Page 34 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 34
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
was doing the dreaming, the package might also include car ownership,
television ownership (which multiplied from 6 million to 60 million
sets in the U.S. between 1950 and 1960), and the intent to send one’s kids
to college. The G.I. Bill was as crucial on that last count as it was to the
housing boom. In providing tuition money for returning vets, it not only
stocked the universities with new students – in 1947, roughly half of the
nation’s college enrollees were ex-G.I.’s – but put the very idea of college
within reach of a generation that had previously considered higher edu-
cation the exclusive province of the rich and the extraordinarily gifted.
Between 1940 and 1965, the number of U.S. adults who had completed at
least four years of college more than doubled.
This was an ideal that translated the American Dream into a new
society based upon purchasing power, epitomized by John Kenneth Gal-
braith’s (1958) “The Affluent Society,” focusing on attaining hitherto un-
dreamed levels of personal affluence. The succeeding decades exposed a
commitment to high levels of personal debt via new credit cards, easy cred-
it and family investment portfolios in the bull markets of the day. At the
same time, the American Dream was being drained of its substantive con-
tent and, “decoupled from any concept of the common good (the move-
ment to privatize Social Security began to take on momentum) and, more
portentously, from the concepts of working hard and managing one’s ex-
pectations.” As he goes on to comment:
These are tough times for the American Dream. As the safe routines of
our lives have come undone, so has our characteristic optimism – not
only our belief that the future is full of limitless possibility, but our faith
that things will eventually return to normal, whatever “normal” was be-
fore the recession hit. There is even worry that the dream may be over
– that we currently living Americans are the unfortunate ones who shall
bear witness to that deflating moment in history when the promise of
this country began to wither. This is the “sapping of confidence” that
President Obama alluded to in his inaugural address, the “nagging fear
that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must
lower its sights.”
As S.L. Hanson and J. Zogby (2010) indicate: “Cullen (2003) and
others (Sherraden, 1991; Newman, 1993; Shapiro, 2004; Moen and Roe-
hling, 2005; Johnson, 2006; Ho, 2007) have suggested that the Ameri-
can Dream may be unraveling as we see a growing wealth gap, ongoing
race and gender inequality, and expanding poor immigrant populations.
Perhaps the 21st century is not a time of increasing progress toward the
American Dream.”
32
was doing the dreaming, the package might also include car ownership,
television ownership (which multiplied from 6 million to 60 million
sets in the U.S. between 1950 and 1960), and the intent to send one’s kids
to college. The G.I. Bill was as crucial on that last count as it was to the
housing boom. In providing tuition money for returning vets, it not only
stocked the universities with new students – in 1947, roughly half of the
nation’s college enrollees were ex-G.I.’s – but put the very idea of college
within reach of a generation that had previously considered higher edu-
cation the exclusive province of the rich and the extraordinarily gifted.
Between 1940 and 1965, the number of U.S. adults who had completed at
least four years of college more than doubled.
This was an ideal that translated the American Dream into a new
society based upon purchasing power, epitomized by John Kenneth Gal-
braith’s (1958) “The Affluent Society,” focusing on attaining hitherto un-
dreamed levels of personal affluence. The succeeding decades exposed a
commitment to high levels of personal debt via new credit cards, easy cred-
it and family investment portfolios in the bull markets of the day. At the
same time, the American Dream was being drained of its substantive con-
tent and, “decoupled from any concept of the common good (the move-
ment to privatize Social Security began to take on momentum) and, more
portentously, from the concepts of working hard and managing one’s ex-
pectations.” As he goes on to comment:
These are tough times for the American Dream. As the safe routines of
our lives have come undone, so has our characteristic optimism – not
only our belief that the future is full of limitless possibility, but our faith
that things will eventually return to normal, whatever “normal” was be-
fore the recession hit. There is even worry that the dream may be over
– that we currently living Americans are the unfortunate ones who shall
bear witness to that deflating moment in history when the promise of
this country began to wither. This is the “sapping of confidence” that
President Obama alluded to in his inaugural address, the “nagging fear
that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must
lower its sights.”
As S.L. Hanson and J. Zogby (2010) indicate: “Cullen (2003) and
others (Sherraden, 1991; Newman, 1993; Shapiro, 2004; Moen and Roe-
hling, 2005; Johnson, 2006; Ho, 2007) have suggested that the Ameri-
can Dream may be unraveling as we see a growing wealth gap, ongoing
race and gender inequality, and expanding poor immigrant populations.
Perhaps the 21st century is not a time of increasing progress toward the
American Dream.”
32
