Worlds Apart: Why Poverty Persists in Rural America

Rating:
Summary: Social Insurance and Economic Insecurity
Review:

Worlds Apart: Why Poverty Persists in Rural America

In the book Worlds Apart, the author, Cynthia M. Duncan, takes a look at three different areas of rural America to study rural poverty. She studied the different aspects of the communities, including social, economic, educational and political issues. Of the three communities, two areas (Blackwell and Dahlia) have very similar profiles that have limited the people from moving upward in society. The third has a different perspective, in which the middle class is helping the whole community gain opportunities.
In the community of Blackwell, the foundation is based on the �have� and �have-nots�. This mining community was founded on a continual idea of separation of class. Every facet of the community depended on how much money a family had and a person�s last name. The �drawers� were the people who continually draw money from the government. They were the uneducated, poor who had only known this way of life. Outside opportunity was never able to enter the community, because the wealthy class would not allow it and wanted to keep its tight hold on the lower classes.
Dahlia is a community similar to Blackwell, unchanging classes and no opportunity. Yet, it differs from Blackwell because the poor were crippled by racial segregation that has existed since slavery. Even though the plantation work is still done by the black people, they are paid considerable low wages. The social elite control everything in the community from who is on the school board, county board and any official government offices. Any radical changes by the people, were punished by �blackballing� any chances of future employment or service. Education was also damaged by this continual segregation. The community had two schools, the better school is were the best teachers were and the white children and the poorer school had the worse teachers and all the black children.
The community of Gray Mountain was founded on many different ethic groups. It was considered a small version of American�s �melting-pot�. The poverty here came from the decline of the mill factories employment, but community did not let this create a gap between the classes. The lower classes still associated with the middle class, it did not matter how much money a person�s family had. Outside improvements were not pushed away, but welcomed into the community (i.e. unions). Education was key in this community. The poor children went to the same schools as the rich children. The adults knew that the way to improve their society was through education that would inspire mobility.
In the final section of the book, Duncan provides solutions for social change and social policy. The chief solution was education. The children from poor families may not have the moral support at home to push they upward, but that at school there would be potential for a role model. Any type of support would help a children gain the upward mobility to improve themselves.

Rating:
Summary: Extensive research gives voice to some rural poor
Review: Dr. Cynthia Duncan, Sociologist at University of New Hampshire, spent over five years (with some assistance from graduate students) conducting in-depth, life history-producing, interviews with 350 residents of two impoverished rural communities (one in Appalachia and one in the Mississippi Delta) and a more prosperous rural New England community. Dr. Duncan does not explicitly recognize any theory in this text, but she seems to work from a grounded theory method: giving voice to the rural citizens and letting the citizens have some ownership in guiding the study. There are also shades of conflict theory, especially when Duncan points out the local rural elites, although she doesn't discuss the 'power elites' (a la C.W. Mills and W. Domhoff). In this text we meet only 40 of the 350 interviewed citizens, and I thirst to meet more citizens and know more about their lives. We meet citizens of varying: gender, age, race, SES, and occupations. The text also presents a rich historical background on each society. I found the text to be most helpful when comparing and contrasting Dahlia and Blackwell (Appalachia and the Delta). The information on Gray Mountain (New England) was informative and interesting, but I didn't find it to be an effective community to utilize to compare to the other two communities. I yearn for Duncan to find a rural southern society that is comparable to Gray Mountain. Gray Mountain seemed to be on the edge of great change, and I would like Dr. Duncan to re-visit Gray Mountain, in a future study, reporting on the change (or stability) of the community.

Dr. Duncan spent nearly a decade in a tug-of-war as this text was edited down. There are necessarily (due to publishing matters) muted voices and hopefully these voices speak through Duncan's future works. Dr. Duncan is a devoted Appalachian scholar who has invested decades of her life trying to understand (and alleviate) poverty in Appalachia and the Delta. This text can serve as a beneficial introduction to her body of work on poverty. If this text inspires you, then also seek out Dr. Duncan's work in academic journals.

Rating:
Summary: Ideology overrides reality
Review: Duncan creates caricatures of the three communities she studied to promote a paternalistic liberalism that can only fail to resolve the very real social inequities she observes. Her portrayal of "Dalhia," a semi-fictive town in the Mississippi Delta, is rooted in widely popular prejudice: all the whites are rich, almost all the blacks are poor. In fact, half of the white families earn below $25,000 a year, and a significant proportion of white families earn below $10,000. Her small sample of "upper" and "upper middle class" whites shoved these people from view. A far higher proportion of African Americans are poor and very poor, but her characterization of whites as uniformly wealthy and privileged is a canard. In 2004, virtually all political offices in the region -- and specifically in these two counties -- are held by African Americans. Further, she views an old New England town as a model for democracy -- conveniently overlooking that it was founded as a company town, and that it has a still-dynamic economy. The economies of the Delta and the Appalachian coal fields relied on extractive industries. When those industries played out, no matter their prior civic culture, they were stranded. She could have gone to any farming or coal region and found similar distress -- and, even in Kansas, deep class divisions -- the residue of prolonged economic decline. The book is an easy read and addresses important issues, but is so deeply flawed it should not be used in the classroom.

