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The American Dream and the Power of Wealth: Choosing Schools and Inheriting Inequality in the Land of Opportunity, by Heather Beth Johnson. New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. 231pp. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 0415952395.
Heather Beth Johnson's The American Dream and the Power of Wealth, pursues a familiar theme for most sociologists: the relationship between inequality and ideology. Specifically, how do people understand and justify their conviction in the American Dream of meritocracy given the realities of material inequality? Johnson uses education as a focal point, examining how intergenerational transfers of wealth affect the ability of parents to choose schools for their children. Using interview data from 260 parents, some of who have enjoyed the benefits of family wealth and others who haven't, she endeavors to show how they make sense of the disjuncture between their belief in the American Dream and the structure of wealth inequality (p. 11). Her study has considerable potential, particularly given its focus on how intergenerational transfers of wealth shape the extent of race and class segregation in schools. Unfortunately, the study's contribution to the broader sociological literature on inequality and ideology is limited by an unclear analytical focus that relies too much on long interview quotes, often left hanging...