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Oscar Lewis introduced his idea of the “subculture of poverty” in 1958, at the International
Congress of Americanists in San Chose, Costa Rica and he later mentioned it in his book Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty (1959).
The largest description of the developing concept was given in his book La Vida (1966). Comparing his study of 171 families in Mexico city with data on slums collected by other scientists, and with the descriptions in novels, Lewis “noted certain persistent patterned associations of traits among families with the lowest income level and the least education”
Lewis described the culture of poverty as a way of life, a combination of certain traits, passed through generations. It is an adaptation to poverty, to “being at the bottom” in an industrializing/ capitalist society, but perpetuating itself once started. It crosses national and ethnic boundaries but has a different flavour in different situations.
Characteristics of Culture of Poverty:
The way of life which develops among some of the poor under these conditions is the culture of poverty. It… can be described in terms of some seventy interrelated social, economic, and psychological traits,” writes Lewis. Some of the characteristics Lewis mentioned are:
The lack of effective participation and integration of the poor in the major institutions of the larger society. Poor people claim to have some of the middle-class values, but on the whole, they do not live by them.
Life of the poor is characterized by poor housing conditions, crowding, gregariousness, and a minimum of organization beyond the level of the nuclear and extended family. There are occasionally informal temporary groupings or voluntary associations within slums (for instance, gangs).
Among some of the poor, characteristics is the absence of childhood as a specifically prolonged and protected stage in the lifecycle, as well as early initiation into sex, free unions or consensual marriages. There is also a trend toward female-centered families.
Some other traits include strong feelings of marginality, helplessness, dependence, and inferiority
Criticism:
Lewis put forward no standard to measure the traits typical of the culture of poverty
Lewis assumed that the culture of poverty was a ‘way of life’ handed down from generation to generation, but conducted no longitudinal studies to demonstrate this point. Instead, he relied upon interviews with consecutive generations of the same family.
Sampling was not from low-income people, but rather from those Lewis believed would exhibit the traits constituting the culture of poverty.
The opposition started to argue that accepting a culture of poverty framework amounted to ‘blaming the victim’ and not the socio-political exploitative environment. It presumes that the poor are poor through their own lack of ability and initiative.
Scholars like Valentine were skeptical about the appropriateness of the concept of culture in the circumstances of poverty because of the same reason: that the “way of life” starts as an adaptation to very oppressive circumstances.
The application term culture defies any geographical limit. In other words, what should a researcher study if he wants to study the culture of poverty because both the rich and poor could be found in a single place and in similar sub cultures like castes, religion, rural areas, etc.
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