Toward a Framework for Understanding Forces that Contribute to or Reinforce Racial Inequality

William Julius Wilson

doi:10.1007/s12552-009-9004-4

Abstract

For many years social scientists have debated the role of social structure versus culture in explaining the social and economic outcomes of African Americans. The position that one takes often reflects ideological bias. Conservatives tend to emphasize cultural factors whereas liberals pay more attention to structural conditions, with most of the attention devoted to racialist structural factors such as discrimination and segregation. In this article I develop a framework for understanding the formation and maintenance of racial inequality and racial group outcomes that integrates cultural factors with two types of structural forces—those that directly reflect explicit racial bias and those that do not. In so doing, I hope to spark greater interest and dialogue in the research and policy arenas around a more holistic approach to poverty alleviation.

Highlights

William Julius Wilson Harvard University k In this paper I seek to reframe current debates around structural and cultural explanations concerning the interconnectedness of race and poverty in the United States
Many social observers who are sensitive to and often outraged by the direct forces of racism, such as discrimination and segregation, have paid far less attention to those political and economic forces that indirectly contribute to racial inequality.[1]
I have in mind political actions that have an impact on racial group outcomes, even though they are not explicitly designed or publicly discussed as matters involving race, as well as impersonal economic forces that reinforce long-standing forms of racial inequality

Summary

Introduction

Since the late 1960s international trade has accounted for an increasing share of the U.S economy, and, beginning in the early 1980s, imports of manufactured goods from developing countries have soared.[10] According to economic theory, the expansion of trade with countries that have a large proportion of relatively unskilled labor will result in downward pressure on the wages of low-skilled Americans because of the lower prices of the goods those foreign workers produce.

Results

Conclusion