Underclass
Encyclopedia
The term underclass refers to a segment of the population that occupies the lowest possible position in a class hierarchy, below the core body of the working class. The general idea that a class system includes a population under the working class has a long tradition in the social sciences (e.g., lumpenproletariat
and pauperism
). However, the specific term “underclass” was popularized during the last half of the twentieth century, first by social scientists of American poverty
and then by American journalists. The underclass concept has been a point of controversy among social scientists. Definitions and explanations of the underclass, as well as proposed solutions for managing or fixing the "underclass problem," have been highly debated. The appropriateness of using the underclass term has also been questioned, with some social scientists claiming that the concept has been transformed into a codeword for intellectuals to demonize impoverished blacks and Latinos in urban America.
is generally credited as the first proponent of the term "underclass". Writing in the early 1960s on economic inequality in America, Myrdal’s underclass refers to a “class of unemployed, unemployables, and underemployed who are more and more hopelessly set apart from the nation at large and do not share in its life, its ambitions and its achievements.” However, this general conception of a class or category of people below the primary working class has a long tradition in the social sciences, such as through the work of Henry Mayhew
, whose London Labour and the London Poor
sought to describe the hitherto invisible world of casual workers, prostitutes, and street-people. Karl Marx
used the term "lumpenproletariat
" to refer to a similar group. He described this group as:
The specific concept of an underclass in the U.S. underwent several transformations during the decades following Myrdal's introduction of the term. According to sociologist Herbert Gans, while Myrdal’s structural conceptualization of the underclass remained relatively intact through the writings of William Julius Wilson
and others, in several respects the structural definition was abandoned by many journalists and academics and replaced with a behavioral conception of the underclass, which fuses Myrdal’s term with Oscar Lewis
’s and others' conception of a “culture of poverty
.”
defines the underclass as a “category of social agents who are economically oppressed but not consistently exploited within a given class system.” The underclass occupies the lowest possible rung on a class ladder. According to Wright, the underclass are oppressed because they are generally denied access to the labor market, and thus they are “not consistently exploited” because the opportunity for their economic exploitation is minimal. In other words, unlike the working class, which is routinely exploited for their labor power, the underclass, generally speaking, do not hold the labor power worthy of exploitation. Wright argues,
This quote partly concerns the spaces and locations for the underclass.
, and particularly in accounts of urban poverty. The term “underclass” and the phrase “urban underclass” are, for the most part, used interchangeably. Studies concerning the post-civil rights African American ghetto
often include a discussion of the urban underclass. Many writings concerning the underclass, particularly in America, are urban-focused.
William Julius Wilson’s
books, The Declining Significance of Race (1978) and The Truly Disadvantaged (1987), are popular analyses of the black urban underclass. Wilson defines the underclass as “a massive population at the very bottom of the social ladder plagued by poor education and low-paying jobs."
Elijah Anderson’s
, Streetwise (1990), employs ethnographic methods
to study a gentrifying neighborhood, “The Village” (pseudonym), bordering a black ghetto, “Northton” (pseudonym), in an American city. Anderson provides the following description of the underclass in this ghetto:
defines the underclass as a group that is not only poor, but also behaviorally deficient. He describes the underclass as “dysfunctional.” He provides the following definition in his 1986 book Beyond Entitlement,
Ken Auletta
, often credited as the primary journalist who brought the underclass term to the forefront of the American consciousness, describes the American underclass as non-assimilated Americans, and he suggests that the underclass may be subcategorized into four distinct groups,
As evident with Mead and Auletta's framing, some definitions of the underclass diverged from the initial notion of an economic group beneath the working class. A few writings on the underclass distinguish between various types of underclass, such as the social underclass, the impoverished underclass, the reproductive underclass, the educational underclass, the violent underclass, and the criminal underclass, with some expected horizontal mobility between these groups. Even more divergent from the initial notion of an underclass are the recent journalistic accounts of a so-called "genetic underclass," referring to a genetic inheritance of a predisposition to addiction and other personality traits traditionally associated with behavioral definitions of the underclass. However, such distinctions between criminal, social, impoverished, and other specified underclass terms still refer to the same general group -- those beneath the working class. And, despite recent journalistic accounts of a "genetic underclass," the underclass concept is primarily, and has traditionally been, a social science term.
, violence
, substance abuse
, and high school dropout rates. The underclass harbors these traits to a greater degree than the general population, and other classes more specifically.
Joel Devine and James Wright identify four general themes by which these characteristics are organized within academic and journalistic accounts of the underclass: economic, social-psychological, behavioral, and ecological (spatial concentration).
. Some scholars, such as Ricketts and Sawhill, argue that being poor is not a requirement for underclass membership, and thus there are individuals who are non-poor members of the underclass because they live in “underclass areas” and embody other characteristics of the underclass, such as being violent, criminal, and anti-social (e.g., gang leaders).
. From this point of view, members of the underclass embody a distinct set of thoughts, perceptions, and actions – a “style of life” - that are transmitted across generations. However, just as the conceptualization of a “culture of poverty
” in general is debated, so too are the attempts to frame the underclass as members of such a culture.
with the underclass. Living in areas of concentrated poverty is more or less framed as a common (and often necessary) condition of the underclass, but it is generally not considered a sufficient condition since many conceptualizations of the underclass highlight behavioral and psychological deviancy that may not necessarily persist in high-poverty areas. In Wilson’s writings on the underclass – a term he eventually replaces with “ghetto poverty” (see later section titled “Critiques of the Underclass Concept”)– the underclass is described as a population that is physically and socially isolated from individuals and institutions of mainstream society, and this isolation is the primary reason why the “social dislocations” (e.g., crime, school dropouts, out of wed-lock pregnancy, etc.) of the underclass emerge.
