Lecture Notes - Week 4; dependency-based explainations of poverty
- Created by: xsmithy7272
- Created on: 25-02-20 17:19
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The Culture of Poverty - Lewis (1966);
- Studied poor people in Mexico, he asked them to keep diaries of their life
- Developed cultural values that were passed on from generation to generation
- This was a 'design for living' - they were not deficient but these values kept them in poverty
- Fatalism / Immediate Gratification / Employment
Values of the working class (cultural deprivation)
- Fatalism in life, 'can't change my life', and in education, 'no point in working hard'
- Immediate Gratification in life, 'win the lottery blow it', and in education, 'leave school ASAP'
Values of the middle class
- Mastery in life, 'plan for the future', and in education, 'revise i'll improve'
- Deferred Gratification in life, 'save for a rainy day', and in education, 'go to uni'
Strengths;
- Poor values such as immediate gratification and fatalism are passed on and cause poverty
Weaknesses;
- Poor values may not be passed on in a simplistic way
- Situational Constraints - the behaviour of the poor is due to lack of resources and income, not lack of values meaning the…
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