Doctoral Dissertation Research: I'm not your stereotypical welfare recipient: The Role of Stigma in the Formation of Social Capital Among the Poor

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

This study explores the role of stigma in the formation of social capital among poor people by investigating how the poor explain poverty and how they view other poor people, how negative stereotypes about poor people affect their views of themselves and others, their interactions with others, and their resource and exchange networks, how neighborhood characteristics such as levels of poverty, crime and welfare receipt affect poor people's views of themselves and others, and how negative stereotypes affect poor people's involvement in activist organizations to combat poverty and how their participation may in turn affect their views. Poor people are familiar with mainstream stigmatized images of them. In what circumstances do low-income people self-isolate? What is the process by which they come together? When do they mobilize for collective action? What are the implications of their decisions? In order to answer these and other research questions, I will conduct participant observation and 80 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 80 poor people. The sample will be selected non-randomly, through contacts made during participant observation and through referrals from respondents. The sample selection will allow some comparisons: 40 respondents will be users of social service programs targeted on poor people; 20 will be involved in a welfare rights organization; 20 will not be affiliated with either a welfare rights organization or a social service program. Respondents will be asked about their life histories, including occupational, educational, and welfare experience, their views on welfare and on work, their opinions on what should be done about poverty, their self-images, their perceptions of the working and the nonworking poor, what they think other poor people's views are, and what kind of help they receive from and give to others. This study will advance knowledge in sociology in the areas of stigma perception and attribution, poverty, and public policy. The broader impacts of this project will be an enhanced understanding of the values and behavior of poor people. The potential benefits of the proposed activity to society will help policymakers design more informed and effective anti-poverty policies. Recent criticism of welfare and "welfare dependency" in the United States often begins with research on behavior and reaches conclusions about values. Such studies that assume that values among the poor are different from or the same as those in the wider populace obscure the connections between values and behavior as well as what else might influence behavior. To address behavior and outcomes, one must know why behavior is different. This proposed study is relevant to policy in terms of interventions, welfare reform, work requirements, life skills training, and ideologies about poverty.