25 Quotes by Robert D. Putnam

How well you do in life shouldn’t depend on how well your parents did.

Many people have a stereotype of what it means to be poor. And it may be somebody they see on the street corner with a sign: “Will work for food.” And what they don’t think about is that person who’s struggling every day. Could be the person who waited on us, took our bank deposit, works in retail, but who is barely above the poverty line.

Parental wealth is especially important for social mobility, because it can provide informal insurance that allows kids to take more risks in search of more reward.

Social dislocation can easily breed a reactionary form of nostalgia.

Schools themselves aren’t creating the opportunity gap: the gap is already large by the time children enter kindergarten and does not grow as children progress through school. The gaps in cognitive achievement by level of maternal education that we observe at age 18-powerful predictors of who goes to college and who does not – are mostly present at age 6when children enter school. Schooling plays only a minor role in alleviating or creating test score gaps.

Young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of five to six times the historic rate.

Generally speaking, lower-tier grandparents mostly donate time, replacing parental resources, whereas upper-tier grandparents mostly donate money, supplementing parental resources.