Thus, the underclass is defined and identified by multiple characteristics. Members are persistently poor and experience high levels of joblessness. However, these trends are generally not seen as sufficient identifiers of the underclass, because the underclass concept also captures dimensions of psychological and behavioral deviancy. Furthermore, the underclass is generally identified as an urban phenomenon with its members typically living in areas of concentrated poverty.
A few of these propositions are outlined below, including those developed by William Julius Wilson
, Lawrence M. Mead
, and Ken Auletta
. These authors’ certainly do not compile an exhaustive list of suggested causes or solutions to the underclass, but they are arguably the most read proposals. The contrasting causes and solutions highlighted by Wilson and Mead have been popular points for debate among social scientists. However, because prescription is dependent on diagnosis, much of the debates between Wilson and Mead have been on the causes and conditions of the underclass. Wilson highlights the social isolation and disappearance of quality work (e.g., via deindustrialization
and offshore labor outsourcing
) in the economy, while Mead highlights an overgenerous and permissive welfare state
. Auletta provides a different policy framework discussion by highlighting two extreme positions (the wholesale option and the laissez-faire
option) and one middle-of-the-road position (the retail option), but these are more discussions concerning the amount of public resources that should be dedicated to fixing, or attempting to fix, the underclass problem. Auletta seems to support the retail option, which would provide aid to underclass members deserving and hopeful and withhold aid to members undeserving and hopeless.
; offshore labor outsourcing
; the shift from a goods-producing economy to a service-producing economy [combined with suburbanization, which produces a “spatial mismatch” between where low income people live (inner-city neighborhoods) and where low-skill service work is available (the suburbs)]; the exodus of the black middle class from the ghetto
; and the consequential isolation of post-civil rights era ghetto residents from mainstream institutions.
Wilson proposes a comprehensive social and economic program that is primarily universal, but nevertheless includes targeted efforts to improve the life chances
of the ghetto underclass and other disadvantaged groups. Wilson lists multiple examples of what this universal program would include, such as public funding of training, retraining, and transitional employment benefits that would be available to all members of society. With respect to the diagnosis of concentration and isolation, Wilson suggests the promotion of social mobility
through programs that will increase employment prospects for the underclass, which will lead to geographic mobility. Wilson describes his proposed program as having a “hidden agenda” for policy makers “to improve the life chances of truly disadvantaged groups such as the ghetto underclass by emphasizing programs to which the more advantaged groups of all races and class backgrounds can positively relate.” Universal programs are more easily accepted within America’s political climate than targeted programs, yet the underclass would likely experience the most benefit from targeted programs. Wilson notes that some means-tested programs are still necessary, but recommends that they be framed as secondary to universal programming efforts. The following quote summarizes his policy call:
. Mead argues that most welfare programs encourage social dysfunctions, including welfare dependency, illegitimate births, joblessness, and crime
. For Mead, welfare is too permissive and provides benefits to the underclass without requirements for its members to change their behavior and lifestyle.
Mead’s diagnosis that permissive welfare is a primary cause of the underclass problem is followed by a prescription for a more authoritative welfare program that combines benefits with requirements. This proposal is often called “workfare
,” which requires welfare recipients to work in order to receive aid. For Mead, such a program design would evoke behavioral change since permissiveness is replaced with authority. Mead summarizes his call to replace permissive welfare with authoritative welfare:
The "wholesale option" includes both conservatives and liberals who are optimistic that government action can solve the underclass problem. According to Auletta, left-wing wholesale proponents call for increased public aid while right-wing wholesale proponents call for government to reduce taxes to increase jobs (inspired by trickle-down economic theory
) and charge the government to “get tough” on underclass crime and welfare dependency.
The “laissez-faire
option” is pessimistic and its proponents are extremely wary of proposed solutions to a problem they see as unsolvable. Proponents of this perspective call for a drastic withdrawal of public aid for the underclass and are concerned with “quarantining the patient” instead of hunting for what they believe is an imaginary cure. In other words, the laissez-faire option assumes that the underclass is generally hopeless, and thus the only public effort given to them should be the bare minimum.
The “retail option” includes those in between optimism and pessimism, what Auletta calls “skeptics.” The retail option advocates for targeted efforts, recognizing the limits of government intervention, but is also aware of the positive impact social policy can have on efforts to fix specific problems of the underclass. This middle ground perspective requests that aid be given to members of the underclass considered to be deserving of aid, but withheld from members considered to be undeserving. However, proponents of the retail option often disagree on which members of the underclass are considered deserving and which are not. This appears to be the approach embraced by Auletta as he closes his book with reflections on some of the people he interviews throughout preceding pages. He says, “I have no difficulty giving up on violent criminals like the Bolden brothers or street hustlers like Henry Rivera. But knowing how a government helping hand made it possible for Pearl Dawson and William Mason to succeed, would you be willing to write them off?”
While journalists’ use of the underclass term is vast, a few popular sources are frequently cited in the academic literature on the underclass and journalism. Ken Auletta
employed the underclass term in three articles published in The New Yorker
in 1981, and in book form a year later. Auletta is arguably the most read journalist of the underclass and many of his ideas, including his definition of the underclass, are included in this Wikipedia entry.
A 1977 Time Magazine cover story is also a popular journalistic account of the underclass. Titled “The American Underclass,” the article describes a population of Americans “removed from the American dream
.” According to this article, members of the underclass face an absence of decent jobs, welfare dependency
, racism
, and other barriers to social mobility
. An early passage from the article details the underclass term as a:
Another notable journalist is Nicholas Lemann
who published a handful of articles on the underclass in the Atlantic Monthly during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His 1986 writings on “The Origins of the Underclass” argues that the underclass was created by two migrations, the great migration
of Southern blacks to the North and West during the early to mid twentieth century and the exodus of middle class blacks out of the ghetto during the 1970s through the early 90s. In 1991 Lemann also published an article titled “The Other Underclass,” which details Puerto Ricans, and particularly Puerto Ricans residing in South Bronx, as members of the urban underclass in America.
