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The Urban Review

, Volume 48, Issue 2, pp 198–219 | Cite as

On the Meaning of Grit…and Hope…and Fate Control…and Alienation…and Locus of Control…and…Self-Efficacy…and…Effort Optimism…and…

  • Charity Anderson
  • Ashley Cureton Turner
  • Ryan D. Heath
  • Charles M. Payne
Article
First Online:

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.

Keywords

Alienation Efficacy Fate control Grit Hope Locus of control Noncognitive skills Powerlessness 

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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Notes

Acknowledgments

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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© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Charity Anderson
    • 1
  • Ashley Cureton Turner
    • 1
  • Ryan D. Heath
    • 1
  • Charles M. Payne
    • 1
  1. 1.School of Social Service AdministrationUniversity of ChicagoChicagoUSA

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