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In this book, Sue Popkin tells the story of how an ambitious-and
risky-social experiment affected the lives of the people it was
ultimately intended to benefit: the residents who had suffered
through the worst days of crime, decay, and rampant mismanagement
of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), and now had to face losing
the only home many of them had known. The stories Popkin tells in
this book offer important lessons not only for Chicago, but for the
many other American cities still grappling with the legacy of
racial segregation and failed federal housing policies, making this
book a vital resource for city planners and managers, urban
development professionals, and anti-poverty activists.
In this book, Sue Popkin tells the story of how an ambitious-and
risky-social experiment affected the lives of the people it was
ultimately intended to benefit: the residents who had suffered
through the worst days of crime, decay, and rampant mismanagement
of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), and now had to face losing
the only home many of them had known. The stories Popkin tells in
this book offer important lessons not only for Chicago, but for the
many other American cities still grappling with the legacy of
racial segregation and failed federal housing policies, making this
book a vital resource for city planners and managers, urban
development professionals, and anti-poverty activists.
The world of welfare has changed radically. As the poor trade
welfare checks for low-wage jobs, their low earnings qualify them
for a hefty check come tax time a combination of the earned income
tax credit and other refunds. For many working parents this one
check is like hitting the lottery, offering several months' wages
as well as the hope of investing in a better future. Drawing on
interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan
to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to
school, and send their kids to college. However, these dreams of
upward mobility are often dashed by the difficulty of trying to get
by on meager wages. In accessible and engaging prose, It's Not Like
I'm Poor examines the costs and benefits of the new work-based
safety net, suggesting ways to augment its strengths so that more
of the working poor can realize the promise of a middle-class life.
Millie Acevedo bore her first child before the age of 16 and
dropped out of high school to care for her newborn. Now 27, she is
the unmarried mother of three and is raising her kids in one of
Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods. Would she and her children be
better off if she had waited to have them and had married their
father first? Why do so many poor American youth like Millie
continue to have children before they can afford to take care of
them?
Over a span of five years, sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria
Kefalas talked in-depth with 162 low-income single moms like Millie
to learn how they think about marriage and family. "Promises I Can
Keep "offers an intimate look at what marriage and motherhood mean
to these women and provides the most extensive on-the-ground study
to date of why they put children before marriage despite the
daunting challenges they know lie ahead.
Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one
of the leading social problems of today. "Doing the Best I Can" is
a strikingly rich, paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among
inner-city men often dismissed as "deadbeat dads." Kathryn Edin and
Timothy J. Nelson examine how couples in challenging straits come
together and get pregnant so quickly--without planning. The authors
chronicle the high hopes for forging lasting family bonds that
pregnancy inspires and pinpoint the fatal flaws that often lead to
the demise of the couple's romance. They offer keen insight into a
radical redefinition of family life, where ties between parents are
peripheral and the father-child bond is central.
Drawing on years of fieldwork, "Doing the Best I Can "shows how
mammoth economic and cultural changes have transformed the meaning
of fatherhood among the urban poor. Intimate interviews with more
than one hundred fathers make real the significant obstacles that
low-income men face at every step in the familial process: from the
difficulties of romantic relationships to decision-making dilemmas
at conception, the often celebratory moment of birth, the hardships
that accompany the early years of the child's life, and beyond.
Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one
of the leading social problems of today. "Doing the Best I Can" is
a strikingly rich, paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among
inner-city men often dismissed as "deadbeat dads." Kathryn Edin and
Timothy J. Nelson examine how couples in challenging straits come
together and get pregnant so quickly--without planning. The authors
chronicle the high hopes for forging lasting family bonds that
pregnancy inspires, and pinpoint the fatal flaws that often lead to
the relationship's demise. They offer keen insight into a radical
redefinition of family life where the father-child bond is central
and parental ties are peripheral.
Drawing on years of fieldwork, "Doing the Best I Can" shows how
mammoth economic and cultural changes have transformed the meaning
of fatherhood among the urban poor. Intimate interviews with more
than 100 fathers make real the significant obstacles faced by
low-income men at every step in the familial process: from the
difficulties of romantic relationships, to decision-making dilemmas
at conception, to the often celebratory moment of birth, and
finally to the hardships that accompany the early years of the
child's life, and beyond.
The world of welfare has changed radically. As the poor trade
welfare checks for low-wage jobs, their low earnings qualify them
for a hefty check come tax time a combination of the earned income
tax credit and other refunds. For many working parents this one
check is like hitting the lottery, offering several months' wages
as well as the hope of investing in a better future. Drawing on
interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan
to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to
school, and send their kids to college. However, these dreams of
upward mobility are often dashed by the difficulty of trying to get
by on meager wages. In accessible and engaging prose, It's Not Like
I'm Poor examines the costs and benefits of the new work-based
safety net, suggesting ways to augment its strengths so that more
of the working poor can realize the promise of a middle-class life.
The Cultural Matrix seeks to unravel a uniquely American paradox:
the socioeconomic crisis, segregation, and social isolation of
disadvantaged black youth, on the one hand, and their extraordinary
integration and prominence in popular culture on the other. Despite
school dropout rates over 40 percent, a third spending time in
prison, chronic unemployment, and endemic violence, black youth are
among the most vibrant creators of popular culture in the world.
They also espouse several deeply-held American values. To
understand this conundrum, the authors bring culture back to the
forefront of explanation, while avoiding the theoretical errors of
earlier culture-of-poverty approaches and the causal timidity and
special pleading of more recent ones. There is no single black
youth culture, but a complex matrix of cultures-adapted mainstream,
African-American vernacular, street culture, and hip-hop-that
support and undermine, enrich and impoverish young lives. Hip-hop,
for example, has had an enormous influence, not always to the
advantage of its creators. However, its muscular message of primal
honor and sensual indulgence is not motivated by a desire for
separatism but by an insistence on sharing in the mainstream
culture of consumption, power, and wealth. This interdisciplinary
work draws on all the social sciences, as well as social philosophy
and ethnomusicology, in a concerted effort to explain how culture,
interacting with structural and environmental forces, influences
the performance and control of violence, aesthetic productions,
educational and work outcomes, familial, gender, and sexual
relations, and the complex moral life of black youth.
"This is the most important study ever written on motherhood and
marriage among low-income urban women. Edin and Kefalas's timely,
engaging, and well-written book is a careful ethnographic study
that paints an indelible portrait of family life in poor
communities and, in the process, provides incredible insights on
the explosion of mother-only families within these
communities."--William Julius Wilson, author of "The Bridge Over
the Racial Divide"This book provides the most insightful and
comprehensive account I have read of the reasons why many
low-income women postpone marriage but don't postpone childbearing.
Edin and Kefalas do an excellent job of illuminating the changing
meaning of marriage in American society."--Andrew Cherlin, author
of "Public and Private Families"Edin and Kefalas provide an
original and convincing argument for why low-income women continue
to embrace motherhood while postponing and raising the bar on
marriage. This book is a must read for students of the family as
well as for policy makers and practitioners who hope to rebuild
marriage in low-income communities."--Sara McLanahan, author of
"Growing Up with a Single Parent""Promises I Can Keep is the best
kind of exploration: honest, incisive and ever-so-original. It'll
make you squirm, and that's a good thing, especially since Edin and
Kefalas try to make sense of the biggest demographic shift in the
last half century. This is a must read for anyone interested in the
tangled intersection of family and public policy."--Alex Kotlowitz,
author of "There Are No Children Here
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