AN ANALYSIS OF JAY MACLEOD'S AIN'T NO MAKIN' IT: ASPLIRATIONS AND ATTAINMENT IN A LOW-INCOME NEIGHBORHOOD

Why is it that children from disadvantaged backgrounds find it so difficult – and often impossible – to achieve? Few questions are of such fundamental importance to the functioning of a fair and effective society than this one, yet the academic and political narratives that exist to explain the problem are fundamentally contradictory: some say the root of the problem lies in racial prejudice; others that the key factor is class; others again argue that we should look first at laziness, government's commitment to provide demotivating ‘safety nets,’ and to the appeal of easy money earned from a criminal lifestyle.Jay Macleod's seminal work of anthropology is one of the most influential studies to address this issue, and – in suggesting that problems of class, above all, help to fuel continued social inequality, Macleod is engaging in an important piece of problem-solving.