Mobility In America

In this engaging and complex book, Robert Putnam discusses why upward mobility in the United States of America has progressively gotten worse though the recent decades. Putnam describes many diverse variables throughout this book that has led to this steady decline and has put them into four main categories: Families, parenting, schooling, and community. To make it easier to summarize and process, this paper will be split into these four parts. After the summary of Putnam’s substantial thesis, this paper will exercise his thesis in not only the anecdotes that are provided, but in everyday situations I, myself, have experienced.
Families
Robert Putnam focuses on social class and family structure in this section. Divorce, race, and gender norms are discussed. Putnam introduces a better than average family including Earl, Patty, Lucy, and Andrew. Earl was raised in a middle class house with a broken family in the 1950’s. This didn’t stop him from going to college, getting a degree in business, and meeting the love of his life, Patty. Patty was a sophomore at the time and dropped out of school when Earl graduated. They wanted children but not until they were finally stable. A big factor that was discussed in this family was the importance of staying together. On page 51, Putnam makes this known. “ ‘her parents are divorced. My parents
Kayla was a result of a rebound by her mother. Joe and Darleen found out they were expecting in a time that was financially difficult for them. The couple split up as what seemed to be a result of lack of money which fueled the fighting. Both factors of poverty and divorce were mentioned in Kayla’s shortcoming to blossom as a mature student, however, neither one was more to blame. With the help of school staff, Kayla was pushed to better herself through college. The librarian of her school helped her arrange financial aid for a local community