The Social Construction of
Opportunity
by David Rubinstein
Erica L. Watson
Education Leadership 714
April 26, 2014
Introduction
The concept of structured opportunity has
played a key role in explanations of social
inequality, many sociologists contend that
inequality is primarily determined by
differential opportunity.
Vocabulary
The concept of opportunity is commonly
presented to rival culturally based explanations.
Opportunities are treated as the “hard,” that is,
“external” and “objective” facts of social order
that constrain thought and action.
William Julius Wilson
Claims that "Ghetto-specific culture is a
response to these structural constraints
and limited opportunities”
• The structural approach similarity regards
the psychological traits of individuals as
adaptive.
• The structural theory of culture and
personality is often articulated in the
conception of aspiration.
• Denying that psychological differences truly
explain unequal attainments, such variation
is seen as reflecting access to opportunities.
• The structural theory of culture and
personality is often articulation in the
conception of aspiration.
• Ambition is seen not as an ingrained trait
but as a mirror of opportunities.
• Denying that “cultural or normative
explanation can go very far in accounting
for the origins of Black-new European gaps”.
Stanley Lieberson contends that if blacks are
less committed to schooling, it is because of
“less incentive or rewards for schooling”.
• The concept of cognitive dissonance is
often invoked as the mechanism through
which aspirations are matched to
opportunities.
• Persons are not quite blank slates.
• They are seen as inclined to make the best
of their situations.
• This concept of opportunity is most
common in sociological studies of inequality
• Example-They turn to crime because of
“blockage” in the legitimate opportunity
structure.
• Differences in personalities or values are
seen as emergent responses.
• Merton’s theory acknowledges that
“features of lower class socialization,” like
an “inability to defer gratification are
implicated in attainment.
• Rubinstein wanted to challenge the claim
that unequal attainments can be
understood as a function of differential
opportunity by showing that cultural and
psychological traits are significantly
independent and essential to
understanding both action and its
environment.
• In this article he examines three empirical
studies.
The Mississippi Chinese,
by James Loewen
• After a few years their were no Chinese
sharecroppers.
• They earned a living by operating in retail grocery
and catering to blacks.
• This is an example of social mobility
• They were in the same category as Blacks @ 1st
but gradually upgrade to white status.
• Nature of opportunity & they took advantages of
cultural factors. They had business tradition
when the Blacks didn’t.
The Mississippi Chinese,
by James Loewen
• The Chinese saw no humiliation in serving white
citizens, the Blacks became jealous.
• The middle class negroes hated to see other
negroes get a head, while the Chinese supported
each other (Crab’s in a bucket).
• The Chinese was able to support each other
financially.
• The Chinese went from being treated like Blacks
to being recruited by the white citizens councils.
Hard Choice
By Kathleen Gerson
• Study of women’s career choices and the
availability of jobs and good options for
homemaking is more important than early
socializations in determining the course of
their lives.
• Kathleen data often contradicts her
theoretical model, it shows that women’s
opportunities cannot be disentangled from
cultural values, their own and others.
Hard Choice
By Kathleen Gerson
Examples
• When a women was offered a promotion from
a secretarial position to a sales worker, she
went with what her husband wanted and
stayed as a secretary.
• Another woman gave up her desire to become
a police officer because her husband didn’t
approve.
Mississippi Chinese & Hard Choice
• Just as the opportunity structure in Mississippi
emerged from a network of cultural values,
women's structural circumstances are formed
by the culturally based preferences of their
husbands.
• So these choices that they are making are
responses to “structural circumstances” that
force them to choice between love and work.
Ain’t No Making It
by Jay Macleod
• This study was an ethnography of two groups
of young men living in the same public
housing project but find that despite facing
similar circumstances, their outlooks, values,
and forms of life are radically different.
• This ties in to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of
“structural determination”.
• The main mechanism of this process of
reproduction is “regulation of aspirations”.
Ain’t No Making It
by Jay Macleod
• The main difference in the “habitus” of these
groups is that the Brothers have accepted the
ideology of achievement.
• This is their basic understanding of social
order.
• The “external” factor was the male authority
in the home.
Discussion
• There was a common theoretical model in
which opportunity is seen as a sort of master
variable, controlling not just unequal
outcomes but conduct, culture, and
personality.
• This article suggest that actors and their
cultural values do not merely react to or
reflect opportunities: they importantly
constitute them.
Conclusion
• It is beyond the scope of this paper to
consider the various implications of the
introduction of cultural variation, but they are
profound.
• Culture erodes the “determinacy of
situations”.
• If cultural variability mediated identities,
interests, and definitions of situations, rational
conduct can take various forms.
Reference
Rubinstein, D. (1994). The Social Construction of Opportunity. Journal of SocioEconomics. Spring/Summer. Vol. 23 Issue ½.