More handpicked essays just for you.
Malcolm gladwell outliers and the sociological imagination
Outliers malcolm gladwell criticism
Outliers malcolm gladwell criticism
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Background
The book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell explores the circumstances that enable people to become exceptional in various trades. Gladwell asserts that success results from accumulative advantage, intensive practice, and demographic luck, which supports the idea that a perfect combination of nature and nurture leads to individual success.
Accumulative Advantage Those who receive opportunities early in life are more likely to find success due to accumulative advantage. When some children have opportunities others do not, they gain exponential opportunities. Gladwell points to Canadian hockey players to support this assertion. Competitive teams select children from a very young age. Hockey’s arbitrary age cutoff of January 1st gives
…show more content…
In his example of the wealthiest Americans ever, Gladwell notes that fourteen were born around the same time in history (p.61). These men all reached adulthood during a crowning moment for the American economy. They were able to dedicate 10,000+ hours towards their trades by the time the economy reached its peak, and their experience allowed them to take advantage of the situation to gain wealth. Like the older children in the hockey leagues, these men had an advantage over other generations that allowed them to find …show more content…
Psychology has long argued the effect of nature, or innate features and genes, and nurture, or environment and upbringing, on life outcomes. Modern academics agree that the two are interrelated (Shonkoff).
Gladwell’s story of Joe Flom perfectly illustrates the nature and nurture interaction that leads to success. Flom’s innate features were his race as a Jew, natural intelligence, and time of birth, while his environment was his social class and hardworking attitude (Gladwell p. 116-158). As Gladwell points out, all of these factors affected his eventual success as a lawyer. Had one of those factors been missing or different, Flom would not have achieved the same success.
Gladwell further supports that both genes and upbringing create success through his example of IQ scores. In the example of Nobel Prize winners, Gladwell states that “Intelligence has a threshold,” (p. 80) past which environmental variables are more important. People with low intelligence are not likely to win a Nobel Prize, despite the opportunities their life may provide. However, people with high intelligence have a much greater chance than someone of similar intelligence if they are provided the right upbringing and opportunities compared to their compatriots. Simply having the genes or the upbringing does not result
Malcolm Gladwell once said, “...people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.” The author, Wes Moore, of the book, The Other Wes Moore, is considered an outlier through the “Gladwellian” lens based off of Gladwell’s book, Outliers. Wes’s story demonstrates objectives that define him as an outlier with the contributions of where he’s from, his advantages, and also his attitude over his ability. These contributions therefore define him as an outlier through the “Gladwellian” lens.
These children do not have to go through everything they parents went through to be successful. They do not know the meaning of working hard, setting goals and achieve those goals. So these kids end up losing their goals and sense of self-worth, Gladwell says.
Malcolm Gladwell, in the nonfiction book Outliers, claims that success stems from where you come from, and to find that you must look beyond the individual. Malcolm Gladwell develops and supports his claim by defining an outlier, then providing an example of how Stewart Wolf looked beyond the individual, and finally by giving the purpose of the book Outliers as a whole. Gladwell’s purpose is to explain the extenuating circumstances that allowed one group of people to become outliers in order to inform readers on how to be successful. The author writes in a serious and factual tone for the average person in society of both genders and all ethnicities who wants to become successful in life.
The popular saying “practice makes perfect” has been used for many years encouraging younger generations to strive for success in whatever area they wish to excel in. Success is something everybody in society strides for but some do not know how it is achieved. However, there are many people throughout history who are known for achieving success in many areas. Malcolm Gladwell, a best selling author and speaker, identifies these people as being outliers. Gladwell identifies the word “outlier” in his story Outliers as “a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience.” Although Malcolm Gladwell does not establish credibility for himself in his novel, his targeted audience of a younger inexperienced generation feel the need to be informed by his detailed theories about becoming successful and eventually becoming an outlier. Although the reality of becoming successful can depend on instances one can not control, Gladwell tells his readers there is a great portion they can control through his theory, the 10,000 hour rule. He does this by using well presented logical persuasive appeals and interesting rhetorical devices such as: onomatopeias, exposition, and argumentation.
