Re: [xmca] return of culture of poverty

[ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org]

here is an excellent documentary of an undercover expose of skid row in LA
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/skid_row/

eric




From:   mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
To:     Lois Holzman <lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org>
Cc:     "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date:   11/09/2010 09:32 AM
Subject:        Re: [xmca] return of culture of poverty
Sent by:        xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu



Hi Lois-- This thread seems to touched a common concern. I have been
interested in revisiting the COP idea and even mad a pdf of the Lewis
article from *Scientific America*n that is one touch stone in the
discussion. Richard Valencia has published a new book,*Dimantling
Contemporary Deficit Thinking*, which has an interesting description of 
both
the earlier work and Ruby Payne's widely disseminated views and curriculum
training.
       I think its too early to reach firm conclusions about what is going
on. Seems that Bruce Robinson, Andy, and others are ahead of us in 
thinking
about that question.
mike

On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 6:29 PM, Lois Holzman 
<lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org
> wrote:

> MIke,
> I read that article when it came out a few weeks back. How do you
> understand it politically?
> Lois
>
> Don't forget to check out the latest at http://loisholzman.org
>
> Lois Holzman, Ph.D.
> Director, East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy
> 920 Broadway, 14th floor
> New York NY 10010
> Chair, Global Outreach for UX (www.allstars.org/ux)
> tel. 212.941.8906 ext. 324
> fax 718.797.3966
> lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org
> www.eastsideinstitute.org
> www.performingtheworld.org <http://loisholzman.net/>
> loisholzman.org <http://loisholzman.net/>
> www.allstars.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 8, 2010, at 8:24 PM, mike cole wrote:
>
> This topic is, indeed, coming back in a big way.
> mike
>
>
> October 17, 2010
> ‘Culture of Poverty’ Makes a Comeback By PATRICIA
> COHEN<
> 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/patricia_cohen/index.html?inline=nyt-per

> >
>
> For more than 40 years, social scientists investigating the causes of
> poverty have tended to treat cultural explanations like Lord Voldemort:
> That
> Which Must Not Be Named.
>
> The reticence was a legacy of the ugly battles that erupted after Daniel
> Patrick Moynihan<
> 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/daniel_patrick_moynihan/index.html?inline=nyt-per

> >,
> then an assistant labor secretary in the Johnson administration, 
introduced
> the idea of a “culture of poverty” to the public in a startling 1965
> report<http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm>.
> Although Moynihan didn’t coin the phrase (that distinction belongs to 
the
> anthropologist Oscar Lewis <
http://www.blacksacademy.net/content/3253.html
> >),
> his description of the urban black family as caught in an inescapable
> “tangle of pathology” of unmarried mothers and welfare dependency was 
seen
> as attributing self-perpetuating moral deficiencies to black people, as 
if
> blaming them for their own misfortune.
>
> Moynihan’s analysis never lost its appeal to conservative thinkers, 
whose
> arguments ultimately succeeded when President Bill
> Clinton<
> 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per

> >signed
>
> a bill in 1996 “ending welfare as we know it.” But in the
> overwhelmingly liberal ranks of academic sociology and anthropology the
> word
> “culture” became a live grenade, and the idea that attitudes and 
behavior
> patterns kept people poor was shunned.
>
> Now, after decades of silence, these scholars are speaking openly about
> you-know-what, conceding that culture and persistent poverty are 
enmeshed.
>
> “We’ve finally reached the stage where people aren’t afraid of being
> politically incorrect,” said Douglas S. Massey, a sociologist at 
Princeton
> who has argued <http://ann.sagepub.com/content/621/1.toc> that Moynihan
> was
>
> unfairly maligned.
>
> The old debate has shaped the new. Last month Princeton and the 
Brookings
> Institution<
> 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/brookings_institution/index.html?inline=nyt-org

> >released
> a collection
> of papers<
> 
http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/journal_details/index.xml?journalid=73

