Talk:Culture of poverty

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2019 and 15 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Epichola.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled
Regrettably, this is an example of the very worst of postmodern tripe that seeks to cast 'the poor' (of whom the author gives no defining characteristic) as a collective victim class that may be excused its behaviour because of attribution to a self-serving 'culture'. This piece really should be Vfd but let's see... Eddie.willers 23:16, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
 * No, the article simply needs to be more clear about attributing these views to Lewis. He held these views and they were influential in shaping poverty research and policy for years afterward. The article isn't saying whether or not Lewis was correct, it's just summarizing what he said. FreplySpang (talk) 23:19, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

i'd have to agree with Spang. Cultures of Poverty are very common in this world, from capitalism. I'm a part of one.

Raccoon Fox 20:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

changes and recommendations
--Birdmessenger 14:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The culture of poverty argument is not social Darwinism in and of itself, though certain modern day "social Darwinists" certainly seem to like it (I'm not entirely sure that that term can be used in this article in a NPOV way at any rate)
 * Oscar Lews did not intend to "blame the victim" for poverty; in fact he ended up with something that fell somewhere in the middle of entirely structural explanations and hyperindividualistic explanations. It was others who came later who would use the culture of poverty argument to defend dismantling the "welfare state" and social nets.
 * this article could be expanded considerably, with a better discussion of the War on Poverty, the ethnographic work that directly refuted Lewis' arguments (e.g, Carol Stack's All Our Kin), William Julius Wilson, Charles Valentine, Charles Murray, Massey and Denton, welfare reform, etc.
 * I removed a metric ton of unnecessary links

--Hlyson 13:41, 13 September 2011
 * This article could be reorganized to include relevant headings of separate sections that address different aspects of the culture of poverty argument. Potential headings could be: Definition, History, Academic Use, Political Influence, Criticism.  Adding information to each of these separate sections would greatly enhance this article by creating a more comprehensive understanding of the culture of poverty argument
 * This article could also be linked to a variety of other related articles including: the urban underclass, the working poor, and concentrated poverty
 * Relevant authors to cite include Michael Harrington and William Julius Wilson


 * Include all works cited in the bibliography. Oscar Lewis’ “Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty (1959) is missing. Summarize Lewis’ definition of what a “Culture of Poverty” is rather than simply paste in a long quote missing the page referenced. Furthermore, the passage mentioning “the seventy characteristics that indicated the presence of the culture of poverty” can be found on page 188 of On Understanding Poverty: Perspectives from the Social Sciences, edited by Daniel P. Moynihan (1969)
 * A helpful write up on the “Culture of Poverty” can be found on http://www.blacksacademy.net/content/3253.html (accessed 09.18.2011)

Jacobseilo (talk) 02:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

1. O. Lewis is cited by a quotation (allegedly nonjudgmental) from Moynihan. Why not go to Moynihan's source, since the content is about the concept and not a critique of it by Moynihan? 2. The article says that the term was originally SUBculture of Poverty, but that it later got shortened. But in the sentence or paragraph where this assertion is made, the reference is to O. Lewis's book (and content quotation) with CULTURE of Poverty in the title. What gives? 3. A lot of the text is unnecessarily difficult to read.Kdammers (talk) 02:28, 24 March 2014 (UTC)