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Street Wise: Race, Class & Change in an Urban Community

This book explores the dynamics of race, class, and change in an urban community. It discusses the operationalization of the concept of the "underclass" and the use of social science methodologies such as ethnography. The book examines key issues in the community, including spatial and social isolation, and discusses the expectations for future chapters.

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Street Wise: Race, Class & Change in an Urban Community

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  1. Street Wise: Race, Class & Change in an Urban Community • Operationalizing “Underclass” • Social Science Methodologies Ethnography • Key Issues Anderson Revisits • Focusing on Spatial/Social Isolation • Expectations for Future Chapters

  2. Operationalizing the “Underclass” “Ghetto residents themselves seldom use the term ‘underclass’ when referring to the poor and others who have trouble surviving by conventional means. The category referred to by that term is in effect socially constructed through public observations of relatively better-off residents concerned with their own status and identity.” (Anderson, 68)

  3. Social Science Methodologies: An Issue of Orientation or Grain Size • Hirsch (Historiography) • Historical, Archival, Citation-Intensive, • Focused Community & Institutional Orientation • Piven & Cloward (Mixed, Comparative Historical) • History, (limited) First Hand Accounts, • Comparative Organizational Orientation • Massey & Denton (Demography) • Statistically Rich, Modeling, • Institutionally & Socially Structured Orientation • Oliver & Shapiro (Mixed, Survey Data & Interviews) • Statistically Rich, Interviews, • Community & National Orientation • Kotlowitz (Journalism) • Story-Intensive, Literary License, Limited Citation, • Focused Local & Individual Orientation

  4. Role of Ethnography: “Thick Description” of The Village and Northton (Philadelphia) • A method of studying and learning about a person or • community with subjects typically in their own • environment • Relies on detailed understanding rather than broad • statistical information • Accounts are descriptive because detail is imperative • (e.g., pages and pages of italics) • Accounts are interpretive as the ethnographer • determines the significance of what s/he observes

  5. Some Previously-Studied Themes: • Role of Speculators (Old Timers) • Eminent Domain (East City Redevelopment) • Crime and the Drug Trade (Northton) • Neighborhood Turnover (The Village) • Spatial Isolation Begets Social Isolation* Counterculturalists, GLBT, Liberals, Former Hippies Wealthy Settlers (Aristocracy) Irish & German (Working Class) African Americans (from South) Village Friends/ Quakers Yuppies (1980s)

  6. Social Construction of Boundaries: Creating the Non-Physical Boundaries “…boundaries are set through collective public action, they are not static; rather, they are created by social habit, situationally shaped and determined by those who share the space.” (Katz as cited in Anderson, 47)

  7. Social Isolation: Anderson’s Thick Description #1 • 1970s Youth Culture as Proxy for Racial Equality • On the streets of the Village in the 1970s, middle-class white youths could be seen wearing dashikis…they would spike their language with “man,” “cool,” and “right on,”imitating the lower-income blacks with whom they shared the neighborhood streets and sometimes their beds. Such shows of familiarity with the black subculture… distanced them from the wider white society and, some believed, drew them spiritually and politically closer to blacks…placing them firmly on the morally correct side of the continuing struggle for racial equality. • (Anderson, 18)

  8. Social Isolation: Anderson’s Thick Description #2 • White Homeowners and African American Workers • …when [African American workers] come into a yard or a house and are confronted by tenants – especially white tenants, who tend to make few distinctions among the local blacks – they feel the need to explain themselves, even though they may have already been explained by their sweeping up or painting and by the loud orders given them by [their boss]. A sort of plantation mentality arises as white landlords make use of local black men for jobs in Northton and the Village that might otherwise cost them more. • (Anderson, 53)

  9. Social Isolation: Anderson’s Thick Description #3 • Asian Shopkeepers and African American Employees • [In Northton] Asian shops proliferate…Korean businessmen began to hire more blacks. Now the common picture of the Asian-owned establishment is of a number of trusted blacks performing certain functions, from armed guard to grillman at the hoagie shops, being supervised by an Asian, usually male, who invariably stands at the cash register and takes the money… • (Anderson, 53)

  10. Expectations for the Coming Chapters • Development of context for seemingly “culture of • poverty”-type observations (e.g., family structure, • crime, drug trade, etc.) • Connections or (some) citations for context-void • conclusions (e.g., African American parents prefer • traditional education) • Further the social construction analysis (e.g., • fraternities as gangs, boundaries, behaviors)

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