1. BS 187 QUIZ-2 Culture of Poverty/ 14 July 2011 In 5 sentences.... 1. What does poverty mean to you ? Do you consider your definition of poverty consistent/congruent with the notion of “culture of poverty”? Why or why not?

2. Culture of Poverty A controversial theory of culture and poverty Proposed by Lewis (1969) who argued that “COP” emerged when populations were socially and economically marginalized from a capitalist society developed patterns of behavior to deal with their low status This behavior was characterized by low aspirations,political apathy, helplessness, disorganization, provincialism, disparagement of middle class values (Lewis, 1969:190-192)

3. Culture of Poverty Lewis argued that once the COP is in place, it developed mechanisms that tended to perpetuate it, even if structural conditions changed An attempt to bridge the structure-culture divide: cultural explanations emphasized values and norms that directed behavior; structural explanations emphasized economic and structural constraints upon behavior Some are poor because of their inadequate values, others blamed the “system”

4. Culture of Poverty Current questions has taken multiple trajectories: examined culture with respect to issues such as agency, free will, determinism Not all researchers argue that culture helps explain poverty outcomes

5. Culture of Poverty Argued that poor remained in poverty not merely as a result of their economic conditions but also because of cultural values and practices they had developed from poverty Argued that culture constituted a set of norms and values that guided the behavior of individuals Conceived of culture as “lifestyles”, a “worldview” which made the escape from poverty difficult or impossible

6. Culture of Poverty Series of characteristics that defined COP: An orientation toward the present and instant gratification A preference for happiness over work A tendency to value familial ties over moral considerations of right or wrong Engaging in sex with multiple partners over the life course

7. Culture of Poverty Several problems with the COP conception: Assumed that individuals' practices were caused by their values, largely ignoring that many people, rich or poor, constantly act in violation of their values Its catalogue of the culture of poverty included both values and behaviors, often leading to a circular argument (people have multiple sexual partners bec they have a culture characterized by the presence of multiple partners)

8. Culture of Poverty Several problems with the COP conception: It assumed that a single culture categorized very diverse people Assumed that people's culture is fundamentally static and does not change over their lifetimes, as though people play little role in the creation of their own culture or practices Current formulation of culture departs from its definition as a unitary and internally coherent sets of attributes that characterizes a social group (Parsonian view) to a culture that refers to the meaning systems through which humans perceive and understand the world

9. Culture of Poverty The idea that races or ethnic groups “have” a culture (Asian culture, Anglo-American, Afro- American) is unhelpful and is unsubstantiated by research

10. Group Workshop The following are the current ways of examining culture:frames, repertoire, narratives, symbolic boundaries, cultural capital, institutions... 1. Describe how each domain negates the COP perspective. 2. Identify the cental strength and core weakness of each. 3. Provide an example how each could be used in the Philippine setting (e.g. How do we use cultural capital in examining a particular Filipino culture)

11. Culture of Poverty 6 ways how culture is being conceived and examined: 1. Frames (describe neighbourhood and how they framed it; resident vs transient; how poor frame the idea of teen- age pregnancy (embarassing or not bad at all) COP expect a single set of cultural response to arise from conditions of structural poverty Redefine the relation bet culture and behavior: norms and values = cause and effect vs constraint-possibility relationship

12. Culture of Poverty 6 ways how culture is being conceived and examined: 2. Repertoires (of practices, beliefs and attitudes that indiv calls forth at the time of action (strategies of action); tool kits of habits, skills and styles; do the poor share the values of the middle class?; what’s the tool-kit of the poor for survival?); views culture as heterogeneous sets of attributes rather than a single coherent system (allows for cultural differentiation and contradictions within a group); accounts for diversity within groups and multiplicity of perspectives within a single actor; put emphasis on heterogeneity and contradiction

13. Culture of Poverty 6 ways how culture is being conceived and examined: 3. Narratives (are stories; put beginning, middle, end; personal narratives influence how people makes sense of their lives and difficulties; suggests that people develop an understanding of themselves, their environment, and others that shape their actions; useful in demonstrating how self-conception influence action…action is not an automatic response to incentive but within the context of narratives around which people makes sense of their lives)

14. Culture of Poverty 6 ways how culture is being conceived and examined: 4. Symbolic boundaries (conceptual distinctions bet objects, people and practices that inform set of rules for social interaction…; distinguish those from who are worthy and who are less from the standpoint of morality and economic success, cultural sophistication…manifested in spatial segregation, labor market segregation, patterns of intermarriage; critical to the making of groupness/collective identity..;e,g, how the poor self-define rather than assigning them an identity; critiques/negates stereotypical views of poverty/racial or class differences

15. Culture of Poverty 6 ways how culture is being conceived and examined: 5. Cultural capital (refers to the institutionalized high status cultural signals used to exclude others in various contexts…; analytical device used to understand how different lifestyles and taste contribute to the reproduction of inequality; demonstrates that cross-class analysis illuminates aspects of social processes of exclusion that remain invisible to studies that focus on the cultural world of the poor;

16. Culture of Poverty 6 ways how culture is being conceived and examined: 5. Cultural capital (refers to the institutionalized high status cultural signals used to exclude others in various contexts…; shared patterns of tastes and distastes creates an isolating practices for the privileged and the poor alike which work in conjunction with class-segregating institutions; offers a response to theories who argue that if culture is heterogeneous then it is epiphenomenal and not useful as a causal explanation; demonstrates how social institutions are class-biased (i.e educational system)

17. Culture of Poverty 6 ways how culture is being conceived and examined: 6. Institutions (defined robustly as formal and informal rules, procedures, routines and norms as socially constructed shared cognitive and interpretive schemas or as formal organizations; the definition, enable or constrain shared definitions of experiences of class, gender, race which in turn affect poverty; last cultural analytical device to which we turn; salient on how cultural constructs feed into poverty-related policy

18. Culture of Poverty Variable-based (culture as outcome, poverty as IV vs poverty as outcome and culture as IV) Descriptive accounts of both (capture dimensions of the difference causal processes that produce poverty and inequality) = process-tracing; how factoring in meanings produce a more comprehensive explanation of poverty