out in Peripheral Visions, when we ask people -- or systems -- to change, we should realize that we are asking them to take a big risk. We should not take the suggestion of risk lightly. We should ask ourselves, what I am asking this individual, or this system, to give up that might provide a sense of familiarity and continuity? Why might it be frightening for this individual, or people in this system, to initiate change?

If we want to be effective social workers we have to understand that this means we must be agents of change; and as agents of change we will automatically engender opposition, and we should not be surprised, or petulant, when we find that the light bulb does not want to change, and tries to hold onto the status quo in subtle or not-so-subtle ways.

It is the nature of our job to encounter resistance to change; therefore, we should not be cavalier in the changes we propose, and we should not take suggestions of change lightly. We must begin by spending time trying to understand what our clients and their systems value about the status quo, and what they fear about the discontinuities we are suggesting to them. We must try to fully understand how they perceive what we are proposing as being disruptive of their lives. I would even go so far as to suggest that we must be empathetic toward their fear of disruption. If we can't develop that empathy, we have no business trying to encourage them to change.

Our job engenders resistance. If it were any other way, we wouldn't be needed in the first place.

The Logic Behind Community Organizing...

What is the logic behind community organizing, in relation to other human service initiatives?

I think this photograph sums the logic up best:

Image Credit: The Other 98% (on Facebook)

The first response, "If you give me a fish," signifies the charitable impulse. The social worker responds to the immediate needs of the client, to resolve the immediate crisis, but does not have the time, resources, or -- perhaps -- the inclination to do more for the client. Perhaps resolving the immediate crisis will be enough, it may provide the client with the breathing room needed to recover, so that the client can then take things into his or her own hands. But the problem may actually be deeper, in which case....

The second response, "If you teach me to fish," signifies intervention that teaches the client how to avoid future crises, or to respond to crises on his or her own, once they arise. This mode of social work practice is based on the assumption that if the client's behavior (or culture) can be changed their circumstances will improve. But what if the problem is bigger than the behavior, knowledge-base, or culture of a group or individual?

The third response, "If you teach me to organize," signifies intervention based on the assessment that the problem is structural and systemic at its core. Often problems, while having cultural or behavioral components to them, become intractable because of the disparity of social, political, and economic power -- and the way the "rules of the game" have been drawn up to protect the powerful. This requires development of skills that will shift the distribution of power (or access to information in order to make the system work for the vulnerable). Frequently this entails establishing cultural capital by linking with the interests and activities of others.

It is always helpful to be able to identify the underlying assumptions behind any particular mode of intervention. Michael Jacoby Brown contrasts and compares different methods of social intervention in the following video:

In this video Brown discusses the underlying assumptions behind the basic methods of social intervention. These methods are service, advocacy, mobilization, and activism; then he distinguishes between those modes of intervention and community organizing. This helps to draw out the fundamental methods and principles of community organizing and what its objectives entail.

How does organizing, as a form of intervention, distinguish itself from the other modes of intervention?

What are the attributes and parts of this thing we call "organizing"?

What are the assumptions that underlie the selection of community organizing as one's mode of intervention?

What assumptions underlie the selection of each of the other modes of intervention?

What is essential, in order for community organizing, or an organization, to be effective?