, former Grand Wizard
of the KKK, campaigned for Louisiana Governor by complaining about the “welfare underclass.” The underclass concept has been politicized, with those from the political left arguing that joblessness and insufficient welfare give rise the underclass while the political right employ the underclass term to refer to welfare dependency and moral decline. Many sociologists suggest that this latter rhetoric – the right-wing perspective – became dominant in mainstream accounts of the underclass during the later decades of the twentieth-century.
Herbert Gans is one of the most vocal critics of the underclass concept. Gans suggests that American journalists, inspired partly by academic writings on the “culture of poverty
,” reframed “underclass” from a structural term (i.e., defining the underclass in reference to conditions of social structure) to a behavioral term (i.e., defining the underclass in reference to rational choice and/or in reference to a subculture of poverty). Gans suggests that the word “underclass” has become synonymous with impoverished blacks that behave in criminal, deviant, or “just non-middle-class ways.”
Loïc Wacquant
deploys a relatively similar critique by arguing that “underclass” has become a blanket term that frames urban blacks as behaviorally and culturally deviant. Wacquant notes that underclass status is imposed on urban blacks from outside and above them (e.g., by journalists, politicians, and academics), stating that “underclass” is a derogatory and is “a negative label that nobody claims or invokes except to pin it on to others.” And, although the underclass concepts is homogenizing, Wacquant argues that underclass imagery differentiates on gender lines, with the underclass male being depicted as a violent “gang banger,” a physical threat to public safety, and the underclass female being generalized as “welfare mother”(also see welfare queen
), a “moral assault on American values.”
, sympathetic to criticisms brought against underclass terminology (particularly those criticisms posited by Gans), begins to replace his use of the term underclass with "ghetto poor” during the early 1990s. For Wilson, this replacement terminology is simply an attempt to revamp the framing of inner-city poverty as being structurally rooted. He states, “I will substitute the term ‘ghetto poor’ for the term ‘underclass’ and hope that I will not lose any of the subtle theoretical meaning that the latter term has had in my writings.”
Gans also suggests replacing underclass terminology, but instead of “ghetto poor” he suggests the term “undercaste." Unlike Wilson’s replacement, Gans is not simply calling for a replacement term but a revised concept altogether. For Gans, the position of the so-called “underclass” is better suited for paradigms of caste
stratification rather than class stratification. He conceptualizes the undercaste as “a population of such low status as to be shunned by the rest of the society, with opportunities for contact with others of higher status and upward mobility even more limited than those of the people today described as an underclass.” Gans admits hesitation in advancing a notion of undercaste – another umbrella term “open to anyone who wishes to place new meaning, or a variety of stereotypes, accusations and stigmas under it” – but argues that the undercaste is nevertheless a suitable term worthy of replacing the politically charged language of the underclass.
Lumpenproletariat
Lumpenproletariat, a collective term from Lumpenproletarier , was first defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology and later elaborated on in other works by Marx...
and pauperism
Pauperism
Pauperism is a term meaning poverty or generally the state of being poor, but in English usage particularly the condition of being a "pauper", i.e. in receipt of relief administered under the poor law...
). However, the specific term “underclass” was popularized during the last half of the twentieth century, first by social scientists of American poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and then by American journalists. The underclass concept has been a point of controversy among social scientists. Definitions and explanations of the underclass, as well as proposed solutions for managing or fixing the "underclass problem," have been highly debated. The appropriateness of using the underclass term has also been questioned, with some social scientists claiming that the concept has been transformed into a codeword for intellectuals to demonize impoverished blacks and Latinos in urban America.
History
Gunnar MyrdalGunnar Myrdal
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish Nobel Laureate economist, sociologist, and politician. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the...
is generally credited as the first proponent of the term "underclass". Writing in the early 1960s on economic inequality in America, Myrdal’s underclass refers to a “class of unemployed, unemployables, and underemployed who are more and more hopelessly set apart from the nation at large and do not share in its life, its ambitions and its achievements.” However, this general conception of a class or category of people below the primary working class has a long tradition in the social sciences, such as through the work of Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew was an English social researcher, journalist, playwright and advocate of reform. He was one of the two founders of the satirical and humorous magazine Punch, and the magazine's joint-editor, with Mark Lemon, in its early days...
, whose London Labour and the London Poor
London Labour and the London Poor
London Labour and the London Poor is a work of Victorian journalism by Henry Mayhew. In the 1840s he observed, documented and described the state of working people in London for a series of articles in a newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, that were later compiled into book form.-Overview:The...
sought to describe the hitherto invisible world of casual workers, prostitutes, and street-people. Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
used the term "lumpenproletariat
Lumpenproletariat
Lumpenproletariat, a collective term from Lumpenproletarier , was first defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology and later elaborated on in other works by Marx...
" to refer to a similar group. He described this group as:
- This scum of the depraved elements of all classes ... decayed rouéRõueRõue is a village in Kehtna Parish, Rapla County in northern-central Estonia....
s, vagabondsVagabond (person)A vagabond is a drifter and an itinerant wanderer who roams wherever they please, following the whim of the moment. Vagabonds may lack residence, a job, and even citizenship....
, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks [(charlatans)], lazzaroniNaples LazzaroniThe Naples Lazzaroni is used as a generic term to include various kinds of the lower class people in Naples, Italy. Described as "street people under a chief", they were often depicted as "beggars"—which some actually were, while others subsisted partly by service as messengers, porters, etc.No...
