Lewis Culture Of Poverty

Lewis’s theory of a culture of poverty explains a lot about how poverty is passed down from generation to generation, and it’s traits as a culture. The theory has many different aspects to it that makes it very complex. Lewis’s theory of a culture of poverty represents when people make an effort to cope with feelings of hopelessness and despair that develop from realization of the low possibility of achieving success in terms of the values and goals of the larger society. The culture of poverty is both an adaptation and a reaction of the poor to their position in a class-stratified, highly individual, capitalistic society (Lewis 188). The culture of poverty is passed down from generation to generation because of its effect on the children. “By the time slum children are age six or seven, they have usually absorbed the basic values and attitudes of their subculture and are not psychologically geared to take full advantage of the changing conditions or increased opportunities that may occur in their lifetime” (Lewis 188).

The culture of poverty develops when a stratified social and economic system is breaking down or is being replaced by another. People with a culture of poverty produce a low amount of money and receive very little in return. These people only know their own troubles, and their own way of living. They don’t have the knowledge, to see the similarities between their problems and those of the people who don’t have the issues they