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that there is no such thing as a self-made man, and that success is only the result of a person’s circumstances. However, throughout the novel Gladwell points out that your circumstances and opportunities only help you become successful if you are willing to take advantage of them and work hard. From a twelve year old living in the Bronx, to those who were born at just the right time to become millionaires, one thing is the same throughout; these people because successful because they seized the opportunities they were given. The advantages and opportunities that came from their circumstances would not be important if they had not grasped them. Every successful man is self made, because he has seized the
Another point Gladwell brings forth is the notion of one’s upbringing, race, and ethnicity can be a factor behind their success. And lastly, pursuing meaningful work will cause one to continue working with their skill and not give up. Legacy is a collection of examples that support the idea: values are passed down from generation to generation, which may cause a certain group of people to be more persistent in a skill, or occupation. Although the author, Malcolm Gladwell did not major in sociology or psychology in college, his credibility for Outliers comes from his background in journalism.
“Harrison Bergeron” features a society that emphasizes some fundamental problems of total equality. While it is human nature to want to be accepted and up to par with others, there has to be a distribution of achievement for the sake of achievement itself. We wouldn’t be human without our differences in aptitude. We just have to celebrate that diversity in order to
In “Outliers” Malcolm Gladwell organizes his argument for their being a rule for overall success by showing statistics of people who are defined as being successful such as Bill Gates, Billy Joy, and The Beatles. He also uses a Berlin music academy to help prove his rule. He presents an argument that Bill Gates and The Beatles and the violinist attending the music academy may have been born with innate talent but that is not the sole ...
In “The Matthew Effect”, Canadian journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell claims that circumstances determine who is and isn’t successful. In “Mind-sets and Equitable Education”, Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck argues that those with growth mindsets are more eligible to obtain and experience success than those with fixed mindsets. Although these texts may seem to contradict one another, they are actually similar in many ways.Gladwell’s and Dweck’s texts may differ in the sense that one regards to the circumstances leading to success, meanwhile the other claims that believing in oneself can lead to success, but are quite similar due to the fact that circumstances could help motivate and encourage one to accomplish their goals.
Once in a while, it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to. Gladwell believes that cultural legacies are powerful forces. Cultural legacies are the customs of a family or a group of people, that is inherited through the generations. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, Cultural legacies is something that’s been passed down for generations to generations. It depends on what type of legacies was passed that will affect a person. If a good legacy was passed down, someone can keep that legacy going by trying hard at keeping the legacies going. If a bad legacy was passed down; I believe that cultural legacies can be altered or changed, by good working habits, determination, and a positive mindset to succeed. Culture can affect either positively or negatively, but we have the power to turn our cultural
He starts with the first example, “In Rosewood High school, Ranadive coached a team of girls who had no talent in a sport he knew nothing about. He was an underdog and a misfit, and that gave him the freedom to try things no one else even dreamt of” (Gladwell 67). This work of literature is not a theory, but rather a fact-based research on abnormal neurological behavior of ‘disadvantaged’ people. Gladwell writes about the art of battling giants to prove that misfits and underdogs are bound to win due to their limited material resources and many disadvantages. Being at a disadvantage means the state or instance of being in an unfavorable circumstance or condition.
Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers is an extremely informative read about success and the different aspects that attribute to it. Gladwell is able to use many studies and sources that back up his theories of how success is achieved. Although he is biased towards his theories, the only real argument that can be made in opposition to his theories would be a debate over exceptions to the 10,000 Hour Rule. Outliers ultimately has a positive effect on the audience by making them more aware of their own chances at success and how if they may be lacking in one area (education, opportunity, creativity) all hope is not lost. Gladwell’s piece is essentially timeless and will be able to be applied to future generations because he used examples from a few different eras that still make sense to today.
Alexi disregarded everyone who told him to be average, read as much as he could, and as a result was able to become a writer regardless of stereotypes, essentially proving them wrong. Stereotypes are often untrue, but if enough people believe them, can be compelling in the affected people’s lives. When they start to disappear, however, many more people become motivated to pursue a higher education, decide on different careers, and discover new talents and
If people work hard, focus, and are disciplined, they will succeed in the future. This has become a universal idea taught by parents, teachers, and peers. People have passed down this idea to the younger generations and they chose to live by this moral that makes sense. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell debunks the universal idea that working hard will allow people to play hard and get further in life. Gladwell eliminates the traditional ideas of success by showing that opportunities, family background, and being born at the “right” time are actually what lead to success.
In Chapter 8 and 9 of Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell exams some of the ways that Asian and American students learn math, arguing that some of the principles in the US education system should be reconsidered. I generally agree with Gladwell’s point of view. I believe in two ways, students ' principal spirit and the length of students’ studying, the US education system leaves much to be desired, though an overhaul is in progress.