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GATES: Do you think we need a moral revolution within the black community? Or a behavioral revolution? How do we get people to change these forms of dysfunctional behavior?
WILSON: I don't think they are going to change until we open up the opportunities for them. That's when they will change. I think we have seen many examples that when you open up the opportunity structure, people behave accordingly because they have a future.
For example, people are concerned now that the black kids are not studying in school. A lot of them are not studying because they don't see a relationship between school and post school employment. So they feel whether you drop out of high school or whether you graduate, it doesn't make any difference. You are not going to find a job. If they feel that way, they are not going to study.
I think how well a kid does in school is also shaped by what they and their families expect from them after high school. Kids who know that they're going to college after high school will have a different attitude towards learning than kids who know they will be getting a blue collar job after high school. Why bother mastering algebra when you know you'll be getting a job at a manufacturing plant,a restaurant or getting a truck driving job after high school?
This is part of the reason why upper income kids do better in school than low income kids in general because the upper income kids know they're going to college so they and their families naturally will put more emphasis on the things that they need to know(such as mastering algebra) to prepare them for college.
Do you see a connection between the two in relation to what William Julius Wilson is saying?
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