Culture of Poverty What Cultural Essay

Total Length: 1626 words ( 5 double-spaced pages)

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The phrase that was popular in 1965, when Johnson got his legislation passed, was "Cultural deprivation"; that phrase, and the culture of poverty became what Stein calls "central constructs" around a policy that hopefully would help children that were "shackled by the chains of disadvantage which bind them to a life of hopelessness and misery" (Stein, 2004, xiv).

Schools were a "promising site for government intervention" because the field of education could "…interrupt the otherwise intractable poverty culture," Stein continued, reviewing the federal government's attempt to end poverty. By funding programs to help low income students, the government set out to "…impart middle-class norms, and break the chains of poverty and disadvantage," for poor students, blacks, Latinos, immigrants and others who were seen as "victims of cultural deprivation," Stein continues on page xv. But the problem with the government's intervention was that the "very characterizations of 'disadvantaged youth'…functioned in ways that stymied the educational process" in ways the money was supposed to enhance.
In effect, the stigma on "educationally disadvantaged youth" was substantial, and the program didn't work well.

In conclusion, there is indeed a culture of poverty, and as yet the federal government has not been able to break the cycle, although many programs and billions of tax dollars have been invested in the effort. Schools are certainly important in the context of helping students get ahead of the game and get out of poverty, but too many rural and poor schools are underfunded and ignored, and until there is fairness and equality in the educational field, there will not likely be any chance of breaking the culture of poverty.

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