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The culture of poverty is a social theory that expands on the cycle of poverty. It attracted academic and policy attention in the 1970s, survived harsh academic criticism (Goode and Eames, 1996; Bourgois, 2001; Small M.L., Harding D.J., Lamont M., 2010), and made a comeback at the beginning of the 21st century.〔Cohen, Patricia, ‘Culture of Poverty’ Makes a Comeback, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/us/18poverty.html〕 It offers one way to explain why poverty exists despite anti-poverty programs. Critics of the early culture of poverty arguments insist that explanations of poverty must analyze how structural factors interact with and condition individual characteristics (Goode and Eames, 1996; Bourgois, 2001; Small M.L., Harding D.J., Lamont M., 2010). As put by (Small, Harding, and Lamont (2010) ), "since human action is both constrained and enabled by the meaning people give to their actions, these dynamics should become central to our understanding of the production and reproduction of poverty and social inequality". == Early Formulations == Early proponents of this theory argued that the poor are not simply lacking resources, but also acquire a poverty-perpetuating value system. According to anthropologist Oscar Lewis, "The subculture (the poor ) develops mechanisms that tend to perpetuate it, especially because of what happens to the worldview, aspirations, and character of the children who grow up in it” (Moynihan 1969, p. 199). Some later scholars (Young 2004; Newman 1999; Edin and Kefalas 2005; Dohan 2003; Hayes 2003; Carter 2005; Waller 2002; Duneier 1992) contend that the poor do not have different values. The term "subculture of poverty" (later shortened to "culture of poverty") made its first appearance in Lewis's ethnography ''Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty'' (1959). Lewis struggled to render "the poor" as legitimate subjects whose lives were transformed by poverty. He argued that although the burdens of poverty were systemic and, therefore, imposed upon these members of society, they led to the formation of an autonomous subculture as children were socialized into behaviors and attitudes that perpetuated their inability to escape the underclass. Lewis gave some seventy characteristics (1996 (), 1998) that indicated the presence of the culture of poverty, which he argued was not shared among all of the lower classes.
Although Lewis was concerned with poverty in the developing world, the culture of poverty concept proved attractive to U.S. public policy makers and politicians. It strongly informed documents such as the Moynihan Report (1965) and the War on Poverty more generally. The culture of poverty also emerges as a key concept in Michael Harrington's discussion of American poverty in The Other America (1982). For Harrington, the culture of poverty is a structural concept defined by social institutions of exclusion which create and perpetuate the cycle of poverty in America. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Culture of poverty」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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