Oscar Lewis theory of culture of poverty

Oscar Lewis theory of culture of poverty

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Oscar Lewis theory of culture of poverty

Oscar Lewis came up with the theory of the culture of poverty. In his theory, he says that poverty is an aspect of living that tends to become a usual way of living for people. Culture is an aspect of a society that the older generation passes to the younger generation, shares it, and then later transmits it socially as a behavior of identifying themselves. According to Oscar Lewis, poverty has its way of maintaining itself in one generation and then later passed to the next, just like the culture. (Gajdosikiene, 2004) Also, Oscar Lewis viewed those people living in poverty to have a separate culture that glorifies their poverty and hence end up staying poverty for generations. Basing on this, according to me, Oscar Lewis was correct, and that poverty is a culture that poor people live with and end up passing it to the next generation.

One reason why I am for the idea of Oscar Lewis is that looking at the poor people, they usually tend to live like they are in their world. In other words, they never want to live as other people live. (Lewis, 2017) Taking, for example, the poor people in urban areas, these people never even make a simple step of fully utilizing the available free resources like institutions such as hospitals and banks. Through this segregation, they end up living in their cocoon of poverty since they can’t merge with the rich, maybe to learn some of the tricks to be wealthy. (Lewis, 1966)

Additionally, most poor people are very conservative about outdated cultures, which add zero values to their lives. For example, some cultures believe that the more children you have, the more critical you are. Such practice makes these low-income families have many children whom they can’t adequately manage. If these communities could embrace family planning, they could be having manageable families. Once these many children are born into a low-income family, they end up inheriting the same culture of poverty that their parents were embracing since before, and the cycle continues. Looking at this, it is one reason I agree with Oscar Lewis. (Gajdosikiene, 2004)

Moreover, for one to come out of poverty, he or she has to sweat through hard work. However, it is very ironical that most of these poor people are very lazy compared to the rich. As a result of this laziness, the parents end up passing poverty to the younger generation instead of doing something to get themselves out of the burden of poverty.

Finally, one must note that getting out poverty is not a walk in the park. I believe that one should strive as much as possible to ensure that they are free since, with the right mindset, it is always possible. (Cohen, 2010)

References

Cohen, P. (2010). ‘Culture of Poverty’ Makes a Comeback. New York Times, 17.

Gajdosikiene, I. (2004). Oscar Lewis’ culture of poverty: critique and further development. Sociologija. Mintis ir veiksmas, (01), 88-96.

Lewis, O. (2017). The culture of poverty. In Poor Jews (pp. 9-25). Routledge.

Lewis, O. (1966). La vida: A Puerto Rican family in the culture of poverty-San Juan and New York (Vol. 13). New York: Random House.