, pickpockets, tricksterTricksterIn mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...
s, gamblers, brothel keepers, tinkerTinkerA tinker was originally an itinerant tinsmith, who mended household utensils. The term "tinker" became used in British society to refer to marginalized persons...
s, beggars, the dangerous class, the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society."
The specific concept of an underclass in the U.S. underwent several transformations during the decades following Myrdal's introduction of the term. According to sociologist Herbert Gans, while Myrdal’s structural conceptualization of the underclass remained relatively intact through the writings of William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist. He worked at the University of Chicago 1972-1996 before moving to Harvard....
and others, in several respects the structural definition was abandoned by many journalists and academics and replaced with a behavioral conception of the underclass, which fuses Myrdal’s term with Oscar Lewis
Oscar Lewis
Oscar Lewis was an American anthropologist who is best known for his vivid depictions of the lives of slum dwellers and for postulating that there was a cross-generational culture of poverty among poor people that transcended national boundaries...
’s and others' conception of a “culture of poverty
Culture of poverty
The culture of poverty is a social theory that expands on the cycle of poverty. Proponents of this theory argue that the poor are not simply lacking resources, but also have a unique value system...
.”
Defining the Underclass
Various definitions of the underclass have been set forth since the term’s initial conception, but all these definitions are basically different ways of imagining a category of people beneath the entire working class. The definitions simply vary by which particular dimensions of this group are highlighted. A few popular descriptions of the underclass are considered below.Focus on Economics
Erik Olin WrightErik Olin Wright
Erik Olin Wright is an American analytical Marxist sociologist, specializing in social stratification, and in egalitarian alternative futures to capitalism.-Biography:...
defines the underclass as a “category of social agents who are economically oppressed but not consistently exploited within a given class system.” The underclass occupies the lowest possible rung on a class ladder. According to Wright, the underclass are oppressed because they are generally denied access to the labor market, and thus they are “not consistently exploited” because the opportunity for their economic exploitation is minimal. In other words, unlike the working class, which is routinely exploited for their labor power, the underclass, generally speaking, do not hold the labor power worthy of exploitation. Wright argues,
- “The material interests of the wealthy and privileged segments of American society would be better served if these people simply disappeared…The alternative, then, is to build prisons, to cordon off the zones of cities in which the underclass live. In such a situation the main potential power of the underclass against their oppressors comes from their capacity to disrupt the sphere of consumption, especially through crime and other forms of violence, not their capacity to disrupt production through their control over labor.”
This quote partly concerns the spaces and locations for the underclass.
Focus on Space and Place
The underclass generally occupies specific zones in the city. Thus, the notion of an underclass is popular in urban sociologyUrban sociology
Urban sociology is the sociological study of social life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doing so providing inputs for planning and policy making. Like...
, and particularly in accounts of urban poverty. The term “underclass” and the phrase “urban underclass” are, for the most part, used interchangeably. Studies concerning the post-civil rights African American ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
often include a discussion of the urban underclass. Many writings concerning the underclass, particularly in America, are urban-focused.
William Julius Wilson’s
William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist. He worked at the University of Chicago 1972-1996 before moving to Harvard....
books, The Declining Significance of Race (1978) and The Truly Disadvantaged (1987), are popular analyses of the black urban underclass. Wilson defines the underclass as “a massive population at the very bottom of the social ladder plagued by poor education and low-paying jobs."
Elijah Anderson’s
Elijah Anderson
Elijah Anderson is an American sociologist. He holds the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professorship in Sociology at Yale University, where he teaches and directs the Urban Ethnography Project. Anderson is one of the nation’s leading urban ethnographers and cultural theorists. He received his B.A. from...
, Streetwise (1990), employs ethnographic methods
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
to study a gentrifying neighborhood, “The Village” (pseudonym), bordering a black ghetto, “Northton” (pseudonym), in an American city. Anderson provides the following description of the underclass in this ghetto:
- “The underclass of Northton is made up of people who have failed to keep up with their brethren, both in employment and sociability. Essentially they can be seen as victims of the economic and social system. They make up the unemployed, the underskilled, and the poorly educated, even though some hold high-school diplomas. Many are intelligent, but they are demoralized by racism and the wall of social resistance facing them. In this context they lose perspective and lack an outlook and sensibility that would allow them to negotiate the wider system of employment and society in general.”
Focus on Behavior
Lawrence M. MeadLawrence M. Mead
Lawrence M. Mead is a Professor in the Department of Politics at New York University, where he is currently Professor of Politics and Public Policy.Mead is best known as an expert on poverty and welfare in the United States...
defines the underclass as a group that is not only poor, but also behaviorally deficient. He describes the underclass as “dysfunctional.” He provides the following definition in his 1986 book Beyond Entitlement,
- “The underclass is most visible in urban slum settings and is about 70 percent nonwhite, but it includes many rural and white people as well, especially in Appalachia and the South. Much of the urban underclass is made up of street hustlers, welfare families, drug addicts, and former mental patients. There are, of course, people who function well – the so-called ‘deserving’ or ‘working poor’ – and better-off people who function poorly, but in general low income and serious behavioral difficulties go together. The underclass is not large as a share of population, perhaps 9 million people, but it accounts for the lion’s share of the most serious disorders in American life, especially in the cities.”
Ken Auletta
Ken Auletta
Ken Auletta is an American writer, journalist and media critic for The New Yorker.-Early life and education:Auletta grew up in Brooklyn, the son of an Italian-American father and a Jewish-American mother...
, often credited as the primary journalist who brought the underclass term to the forefront of the American consciousness, describes the American underclass as non-assimilated Americans, and he suggests that the underclass may be subcategorized into four distinct groups,
- “(a) the passive poor, usually long-term welfare recipients; (b) the hostile street criminals who terrorize most cities, and who are often school dropouts and drug addicts; (c) the hustlers, who, like street criminals, may not be poor and who earn their livelihood in an underground economy, but rarely commit violent crimes; (d) the traumatized drunks, drifters, homeless shopping-bag ladies and released mental patients who frequently roam or collapse on city streets.”
