Imprecation of “Culture of Poverty”?: Subculture in An Kang Community in Taipei.

• Main Authors: Ke-Mei Chen, 陳柯玫
• Other Authors: 王德睦
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/38461624155693845360

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 社會福利所 === 96 === Up to now, Liberals and Conservatives continue discussing the issue of poverty in the United States. Whether Liberals or Conservatives, they always fail to explain why poverty is so difficult to be solved . It couldn’t be explained with individual (including cultural) or structural perspective only, because causes of poverty are quite complex. This study is based on “culture of poverty” (Lewis). I do researches further from “welfare dependency” (Murray、Mead) and “social dislocation” (Wilson) which are modified by “culture of poverty”. The culture of poverty is focused on individual and cultural explanation of poverty, and welfare dependency and social dislocation are structural explanations. In fact, many people misunderstand Lewis’ culture of poverty, because they always focus on pathological behavior and attitudes of the poor rather than an adaptive nature. Thus, we still explore poverty in terms of social structure in addition to understanding values, behavior and attitudes of the poor. This study is based on interviews with the poor households that live in An Kang Community in Taipei. Under social welfare and changes of economic structure, I want to know what life experience of parents and children, and if they hold values and behavior different from mainstream society. Furthermore, I would like to understand if poverty pass on from generation to generation or if children hold that values and behavior different from their parents. Consequently, life experience of parents and children are classified into five categories, including the dilemma of poverty, the image of An Kang Community, self-image, social networks and attitudes toward life. I adopted narrative research in this study, and collected data by qualitative interview (primary method) and participant observation (secondary method). I had interviewed 14 parents and 14 children, and total 14 households. The finding indicates that causes of poverty tend to individual explanation, however social welfare and changes of economic structure play the important roles with respect to persistence of poverty. Although An Kang Community is an area where the poor live in, they are not in “imprecation” of culture of poverty. Firstly, under social welfare and changes of economic structure, parents and children don’t embrace values and behavior different from mainstream society. They are not parts of the mainstream society, but in some perspective, they are isolated from it. Secondary, although there are some barriers for parents to participate in social systems, they don’t influence children. In other words, children don’t learn values and behavior from their parents. Finally, there is a surprising result that other people hold values and behavior different from those who we have interviewed in the community. They are more isolated than our interviewees, even worse than reality.