> >on
>
> unmarried parents, a subject, it noted, that became off-limits after
> the
> Moynihan report. At the recent annual meeting of the American 
Sociological
> Association, attendees discussed the resurgence of scholarship on 
culture.
> And in Washington last spring, social scientists participated in a
> Congressional
> briefing<
> 
http://www.aapss.org/news/2010/06/18/reconsidering-culture-and-poverty-a-congressional-briefing

> >on
>
> culture and poverty linked to a special issue
> of The Annals <http://ann.sagepub.com/content/629/1/6.full.pdf+html>, 
the
>
> journal of the American Academy of Political and Social
> Science<http://www.aapss.org/>.
>
>
>
> “Culture is back on the poverty research agenda,” the introduction
> declares,
> acknowledging that it should never have been removed.
>
> The topic has generated interest on Capitol Hill because so much of the
> research intersects with policy debates. Views of the cultural roots of
> poverty “play important roles in shaping how lawmakers choose to address
> poverty issues,” Representative Lynn Woolsey, Democrat of California, 
noted
> at the briefing.
>
> This surge of academic research also comes as the percentage of 
Americans
> living in poverty<
> 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17poverty.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=eric%20eckholm%20poverty&st=cse

> >hit
>
> a 15-year high: one in seven, or 44 million.
>
> With these studies come many new and varied definitions of culture, but
> they
> all differ from the ’60s-era model in these crucial respects: Today, 
social
> scientists are rejecting the notion of a monolithic and unchanging 
culture
> of poverty. And they attribute destructive attitudes and behavior not to
> inherent moral character but to sustained racism and isolation.
>
> To Robert J. Sampson, a sociologist at
> Harvard<
> 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/harvard_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org

> >,
> culture is best understood as “shared understandings.”
>
> “I study inequality, and the dominant focus is on structures of 
poverty,”
> he
> said. But he added that the reason a neighborhood turns into a “poverty
> trap” is also related to a common perception of the way people in a
> community act and think. When people see graffiti and garbage, do they 
find
> it acceptable or see serious disorder? Do they respect the legal system 
or
> have a high level of “moral cynicism,” believing that “laws were made to 
be
> broken”?
>
> As part of a large research project in Chicago, Professor Sampson walked
> through different neighborhoods this summer, dropping stamped, addressed
> envelopes to see how many people would pick up an apparently lost letter
> and
> mail it, a sign that looking out for others is part of the community’s
> culture.
>
> In some neighborhoods, like Grand Boulevard, where the notorious Robert
> Taylor public housing projects once stood, almost no envelopes were 
mailed;
> in others researchers received more than half of the letters back. 
Income
> levels did not necessarily explain the difference, Professor Sampson 
said,
> but rather the community’s cultural norms, the levels of moral cynicism 
and
> disorder.
>
> The shared perception of a neighborhood — is it on the rise or stagnant? 
—
> does a better job of predicting a community’s future than the actual 
level
> of poverty, he said.
>
> William Julius Wilson<
> 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/william_julius_wilson/index.html?inline=nyt-per

> >,
> whose pioneering work boldly confronted ghetto life while focusing on
> economic explanations for persistent poverty, defines culture as the way
> “individuals in a community develop an understanding of how the world 
works
> and make decisions based on that understanding.”
>
> For some young black men, Professor Wilson, a Harvard sociologist, said,
> the
> world works like this: “If you don’t develop a tough demeanor, you won’t
> survive. If you have access to weapons, you get them, and if you get 
into a
> fight, you have to use them.”
>
> Seeking to recapture the topic from economists, sociologists have 
ventured
> into poor neighborhoods to delve deeper into the attitudes of residents.
> Their results have challenged some common assumptions, like the belief 
that
> poor mothers remain single because they don’t value marriage.
>
> In Philadelphia, for example, low-income mothers told the sociologists
> Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas that they thought marriage was profoundly
> important, even sacred, but doubted that their partners were “marriage
> material.” Their results have prompted some lawmakers and poverty 
experts
> to
> conclude that programs that promote marriage without changing economic 
and
> social conditions are unlikely to work.
>
> Mario Luis Small, a sociologist at the University of
> Chicago<
> 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_chicago/index.html?inline=nyt-org