Controversies Amongst Definitions
Each of the above definitions are said to conceptualize the same general group – the American underclass – but they provide somewhat competing imagery. While Wright, Wilson, and Anderson each position the underclass in reference to the labor market, Auletta’s definition is simply "non-assimilation" and his examples, along with Mead's definition, highlight underclass members' participation in deviant behavior and their adoption of an antisocial outlook on life. These controversies are elaborated further in the next section (“Characteristics of the Underclass”).As evident with Mead and Auletta's framing, some definitions of the underclass diverged from the initial notion of an economic group beneath the working class. A few writings on the underclass distinguish between various types of underclass, such as the social underclass, the impoverished underclass, the reproductive underclass, the educational underclass, the violent underclass, and the criminal underclass, with some expected horizontal mobility between these groups. Even more divergent from the initial notion of an underclass are the recent journalistic accounts of a so-called "genetic underclass," referring to a genetic inheritance of a predisposition to addiction and other personality traits traditionally associated with behavioral definitions of the underclass. However, such distinctions between criminal, social, impoverished, and other specified underclass terms still refer to the same general group -- those beneath the working class. And, despite recent journalistic accounts of a "genetic underclass," the underclass concept is primarily, and has traditionally been, a social science term.
Characteristics of the Underclass
The underclass is located by a collection of identifying characteristics, such as high levels of joblessness, out-of-wedlock births, female-headed households, crimeCrime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
, violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
, substance abuse
Substance abuse
A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
, and high school dropout rates. The underclass harbors these traits to a greater degree than the general population, and other classes more specifically.
Joel Devine and James Wright identify four general themes by which these characteristics are organized within academic and journalistic accounts of the underclass: economic, social-psychological, behavioral, and ecological (spatial concentration).
Economic Characteristics
The economic dimension is the most basic and least contested theme of the underclass – the underclass is overwhelmingly poor. The underclass experiences high levels of joblessness, and what little employment its members hold in the formal economy is best described as precarious labor. However, it is important to note that simply being poor is not synonymous with being part of the underclass. The underclass is persistently poor and, for most definitions, the underclass live in areas of concentrated povertyConcentrated poverty
Concentrated poverty refers to a spatial density of socio-economic deprivation. In the US it is commonly used in fields of policy and scholarship in reference to areas of "extreme" or "high-poverty" defined by the US census as areas with "40 percent of the tract population living below the federal...
. Some scholars, such as Ricketts and Sawhill, argue that being poor is not a requirement for underclass membership, and thus there are individuals who are non-poor members of the underclass because they live in “underclass areas” and embody other characteristics of the underclass, such as being violent, criminal, and anti-social (e.g., gang leaders).
Social-Psychological Characteristics
Many writers often highlight the social-psychological dimensions of the underclass. The underclass is often framed as holding beliefs, attitudes, opinions, and desires that are inconsistent with those held by society at large. The underclass is frequently described as a “discouraged” group with members who feel “cut off” from mainstream society. Linked to this discussion of the underclass being psychologically deviant, the underclass is also said to have low levels of cognition and literacy. Thus, the underclass is seen as being mentally disconnected from the rest of society. Consider the following:- “The underclass rejects many of the norms and values of the larger society. Among underclass youth, achievement motivation is low, education is undervalued, and conventional means of success and upward mobility are scorned. There is widespread alienation from society and its institutions, estrangement, social isolation, and hopelessness, the sense that a better life is simply not attainable through legitimate means.”
Behavioral Characteristics
Not only is the underclass said to think differently, they are also said to behave differently. According to some, the underclass suffers from a multitude of “behavioral deficiencies,” such as crime, violence, sexual promiscuity, welfare dependency, and substance abuse. Much of these behaviors are identified by their consequences, such as the high number of teen and out of wed-lock births and the overrepresentation of the underclass in U.S. prisons and jails. These behavioral deficiencies, coupled with arguments that the underclass is psychologically disconnected from mainstream society, are occasionally highlighted as evidence that the underclass live in a subculture of povertyCulture of poverty
The culture of poverty is a social theory that expands on the cycle of poverty. Proponents of this theory argue that the poor are not simply lacking resources, but also have a unique value system...
. From this point of view, members of the underclass embody a distinct set of thoughts, perceptions, and actions – a “style of life” - that are transmitted across generations. However, just as the conceptualization of a “culture of poverty
Culture of poverty
The culture of poverty is a social theory that expands on the cycle of poverty. Proponents of this theory argue that the poor are not simply lacking resources, but also have a unique value system...
” in general is debated, so too are the attempts to frame the underclass as members of such a culture.
Ecological (Spatial) Characteristics
The ecological dimension, a fourth theme in the literature on the underclass, is often used as both a description and an explanation for the underclass. The underclass is concentrated in specific areas. Although there are some writings on the “rural underclass,” in general the underclass is framed as an urban phenomenon and the phrases “ghetto poverty” and “inner-city poverty” are often used synonymously with the underclass term. However, many scholars are careful not to equate concentrated povertyConcentrated poverty
Concentrated poverty refers to a spatial density of socio-economic deprivation. In the US it is commonly used in fields of policy and scholarship in reference to areas of "extreme" or "high-poverty" defined by the US census as areas with "40 percent of the tract population living below the federal...
with the underclass. Living in areas of concentrated poverty is more or less framed as a common (and often necessary) condition of the underclass, but it is generally not considered a sufficient condition since many conceptualizations of the underclass highlight behavioral and psychological deviancy that may not necessarily persist in high-poverty areas. In Wilson’s writings on the underclass – a term he eventually replaces with “ghetto poverty” (see later section titled “Critiques of the Underclass Concept”)– the underclass is described as a population that is physically and socially isolated from individuals and institutions of mainstream society, and this isolation is the primary reason why the “social dislocations” (e.g., crime, school dropouts, out of wed-lock pregnancy, etc.) of the underclass emerge.