Rating:
Summary: Riveting
Review: I come from rural America, where jobs are few. Duncan presents portions of my voice and she reveals how structural limitations continue to stifle many upright citizens who want to work, but can't find work in rural America. I would have liked to have seen more content analysis of the local media in the towns that Duncan studied.

Rating:
Summary: Ideology overrides reality
Review: The book Worlds Apart describes what life is like for people of different social classes in three different places in the United States. Blackwell* in the Appalachia, and Dahlia* on the Mississippi are two of these places where inequality is constant. Another place where Cynthia M. Duncan studies is Grey Mountain*, New England, where the opposite happens. Citizens are involved in local government; this helps to reduce class inequalities.
Duncan gets very in depth in discovering the roots of the problems of social inequality. Her research consists of visiting everyplace for an extended period of time, with dialogue from 40 of the 350 local people she interviewed in the book.
In Blackwell, she describes the everyday contempt the rich and poor hold for one another, and how neither side has any desire to meet in the middle. People in Blackwell are also distinguished by the job they hold. If you are lucky enough to hold a job, you become a "have", if you don't you become a "have not".
As the author describes, poverty and inequality situation is so drastic in Blackwell that a local pastor is forced to start weeding out candidates for Christian charity. He says everyday people come in and ask the church to pay for their groceries, gas, and other bills. Word has spread around the impoverished community about his good charity and he finds the numbers of his congregation rapidly rising. Duncan finds that experiences like this undermine community trust and reinforce community held opinions that the poor citizens scheme and manipulate the system.
Dahlia in the Mississippi Delta has similar class separation to Blackwell and contempt for one another. The book continues through Dahlia and Grey Mountain, New England. The New England section focuses on equality and civic involvement. Something unheard of in the previous two sections of the book.
The section after Grey Mountain, Northern New England is titled "social change and social policy". This section makes suggestions for solutions on how to combat the problems seen in Blackwell and Dahlia. The main point that Duncan is trying to make is that in order for real change to happen, a complete outside source is needed. One with no local ties or biases. Her suggestion is that federal aid come from the outside, where locals are unable to take advantage of aid, and aid is based on need rather than first come first served.
I suggest that before reading Worlds Apart, the reader look in the appendix and study the various trends. This will allow the reader to paint a more realistic picture of the three circumstances that Duncan describes.

* Real names have been changed

Rating:
Summary: Social Insurance & Economic Insecurity
Review: The book Worlds Apart describes what life is like for people of different social classes in three different places in the United States. Blackwell* in the Appalachia, and Dahlia* on the Mississippi are two of these places where inequality is constant. Another place where Cynthia M. Duncan studies is Grey Mountain*, New England, where the opposite happens. Citizens are involved in local government; this helps to reduce class inequalities.
Duncan gets very in depth in discovering the roots of the problems of social inequality. Her research consists of visiting everyplace for an extended period of time, with dialogue from 40 of the 350 local people she interviewed in the book.
In Blackwell, she describes the everyday contempt the rich and poor hold for one another, and how neither side has any desire to meet in the middle. People in Blackwell are also distinguished by the job they hold. If you are lucky enough to hold a job, you become a "have", if you don't you become a "have not".
As the author describes, poverty and inequality situation is so drastic in Blackwell that a local pastor is forced to start weeding out candidates for Christian charity. He says everyday people come in and ask the church to pay for their groceries, gas, and other bills. Word has spread around the impoverished community about his good charity and he finds the numbers of his congregation rapidly rising. Duncan finds that experiences like this undermine community trust and reinforce community held opinions that the poor citizens scheme and manipulate the system.
Dahlia in the Mississippi Delta has similar class separation to Blackwell and contempt for one another. The book continues through Dahlia and Grey Mountain, New England. The New England section focuses on equality and civic involvement. Something unheard of in the previous two sections of the book.
The section after Grey Mountain, Northern New England is titled "social change and social policy". This section makes suggestions for solutions on how to combat the problems seen in Blackwell and Dahlia. The main point that Duncan is trying to make is that in order for real change to happen, a complete outside source is needed. One with no local ties or biases. Her suggestion is that federal aid come from the outside, where locals are unable to take advantage of aid, and aid is based on need rather than first come first served.
I suggest that before reading Worlds Apart, the reader look in the appendix and study the various trends. This will allow the reader to paint a more realistic picture of the three circumstances that Duncan describes.

* Real names have been changed

Rating:
Summary: another basis for false stereotypes!
Review: This book once again takes a great minority of the Mississippi Delta and makes it look like it is stuck in slavery days! This couldn't be more untrue. I agree that the Mississippi delta is a poverty srticken area, but it is not as backwards as this book makes it seem! Duncan took a look at ONE small community here in the delta when the Delta is home to at least 4 of the largest towns in the state of Mississippi! If the book was better researched then it might be good but this book inaccurately portrays Mississippi!