Dynamic Optimism: Longitudinal Insights from Working-Class Arab Palestinian Mothers Between Value Sets

Drawing on a five-year longitudinal study of 12 working-class Arab Palestinian mothers in Israel, this article examines how maternal projects of respectability are reshaped when anticipated social mobility fails. Building on Beverly Skeggs’ conceptualization of respectability as a central moral project, existing scholarship has largely focused on how mothers secure respectability under conditions of poverty. Far less attention has been paid to moments in which respectability is denied, and to the processes through which it is subsequently reclaimed. Addressing this gap, the study traces mothers’ responses to the erosion of hoped-for educational futures for their daughters. Drawing on Lauren Berlant’s framework of cruel optimism, which describes attachments to promising but ultimately unachievable visions of the good life, this study situates optimism in a broader theoretical context. The analysis reveals how maternal investments in education, as a pathway to mobility, collide with structural constraints that render these aspirations unattainable. The article introduces the concept of dynamic optimism to capture how mothers move between disappointment and renewed moral affirmation by re-anchoring maternal worth in alternative value frameworks. Emotional decline emerges at moments of structural blockage, while emotional uplift is generated through renewed alignment with conservative gendered norms, including reliance on men’s protection and early marriage. By foregrounding rupture, retreat and realignment, the article offers a dynamic account of how optimism and respectability are continually renegotiated under conditions of structural constraint and moral regulation.