Chapter 1: Harmony at Home: The Myth of the Model Family
A Family Tree, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear
Norman Rockwell
Looking for Work
Gary Soto
What We Really Miss About the 1950s
Stephanie Coontz
Aunt Ida Pieces a Quilt
Melvin Dixon
An Indian Story
Roger Jack
*The Color of Family Ties: Race, Class, Gender, and Extended Family Involvement
Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian
Visual Portfolio
Reading Images of American Families
*Proposition 8: The California Marriage Protection Act
*8 Is Not Hate: The Meaning of a Proposition
Jennifer Roback Morse
*Proposition 8 Hurt My Family - Ask Me How
Marriage Equality USA
What Is Marriage?
Evan Wolfson
*My Big Fat Straight Wedding
Andrew Sullivan
Chapter 2: Learning Power: The Myth of Education and Empowerment
From Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1848
Horace Mann
Idiot Nation
Michael Moore
Against School
John Taylor Gatto
"I Just Wanna Be Average"
Mike Rose
From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work
Jean Anyon
Visual Portfolio
Reading Images of Education and Empowerment
The Achievement of Desire
Richard Rodriguez
Para Teresa
Inés Hernández-Ávila
Learning to Read
Malcolm X
Still Separate, Still Unequal
Jonathan Kozol
*In the Basement of the Ivory Tower
Professor X
Chapter 3: Money and Success: The Myth of Individual Opportunity
From Ragged Dick
Horatio Alger
The Lesson
Toni Cade Bambara
Horatio Alger
Harlon L. Dalton
*Living It: Tim Blixseth
Robert Frank
Serving in Florida
Barbara Ehrenreich
*Class in America – 2006
Gregory Mantsios
Visual Portfolio
Reading Images of Individual Opportunity
Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption [Media Selection]
Diana Kendall
*From The Missing Class
Katherine S. Newman and Victor Tan Chen
*Tent City, USA
Maria L. LaGranga
*From America’s New Working Class
Kathleen R. Arnold
Stephen Cruz
Studs Terkel
Chapter 4: Created Equal: The Myth of the Melting Pot
From Notes on the State of Virginia
Thomas Jefferson
Causes of Prejudice
Vincent N. Parrillo
C.P. Ellis
Studs Terkel
*School
James McBride
*Loot or Find: Fact or Frame? [Media Selection]
Cheryl I. Harris and Devon W. Carbado
Visual Portfolio
Reading Images of The Melting Pot
Models of American Ethnic Relations: A Historical Perspective
George M. Fredrickson
Assimilation
Sherman Alexie
*Deconstructing America
Patrick J. Buchanan
The Crossing
Rubén Martínez
*The End of White America? [Media Selection]
Hua Hsu
Child of the Americas
Aurora Levins Morales
Chapter 5: True Women and Real Men: Myths of Gender
How the Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes
Alexis de Tocqueville
Girl
Jamaica Kincaid
Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender
Aaron H. Devor
The Story of My Body
Judith Ortiz Cofer
"Two ways a Woman Can Get Hurt": Advertising and Violence [Media Selection]
Jean Kilbourne
From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos [Media Selection]
Joan Morgan
Visual Portfolio
Reading Images of Gender
*"Bros Before Hos": The Guy Code
Michael Kimmel
*The Descent of Men
Dan Kindlon
*The Death of Macho
Reihan Salam
*A Boy's Life
Hanna Rosin
Chapter 6: This Land is Your Land: American Myths of Nature
*From Walking
Henry David Thoreau
*From An American Childhood
Annie Dillard
*Climbing the Tree of Health
Richard Louv
*The Artifice of the Natural [Media Selection]
Charles Siebert
*From As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial
Derek Jensen & Stephanie McMillan
*The End of Nature
Bill McKibben
*Visual Portfolio
Reading Images of Nature
*Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp
Joy Williams
*Moving Heaven and Earth
Graeme Wood
*In Search of Justice
Nydia M.Velasquez
*Talking to the Owls and Butterflies
John (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes
* new to this edition