Thus, the underclass is defined and identified by multiple characteristics. Members are persistently poor and experience high levels of joblessness. However, these trends are generally not seen as sufficient identifiers of the underclass, because the underclass concept also captures dimensions of psychological and behavioral deviancy. Furthermore, the underclass is generally identified as an urban phenomenon with its members typically living in areas of concentrated poverty.
Potential Causes and Proposed Solutions
Similar to issues of defining and identifying the underclass, the outlining of potential causes and proposed solutions to the “underclass problem” have also been points of contestation. Debates concerning the diagnosis of and prescription for the underclass often mirror debates concerning first world poverty more generally. However, in many writings on the specific notion of the underclass, some particular causes and solutions have been set forth.A few of these propositions are outlined below, including those developed by William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist. He worked at the University of Chicago 1972-1996 before moving to Harvard....
, Lawrence M. Mead
Lawrence M. Mead
Lawrence M. Mead is a Professor in the Department of Politics at New York University, where he is currently Professor of Politics and Public Policy.Mead is best known as an expert on poverty and welfare in the United States...
, and Ken Auletta
Ken Auletta
Ken Auletta is an American writer, journalist and media critic for The New Yorker.-Early life and education:Auletta grew up in Brooklyn, the son of an Italian-American father and a Jewish-American mother...
. These authors’ certainly do not compile an exhaustive list of suggested causes or solutions to the underclass, but they are arguably the most read proposals. The contrasting causes and solutions highlighted by Wilson and Mead have been popular points for debate among social scientists. However, because prescription is dependent on diagnosis, much of the debates between Wilson and Mead have been on the causes and conditions of the underclass. Wilson highlights the social isolation and disappearance of quality work (e.g., via deindustrialization
Deindustrialization
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially heavy industry or manufacturing industry. It is an opposite of industrialization.- Multiple interpretations :There are multiple...
and offshore labor outsourcing
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...
) in the economy, while Mead highlights an overgenerous and permissive welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
. Auletta provides a different policy framework discussion by highlighting two extreme positions (the wholesale option and the laissez-faire
Laissez-faire
In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
option) and one middle-of-the-road position (the retail option), but these are more discussions concerning the amount of public resources that should be dedicated to fixing, or attempting to fix, the underclass problem. Auletta seems to support the retail option, which would provide aid to underclass members deserving and hopeful and withhold aid to members undeserving and hopeless.
Wilson's Diagnosis and Prescription
For Wilson, the cause of the underclass is structural. In The Truly Disadvantaged, Wilson highlights a conglomerate of factors in the last half of the twentieth century leading to a growing urban underclass. The factors listed include, but are not limited to, the following: deindustrializationDeindustrialization
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially heavy industry or manufacturing industry. It is an opposite of industrialization.- Multiple interpretations :There are multiple...
; offshore labor outsourcing
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...
; the shift from a goods-producing economy to a service-producing economy [combined with suburbanization, which produces a “spatial mismatch” between where low income people live (inner-city neighborhoods) and where low-skill service work is available (the suburbs)]; the exodus of the black middle class from the ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
; and the consequential isolation of post-civil rights era ghetto residents from mainstream institutions.
Wilson proposes a comprehensive social and economic program that is primarily universal, but nevertheless includes targeted efforts to improve the life chances
Life chances
Life chances is a political theory of the opportunities each individual has to improve his or her quality of life. The concept was introduced by German sociologist Max Weber. It is a probabilistic concept, describing how likely it is, given certain factors, that an individual's life will turn out...
of the ghetto underclass and other disadvantaged groups. Wilson lists multiple examples of what this universal program would include, such as public funding of training, retraining, and transitional employment benefits that would be available to all members of society. With respect to the diagnosis of concentration and isolation, Wilson suggests the promotion of social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
through programs that will increase employment prospects for the underclass, which will lead to geographic mobility. Wilson describes his proposed program as having a “hidden agenda” for policy makers “to improve the life chances of truly disadvantaged groups such as the ghetto underclass by emphasizing programs to which the more advantaged groups of all races and class backgrounds can positively relate.” Universal programs are more easily accepted within America’s political climate than targeted programs, yet the underclass would likely experience the most benefit from targeted programs. Wilson notes that some means-tested programs are still necessary, but recommends that they be framed as secondary to universal programming efforts. The following quote summarizes his policy call:
- “[T]he problems of the ghetto underclass can be most meaningfully addressed by a comprehensive program that combines employment policies with social welfare policies and that features universal as opposed to race- or group-specific strategies. On the one hand, this program highlights macroeconomic policy to generate a tight labor market and economic growth; fiscal and monetary policy not only to stimulate noninflationary growth, but also to increase the competitiveness of American goods on both the domestic and international market; and a national labor market strategy to make the labor force more adequate to changing economic opportunities. On the other hand, this program highlights a child supportChild supportIn family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
assurance program, a family allowance program, and a child care strategy."
Mead's Diagnosis and Prescription
Mead argues that the core cause of the underclass problem (or at least the perpetuation of the underclass problem) is welfareWelfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...
. Mead argues that most welfare programs encourage social dysfunctions, including welfare dependency, illegitimate births, joblessness, and crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
. For Mead, welfare is too permissive and provides benefits to the underclass without requirements for its members to change their behavior and lifestyle.
