How social status shapes our dreams of the future and inhibits the lives we envision for ourselves
Most of us understand that a person’s place in society can close doors to opportunity, but we also tend to think that anything is possible when someone dreams about what might be. Dreams of a Lifetime reveals that what and how we dream—and whether we believe our dreams can actually come true—are tied to our social class, gender, race, age, and life events.
Karen Cerulo and Janet Ruane argue that our social location shapes the seemingly private and unique life of our minds. We are all free to dream about possibilities, but not all dreamers are equal. Cerulo and Ruane show how our social position ingrains itself on our mind’s eye, quietly influencing the nature of our dreams, whether we embrace dreaming or dream at all, and whether we believe that our dreams, from the attainable to the improbable, can become realities. They explore how
