Abstract
After a long period of emphasis on academic skills, researchers have recently shown growing interest in the importance of noncognitive skills as drivers of life outcomes for poor children. “Grit” and “hope” are among the more popular focal points in this research. This article argues terms like these are most useful when they are thought of as a part of a cluster of concepts related to the idea of alienation, in the sense of powerlessness. Framing the “new” concepts that way helps connect our thinking to a wider range of empirical work and helps identify important unresolved issues for future research. We also argue the most profitable approaches will be those which help us understand how individual characteristics interact with structural context, avoiding an exclusive emphasis on either individual characteristics or structural contexts.
Notes
Seeman also noted that conceptual resemblance posed a problem—and one that remains germane—of researchers’ inability to adequately tease apart the constructs’ nuances and therefore run the risk of incorrectly conceptualizing them as the same thing.
Duckworth’s project focuses on the implications of both grit and self-control, but the former seems to be drawing the lion’s share of the attention, even though the predictive power of self-control rivals that of socioeconomic status.
The Big Five are a broad cluster of traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—used among contemporary psychologists to model and evaluate personalities.
Abbreviations
- Alienation:
-
The expectancy or probability held by the individual that his own behavior cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes, or reinforcements, he seeks (Seeman 1959)
- Fate control:
-
The extent to which an individual feels he has some control over his own destiny (Coleman et al. 1966)
- Locus of control:
-
Whether individuals attribute outcomes to their own actions or to circumstances beyond their control (Rotter 1966)
- Hope:
-
The belief that the future will be better than the present, along with the belief that you have the power to make it so (Lopez 2013)
- Grit:
-
The tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward long-term goals (Duckworth et al. 2007)
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We would like to acknowledge very helpful comments from Mark Gould on an earlier draft. We are also grateful for the support of the Spencer Foundation.
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Anderson, C., Turner, A.C., Heath, R.D. et al. On the Meaning of Grit…and Hope…and Fate Control…and Alienation…and Locus of Control…and…Self-Efficacy…and…Effort Optimism…and…. Urban Rev 48, 198–219 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-016-0351-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-016-0351-3