Mead’s diagnosis that permissive welfare is a primary cause of the underclass problem is followed by a prescription for a more authoritative welfare program that combines benefits with requirements. This proposal is often called “workfare
Workfare
Workfare is an alternative model to conventional social welfare systems. The term was first introduced by civil rights leader James Charles Evers in 1968; however, it was popularized by Richard Nixon in a televised speech August 1969...
,” which requires welfare recipients to work in order to receive aid. For Mead, such a program design would evoke behavioral change since permissiveness is replaced with authority. Mead summarizes his call to replace permissive welfare with authoritative welfare:
- “The progressive tradition of extending new benefits and opportunities to the worst-off has made it next to impossible to address the behavioral difficulties at the bottom of society in their own terms. For to do that, authority, or the making of demands on people, would have to be seen as the tool, and not the butt, of policy.”
Auletta's Three Typologies of Solutions
Ken Auletta closes his book, The Underclass (1982), by highlighting three typologies of solutions: “the wholesale option,” “the laissez-faire option,” and "the retail option."The "wholesale option" includes both conservatives and liberals who are optimistic that government action can solve the underclass problem. According to Auletta, left-wing wholesale proponents call for increased public aid while right-wing wholesale proponents call for government to reduce taxes to increase jobs (inspired by trickle-down economic theory
Trickle-down economics
"Trickle-down economics" and "the trickle-down theory" are terms used in United States politics to refer to the idea that tax breaks or other economic benefits provided by government to businesses and the wealthy will benefit poorer members of society by improving the economy as a whole...
) and charge the government to “get tough” on underclass crime and welfare dependency.
The “laissez-faire
Laissez-faire
In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
option” is pessimistic and its proponents are extremely wary of proposed solutions to a problem they see as unsolvable. Proponents of this perspective call for a drastic withdrawal of public aid for the underclass and are concerned with “quarantining the patient” instead of hunting for what they believe is an imaginary cure. In other words, the laissez-faire option assumes that the underclass is generally hopeless, and thus the only public effort given to them should be the bare minimum.
The “retail option” includes those in between optimism and pessimism, what Auletta calls “skeptics.” The retail option advocates for targeted efforts, recognizing the limits of government intervention, but is also aware of the positive impact social policy can have on efforts to fix specific problems of the underclass. This middle ground perspective requests that aid be given to members of the underclass considered to be deserving of aid, but withheld from members considered to be undeserving. However, proponents of the retail option often disagree on which members of the underclass are considered deserving and which are not. This appears to be the approach embraced by Auletta as he closes his book with reflections on some of the people he interviews throughout preceding pages. He says, “I have no difficulty giving up on violent criminals like the Bolden brothers or street hustlers like Henry Rivera. But knowing how a government helping hand made it possible for Pearl Dawson and William Mason to succeed, would you be willing to write them off?”
Underclass and Journalism
Social scientists often point to journalism as a primary institution conceptualizing the underclass for a mass audience. Many suggest that the underclass terminology employed by American journalists in the last quarter of the twentieth-century were partial to behavioral and cultural - as opposed to a structural – definitions of the underclass.While journalists’ use of the underclass term is vast, a few popular sources are frequently cited in the academic literature on the underclass and journalism. Ken Auletta
Ken Auletta
Ken Auletta is an American writer, journalist and media critic for The New Yorker.-Early life and education:Auletta grew up in Brooklyn, the son of an Italian-American father and a Jewish-American mother...
employed the underclass term in three articles published in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
in 1981, and in book form a year later. Auletta is arguably the most read journalist of the underclass and many of his ideas, including his definition of the underclass, are included in this Wikipedia entry.
A 1977 Time Magazine cover story is also a popular journalistic account of the underclass. Titled “The American Underclass,” the article describes a population of Americans “removed from the American dream
American Dream
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...
.” According to this article, members of the underclass face an absence of decent jobs, welfare dependency
Welfare dependency
Welfare dependency is the state in which a person or household is reliant on government welfare benefits for their income for a prolonged period of time, and without which they would not be able to meet the expenses of daily living...
, racism
Racism in the United States
Racism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally sanctioned racism imposed a heavy burden on Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans...
, and other barriers to social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
. An early passage from the article details the underclass term as a:
- “[C]ommon description of people who are seen to be stuck more or less permanently at the bottom, removed from the American dream. Though its members come from all races and live in many places, the underclass is made up mostly of impoverished urban blacks, who still suffer from the heritage of slavery and discrimination. The universe of the underclass is often a junk heap of rotting housing, broken furniture, crummy food, alcohol and drugs. The underclass has been doubly left behind: by the well-to-do majority and by the many blacks and Hispanics who have struggled up to the middle class, or who remain poor but can see a better day for themselves or their children. Its members are victims and victimizers in the culture of the street hustle, the quick fix, the rip-off and, not least, violent crime.”
Another notable journalist is Nicholas Lemann
Nicholas Lemann
Nicholas Berthelot Lemann is dean and Henry R. Luce professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.Lemann is from New Orleans and he graduated from Harvard University in 1976, but has never attended a school of journalism. He is a journalist, editor, and author...
who published a handful of articles on the underclass in the Atlantic Monthly during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His 1986 writings on “The Origins of the Underclass” argues that the underclass was created by two migrations, the great migration
Great Migration
Great Migration, Great Migrations, or The Great Migration may refer:In history:* Great Migration of Puritans from England to New England * Great Serb Migrations from the Ottoman Empire to the Habsburg Monarchy...
of Southern blacks to the North and West during the early to mid twentieth century and the exodus of middle class blacks out of the ghetto during the 1970s through the early 90s. In 1991 Lemann also published an article titled “The Other Underclass,” which details Puerto Ricans, and particularly Puerto Ricans residing in South Bronx, as members of the urban underclass in America.
