Ambitious ideals, realistic expectations: how prior experiences with structures moderate the goals of Section 8 voucher holders through frames

A core component of sociological studies of behavior and decision-making is understanding how people navigate their cultural toolkits. In this article, I explain how cultural tools are translated into goals. I argue that structure not only informs the barriers and opportunities people face in pursuing goals, but informs how they evaluate their goals to determine which are worth pursuing through “experiential frames” produced by prior experiences. Using Young’s (The minds of marginalized black men: Making sense of mobility, opportunity, and future life chances, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004) distinction between ideals (dreams), aspirations (goals with clear courses of action), and expectations (goals with clear courses of action viewed as achievable), I demonstrate this by analyzing the economic mobility goals of 34 Section 8 voucher holders living in New York City and the experiential frames that informed those goals. I find that while most respondents would like to achieve economic upward mobility, they evaluated goals that would reproduce their socio-economic position as aspirations or expectations through their experiential frames with housing, employment, education, and navigating the labor market. The findings contribute theoretically to the sociology of the future and the cultural sociology of goals.