IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v629y2010i1p200-219.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Both Social Structure and Culture Matter in a Holistic Analysis of Inner-City Poverty

Author

Listed:
  • William Julius Wilson

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

A complex web of racialist and nonracialist structural forces, along with cultural forces, have adversely impacted life in inner-city black neighborhoods. Yet a number of studies have raised questions about the real effects of living in such neighborhoods, including the widely cited studies on the Moving to Opportunity experiment. The author highlights studies that provide compelling evidence for considering the cumulative effects of residing in poor segregated neighborhoods. While some of these are structural, others are cultural, such as the effects of prolonged exposure to cultural traits that originate from or are the products of racial exclusion. Advancing the argument that structural conditions provide the context within which cultural responses to chronic economic and racial subordination are developed, the author suggests a holistic public policy perspective whereby the complex web of structural and cultural factors that create and reinforce racial inequality is recognized and appreciated. To illustrate this perspective, he highlights the Harlem Children’s Zone, which President Obama has identified as a model for the creation of a national program of “promised neighborhoods†to address chronic racial and economic subordination.

Suggested Citation

  • William Julius Wilson, 2010. "Why Both Social Structure and Culture Matter in a Holistic Analysis of Inner-City Poverty," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 629(1), pages 200-219, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:629:y:2010:i:1:p:200-219
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716209357403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716209357403
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716209357403?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Will Dobbie & Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2009. "Are High Quality Schools Enough to Close the Achievement Gap? Evidence from a Social Experiment in Harlem," NBER Working Papers 15473, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. repec:pri:cheawb:kling_mto481 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01qz20ss50t is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman & Lawrence F. Katz & Lisa Sanbonmatsu, 2004. "Moving to Opportunity and Tranquility: Neighborhood Effects on Adult Economic Self-Sufficiency and Health From a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment," Working Papers 5, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    5. William N. Evans & Wallace E. Oates & Robert M. Schwab & William N. Evans & Wallace E. Oates & Robert M. Schwab, 2004. "Measuring Peer Group Effects: A Study of Teenage Behavior," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 13, pages 232-257, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patrick Bayer & Stephen L. Ross, 2006. "Identifying Individual and Group Effects in the Presence of Sorting: A Neighborhood Effects Application," Working papers 2006-13, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2009.
    2. Kling, Jeffrey & Liebman, Jeffrey, 2004. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects on Youth," Working Paper Series rwp04-034, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Adriaan R. Soetevent, 2006. "Empirics of the Identification of Social Interactions; An Evaluation of the Approaches and Their Results," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 193-228, April.
    4. Wim Bernasco & Thomas de Graaff & Jan Rouwendal & Wouter Steenbeek, 2017. "Social Interactions and Crime Revisited: An Investigation Using Individual Offender Data in Dutch Neighborhoods," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(4), pages 622-636, July.
    5. Francesca Cornaglia & Naomi E. Feldman & Andrew Leigh, 2014. "Crime and Mental Well-Being," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 110-140.
    6. Gordey A. Yasterbov & Alexey R. Bessudnov & Marina A. Pinskaya & Sergey G. Kosaretsky, 2014. "Contextualizing Academic Performance In Russian Schools: School Characteristics, The Composition Of Student Body And Local Deprivation," HSE Working papers WP BRP 55/SOC/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    7. Donald R. Haurin & Stuart S. Rosenthal, 2009. "Language, Agglomeration and Hispanic Homeownership," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 37(2), pages 155-183, June.
    8. Katherine M. O'Regan & John M. Quigley, 1996. "Teenage Employment and the Spatial Isolation of Minority and Poverty Households," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(3), pages 692-702.
    9. Giulio Zanella, 2004. "Discrete Choice with Social Interactions and Endogenous Memberships," Department of Economics University of Siena 442, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    10. Bet Caeyers, 2014. "Peer effects in development programme awareness of vulnerable groups in rural Tanzania," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    11. Yakusheva, Olga & Kapinos, Kandice & Weiss, Marianne, 2011. "Peer effects and the Freshman 15: Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 119-132, March.
    12. Krupka, Douglas J. & Noonan, Douglas S., 2009. "Empowerment Zones, neighborhood change and owner-occupied housing," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 386-396, July.
    13. David Brasington & Don Haurin, 2005. "Capitalization of Parent, School, and Peer Group Components of School Quality into House Price," Departmental Working Papers 2005-04, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    14. Sangui Wang & Lijuan Zheng, 2024. "The Impacts of the Poverty Alleviation Relocation Program (PARP) on Households’ Education Investment: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in Rural China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-23, May.
    15. Cullen, Julie Berry & Jacob, Brian A. & Levitt, Steven D., 2005. "The impact of school choice on student outcomes: an analysis of the Chicago Public Schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 729-760, June.
    16. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2010. "Peer group effects on the academic performance of Italian students," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(17), pages 2203-2215.
    17. Neilson, Christopher A. & Zimmerman, Seth D., 2014. "The effect of school construction on test scores, school enrollment, and home prices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 18-31.
    18. Narayan Sastry & Bonnie Ghosh-Dastidar & John Adams & Anne R. Pebley, 2003. "The Design of Multilevel Survey of Children, Families, and Communities: The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey," Working Papers 03-21, RAND Corporation.
    19. Cremer, Helmuth & Maldonado, Dario, 2013. "Mixed oligopoly in education," IDEI Working Papers 766, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    20. Bayer, Patrick & McMillan, Robert & Rueben, Kim S., 2004. "What drives racial segregation? New evidence using Census microdata," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 514-535, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:629:y:2010:i:1:p:200-219. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.