Character Gaps & Social Mobility

James Heckman
James Heckman

The Character and Opportunity Project at the Brookings Institution has a wonderful series on character traits and their relation to social mobility. So far there are five in the series. Whether more are to come will have to be seen. I think this is an important project, which features the work of Nobel economist James Heckman. As researcher Richard Reeves says in one of the posts, “If character and opportunity are inescapably intertwined, we need to open a new front in the war for opportunity, one that treats the inaptly labeled “soft” skills as vital ingredients in the creation of a more equal, more mobile, and more prosperous society.”