Ghetto behavior was reframed from pathology to adaptive creativity, then to economic isolation effects

Evidence

The fact that the ghetto has been in place so long has led to the development of what is sometimes called “ghetto culture.” Scholarly characterizations of ghetto culture have varied considerably. In the wake of the Moynihan Report on “The Negro Family,” Kenneth B. Clark in Dark Ghetto (1965) characterized the ghetto in terms of a chronic, self-perpetuating, institutionalized pathology. Clark’s study provoked numerous responses designed to show that ghetto behavior was functional, a creative attempt to adapt to a racist society. The debate entered a new stage with William Julius Wilson’s (1987) The Truly Disadvantage^. Wilson attacked the cultural values of “the ghetto underclass,” but argued for an economic solution to what he called the “concentration effects” of living in a neighborhood in which the mass of the population were overwhelmingly disadvantaged. This allowed him to characterize his contribution as a refocusing of the liberal perspective. Addressing social isolation rather than the culture of poverty, which he understood as an effect of social isolation, Wilson proposed programs to promote social mobility. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2390

Categorization

• XREF: Chronicles the Moynihan-Clark-Wilson trajectory of poverty scholarship — connects to social capital literature and culture-of-poverty debates.