Page 191 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 191
A Cautious and Cautionary Tale:
Robert Putnam’s Our Kids
Robert Putnam: Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. New York:
Simon and Schuster 2015
First of all – this is a deeply depressing and disturbing work about the
growing rates of poverty among American children in the last decades.1
It points to the “linkage from economic hardship to stressed parenting to
bad outcomes for kids”.2 It is an important book that abounds with data
that clearly prove that situation is deteriorating. I read it as a cautionary
tale, an extremely cautionary tale for all of us – as it shows “the conse-
quences of an economic system whose values grow increasingly toxic” (Ei-
senberg, 2015: p. 295). Not that I think that the historic and social situa-
tion is directly “translatable” to this part of the world, clearly not, but the
book does invite certain associations, especially in the light of conserva-
tive restoration coupled with neoliberal pressures (see Apple, 1993) we are
witnessing on a wider scale.
At the same time – being completely differently situated as the author of
the book, as a female in a post-socialist central European context with
strong affinities towards feminist rethinking of social phenomena – I have
some serious issues about the book and its theses or interpretations. I cer-
tainly cannot agree entirely with one of the reviewers that this is an over-
ly critical or extreme work (see Cayetano, 2016). The book is thoroughly
researched and backed up by hard data from Putnam’s own research and
1 Not to mention the moment in which this review is written – a particularly bad moment
for America under the president in office. But the book was written before the current
administration took over.
2 I am using Putnam’s book as e-book, so I am unable to give page numbers.
189
Robert Putnam’s Our Kids
Robert Putnam: Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. New York:
Simon and Schuster 2015
First of all – this is a deeply depressing and disturbing work about the
growing rates of poverty among American children in the last decades.1
It points to the “linkage from economic hardship to stressed parenting to
bad outcomes for kids”.2 It is an important book that abounds with data
that clearly prove that situation is deteriorating. I read it as a cautionary
tale, an extremely cautionary tale for all of us – as it shows “the conse-
quences of an economic system whose values grow increasingly toxic” (Ei-
senberg, 2015: p. 295). Not that I think that the historic and social situa-
tion is directly “translatable” to this part of the world, clearly not, but the
book does invite certain associations, especially in the light of conserva-
tive restoration coupled with neoliberal pressures (see Apple, 1993) we are
witnessing on a wider scale.
At the same time – being completely differently situated as the author of
the book, as a female in a post-socialist central European context with
strong affinities towards feminist rethinking of social phenomena – I have
some serious issues about the book and its theses or interpretations. I cer-
tainly cannot agree entirely with one of the reviewers that this is an over-
ly critical or extreme work (see Cayetano, 2016). The book is thoroughly
researched and backed up by hard data from Putnam’s own research and
1 Not to mention the moment in which this review is written – a particularly bad moment
for America under the president in office. But the book was written before the current
administration took over.
2 I am using Putnam’s book as e-book, so I am unable to give page numbers.
189