Critiques of the Underclass Concept
Following the popularization of the underclass concept in both academic and journalistic writings, some academics began to overtly criticize underclass terminology. Those in opposition to the underclass concept generally argue that, on the one hand, the term “underclass” is a homogenizing and simplifies a heterogeneous group, and on the other hand, the term is a derogatory and demonizes the urban poor.Underclass Language as Derogatory and Demonizing
Many who refute the underclass concept suggest that the “underclass” term has been transformed into a codeword to refer to poor inner-city blacks. For example, Hilary Silver highlights a moment when David DukeDavid Duke
David Ernest Duke is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in...
, former Grand Wizard
Grand Wizard
Grand Wizard was the title given to the leader of the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan which existed from 1866 to 1871.In 1915, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was created, initially as a fraternal organization. The highest-ranking leader of the latter organization was the Imperial Wizard. National...
of the KKK, campaigned for Louisiana Governor by complaining about the “welfare underclass.” The underclass concept has been politicized, with those from the political left arguing that joblessness and insufficient welfare give rise the underclass while the political right employ the underclass term to refer to welfare dependency and moral decline. Many sociologists suggest that this latter rhetoric – the right-wing perspective – became dominant in mainstream accounts of the underclass during the later decades of the twentieth-century.
Herbert Gans is one of the most vocal critics of the underclass concept. Gans suggests that American journalists, inspired partly by academic writings on the “culture of poverty
Culture of poverty
The culture of poverty is a social theory that expands on the cycle of poverty. Proponents of this theory argue that the poor are not simply lacking resources, but also have a unique value system...
,” reframed “underclass” from a structural term (i.e., defining the underclass in reference to conditions of social structure) to a behavioral term (i.e., defining the underclass in reference to rational choice and/or in reference to a subculture of poverty). Gans suggests that the word “underclass” has become synonymous with impoverished blacks that behave in criminal, deviant, or “just non-middle-class ways.”
Loïc Wacquant
Loïc Wacquant
Loïc Wacquant is a sociologist, specializing in urban sociology, urban poverty, racial inequality, the body, social theory and ethnography....
deploys a relatively similar critique by arguing that “underclass” has become a blanket term that frames urban blacks as behaviorally and culturally deviant. Wacquant notes that underclass status is imposed on urban blacks from outside and above them (e.g., by journalists, politicians, and academics), stating that “underclass” is a derogatory and is “a negative label that nobody claims or invokes except to pin it on to others.” And, although the underclass concepts is homogenizing, Wacquant argues that underclass imagery differentiates on gender lines, with the underclass male being depicted as a violent “gang banger,” a physical threat to public safety, and the underclass female being generalized as “welfare mother”(also see welfare queen
Welfare queen
A welfare queen is a pejorative phrase used in the United States to describe people who are accused of collecting excessive welfare payments through fraud or manipulation. Reporting on welfare fraud began during the early 1960s, appearing in general interest magazines such as Readers Digest...
), a “moral assault on American values.”
Proposed Replacement Terms
The charges against underclass terminology have motivated replacement terms. For example, William Julius WilsonWilliam Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist. He worked at the University of Chicago 1972-1996 before moving to Harvard....
, sympathetic to criticisms brought against underclass terminology (particularly those criticisms posited by Gans), begins to replace his use of the term underclass with "ghetto poor” during the early 1990s. For Wilson, this replacement terminology is simply an attempt to revamp the framing of inner-city poverty as being structurally rooted. He states, “I will substitute the term ‘ghetto poor’ for the term ‘underclass’ and hope that I will not lose any of the subtle theoretical meaning that the latter term has had in my writings.”
Gans also suggests replacing underclass terminology, but instead of “ghetto poor” he suggests the term “undercaste." Unlike Wilson’s replacement, Gans is not simply calling for a replacement term but a revised concept altogether. For Gans, the position of the so-called “underclass” is better suited for paradigms of caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
stratification rather than class stratification. He conceptualizes the undercaste as “a population of such low status as to be shunned by the rest of the society, with opportunities for contact with others of higher status and upward mobility even more limited than those of the people today described as an underclass.” Gans admits hesitation in advancing a notion of undercaste – another umbrella term “open to anyone who wishes to place new meaning, or a variety of stereotypes, accusations and stigmas under it” – but argues that the undercaste is nevertheless a suitable term worthy of replacing the politically charged language of the underclass.
See also
- PovertyPovertyPoverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
- LumpenproletariatLumpenproletariatLumpenproletariat, a collective term from Lumpenproletarier , was first defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology and later elaborated on in other works by Marx...
- Day labour
- Contingent workContingent workContingent work, also sometimes known as casual work, is a neologism which describes a type of employment relationship between an employer and employee...
- Social classSocial classSocial classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
- Social exclusionSocial exclusionSocial exclusion is a concept used in many parts of the world to characterise contemporary forms of social disadvantage. Dr. Lynn Todman, director of the Institute on Social Exclusion at the Adler School of Professional Psychology, suggests that social exclusion refers to processes in which...
- Social hierarchy
- Social inequalitySocial inequalitySocial inequality refers to a situation in which individual groups in a society do not have equal social status. Areas of potential social inequality include voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, the extent of property rights and access to education, health care, quality housing and other...
- Social mobilitySocial mobilitySocial mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
- Reserve army of labourReserve army of labourReserve army of labour is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy. It refers basically to the unemployed in capitalist society. It is synonymous with "industrial reserve army" or "relative surplus population", except that the unemployed can be defined as those actually looking for...
- OverclassOverclassOverclass is a recent and pejorative term for the most powerful group in a social hierarchy. Users of the term generally imply excessive and unjust privilege and exploitation of the rest of society...
- GhettoGhettoA ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...