Page 22 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 22
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
The first line of Susan Dewey’s (2011: p. ix) Neon Wasteland, her
observational study of a topless dancing venue in New York state pseu-
donymously named “Vixens,” sums up the dilemma for many Americans
seeking the American Dream. Cinnamon, one of the dancers Dewey be-
friends, says “There are some lines that, once you cross them, you can’t go
back again.” As Dewey (2011: p. ix) relates,
She was explaining how it was impossible for her to leave her job as a top-
less dancer not only because it was the sole source of economic support
for her daughter, but also due to her perception that she was somehow
psychologically damaged by her experiences onstage.
These factors, however, are only a small part of the equation as Dewey
(2011: p. xiii) comments further regarding the structural factors that also
come into play:
Women who have engaged in sex work for lengthy periods as their sole
source of income can find it particularly difficult to seek out other jobs
because employers are, at best, hesitant to view such experiences as trans-
latable skills and, at worst, prone to negative judgments about the nature
of such work.
Thus, although the women who worked as topless dancers at Vixens were
uniformly there as a result of the “powerfully seductive promise of socio-
economic mobility through the rapid generation of cash income” (2011: p.
xiii) as part of “a first step toward a better future,” (2011: p. 21) Dewey finds
that their hopes for social mobility, deliberately played upon by manage-
ment, are almost never realized. As Cinnamon acknowledges in the first
line Dewey chose to start her book, crossing certain lines eliminates one
from alternative futures.
Social elimination through cultural incapacity starts long before
employment in a working class, dead end job, however, as Julie Bettie
(2014) documents in Women Without Class, her study of the intersec-
tion of race, gender performances, and class at Waretown High, a pseu-
donymously named school in California’s Central Valley. Education has
long been identified in the United States as one of the principal routes –
if not the primary route – to upward social and economic status (Sorok-
in, 1959). However, while education may be a route to upward social, eco-
nomic and cultural mobility, schools are not ideally meritocratic, if they
are meritocratic at all (Deresiewicz, 2015; McNamee and Miller, 2013) in
the way in which the school process helps or hinders those from class ori-
gins other than the middle class professional groups that dominate them.
As many studies show (Lareau, 2011), there are cultural limitations that
20
The first line of Susan Dewey’s (2011: p. ix) Neon Wasteland, her
observational study of a topless dancing venue in New York state pseu-
donymously named “Vixens,” sums up the dilemma for many Americans
seeking the American Dream. Cinnamon, one of the dancers Dewey be-
friends, says “There are some lines that, once you cross them, you can’t go
back again.” As Dewey (2011: p. ix) relates,
She was explaining how it was impossible for her to leave her job as a top-
less dancer not only because it was the sole source of economic support
for her daughter, but also due to her perception that she was somehow
psychologically damaged by her experiences onstage.
These factors, however, are only a small part of the equation as Dewey
(2011: p. xiii) comments further regarding the structural factors that also
come into play:
Women who have engaged in sex work for lengthy periods as their sole
source of income can find it particularly difficult to seek out other jobs
because employers are, at best, hesitant to view such experiences as trans-
latable skills and, at worst, prone to negative judgments about the nature
of such work.
Thus, although the women who worked as topless dancers at Vixens were
uniformly there as a result of the “powerfully seductive promise of socio-
economic mobility through the rapid generation of cash income” (2011: p.
xiii) as part of “a first step toward a better future,” (2011: p. 21) Dewey finds
that their hopes for social mobility, deliberately played upon by manage-
ment, are almost never realized. As Cinnamon acknowledges in the first
line Dewey chose to start her book, crossing certain lines eliminates one
from alternative futures.
Social elimination through cultural incapacity starts long before
employment in a working class, dead end job, however, as Julie Bettie
(2014) documents in Women Without Class, her study of the intersec-
tion of race, gender performances, and class at Waretown High, a pseu-
donymously named school in California’s Central Valley. Education has
long been identified in the United States as one of the principal routes –
if not the primary route – to upward social and economic status (Sorok-
in, 1959). However, while education may be a route to upward social, eco-
nomic and cultural mobility, schools are not ideally meritocratic, if they
are meritocratic at all (Deresiewicz, 2015; McNamee and Miller, 2013) in
the way in which the school process helps or hinders those from class ori-
gins other than the middle class professional groups that dominate them.
As many studies show (Lareau, 2011), there are cultural limitations that
20
