Since the 1960s, sociologists have shied away from explaining the persistence of poverty in terms of cultural factors, instead emphasizing the social structures that create and perpetuate poverty. Now, the New York Times reports, there seems to be a resurgence of analysis linking culture and persistent poverty.

The old debate has shaped the new. Last month Princeton and the Brookings Institution released a collection of papers on unmarried parents, a subject, it noted, that became off-limits after the Moynihan report. At the recent annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, attendees discussed the resurgence of scholarship on culture. And in Washington last spring, social scientists participated in a Congressional briefing on culture and poverty linked to a special issue of The Annals, the journal of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

This, however, is not a reproduction of ‘culture of poverty’ scholarship; current work is significantly different:

With these studies come many new and varied definitions of culture, but they all differ from the ’60s-era model in these crucial respects: Today, social scientists are rejecting the notion of a monolithic and unchanging culture of poverty. And they attribute destructive attitudes and behavior not to inherent moral character but to sustained racism and isolation.

Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson says that how people collectively view their community matters.

The shared perception of a neighborhood — is it on the rise or stagnant? — does a better job of predicting a community’s future than the actual level of poverty, he said.

Sociologists try to unpack what this means:

Seeking to recapture the topic from economists, sociologists have ventured into poor neighborhoods to delve deeper into the attitudes of residents. Their results have challenged some common assumptions, like the belief that poor mothers remain single because they don’t value marriage.

In Philadelphia, for example, low-income mothers told the sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas that they thought marriage was profoundly important, even sacred, but doubted that their partners were “marriage material.” Their results have prompted some lawmakers and poverty experts to conclude that programs that promote marriage without changing economic and social conditions are unlikely to work.

The article speculates about several reasons why a cultural approach to studying poverty is reemerging, including a new generation of scholars, advancements in data collection and analysis, and shifts in broader discourse and attitudes outside the university, as well.

Take a look at the full article.