Paths to Success: Beating the Odds in American Society

Statisticians tell us that impoverished backgrounds are decent predictors of impoverished futures. This book seeks out the stories behind the exceptions. While the authors reveal consistencies between pathmakers' approaches and those of their middle-class counterparts, it also exposes striking differences between men and women, blacks and whites.

Table of Contents:
Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Preface Contents Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Personal Resources Chapter 3. The Study Design Chapter 4. Family Resources Chapter 5. Education and Schooling Chapter 6. Work and Careers Chapter 7. Spouses, Children, Friends, and Health Chapter 8. The Psychology of Unusual Success Chapter 9. Conclusions and Implications Appendix A: Interview Procedures Appendix B: Interview Schedule Notes References Index

About the Author :
Charles C. Harrington is Professor of Anthropology, Psychology, and Education and Chair of his department at Teachers College, Columbia University. Susan K. Boardman is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New Haven and Co-Director of Research at the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Review :
As a study of resiliency in highly successful adults, this study is unique and departs from mainstream research in the disciplines where the authors locate their work--namely, anthropology, sociology, and psychology...the present findings have implications, especially for educators, in that they illuminate issues in current policy debates and suggest directions for practice. -- Helen M. Marks Journal of Higher Education An excellent exploratory study that examines the lives of one hundred Americans who achieved success in their careers. In studying this upwardly mobile population, the authors examine the factors that led to this achievement and, in the reporting, they allow the reader to have a rare glimpse of at least one population that 'beats the odds.' Whether children of poverty with uneducated parents or those from middle-class homes and educated parents, the stories of the 'Pathmakers' make for fascinating reading. -- Yolanda T. Moses, President, City College of New York Paths to Success is a stereotype-bursting book. It describes pathmakers who achieve by beating the odds that are stacked against them. These resilient people defy normative expectations. This book celebrates people who lie beyond the norm and indicates why social scientists should be concerned with analyzing coefficients of dispersion in behavior as well as determining normative patterns. -- Charles Willie, Harvard Graduate School of Education