> >and
>
> an editor of The Annals’ special issue, tried to figure out why some
> New
> York City mothers with children in day care developed networks of 
support
> while others did not. As he explained in his 2009 book, “Unanticipated
> Gains,” <
http://home.uchicago.edu/%7Emariosmall/documents/UG_Chapter1.pdf
> >the
>
> answer did not depend on income or ethnicity, but rather the rules of
> the day-care institution. Centers that held frequent field trips, 
organized
> parents’ associations and had pick-up and drop-off procedures created 
more
> opportunities for parents to connect.
>
> Younger academics like Professor Small, 35, attributed the upswing in
> cultural explanations to a “new generation of scholars without the 
baggage
> of that debate.”
>
> Scholars like Professor Wilson, 74, who have tilled the field much 
longer,
> mentioned the development of more sophisticated data and analytical 
tools.
> He said he felt compelled to look more closely at culture after the
> publication of Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s controversial 
1994
> book, “The Bell Curve,” which attributed African-Americans’ lower I.Q.
> scores to genetics.
>
> The authors claimed to have taken family background into account, 
Professor
> Wilson said, but “they had not captured the cumulative effects of living 
in
> poor, racially segregated neighborhoods.”
>
> He added, “I realized we needed a comprehensive measure of the 
environment,
> that we must consider structural *and* cultural forces.”
>
> He mentioned a study by Professor Sampson, 54, that found that growing 
up
> in
> areas where violence limits socializing outside the family and where
> parents
> haven’t attended college stunts verbal ability, lowering I.Q. scores by 
as
> much as six points, the equivalent of missing more than a year in 
school.
>
> Changes outside campuses have made conversation about the cultural roots 
of
> poverty easier than it was in the ’60s. Divorce, living together without
> marrying, and single motherhood are now commonplace. At the same time
> prominent African-Americans have begun to speak out on the subject. In 
2004
> the comedian Bill
> Cosby<
> http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billcosbypoundcakespeech.htm
>made
>
> headlines when he criticized poor blacks for “not parenting” and
> dropping out of school. President
> Obama<
> 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per

> >,
> who was abandoned by his father, has repeatedly talked about 
“responsible
> fatherhood.”
>
> Conservatives also deserve credit, said Kay S. Hymowitz, a fellow at the
> conservative Manhattan Institute, for their sustained focus on family
> values
> and marriage even when cultural explanations were disparaged.
>
> Still, worries about blaming the victim persist. Policy makers and the
> public still tend to view poverty through one of two competing lenses,
> Michèle
> Lamont <http://www2.cifar.ca/research/successful-societies-program/>,
> another editor of the special issue of The Annals, said: “Are the poor 
poor
> because they are lazy, or are the poor poor because they are a victim of
> the
> markets?”
>
> So even now some sociologists avoid words like “values” and “morals” or
> reject the idea that, as The Annals put it, “a group’s culture is more 
or
> less coherent.” Watered-down definitions of culture, Ms. Hymowitz
> complained, reduce some of the new work to “sociological pablum.”
>
> “If anthropologists had come away from doing field work in New Guinea
> concluding ‘everyone’s different,’ but sometimes people help each other
> out,” she wrote in an e-mail, “there would be no field of anthropology —
> and
> no word culture for cultural sociologists to bend to their will.”
> Fuzzy definitions or not, culture is back. This prompted mock surprise 
from
> Rep. Woolsey at last spring’s Congressional briefing: “What a concept.
> Values, norms, beliefs play very important roles in the way people meet 
the
> challenges of poverty.”
> __________________________________________
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