William Julius Wilson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3587396 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William Julius Wilson |
| GIVEN NAMES | William Julius |
| FAMILY NAME | Wilson |
| SIGNATURE | WILSON W J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 95 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1841 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 94 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1967 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality
This chapter addresses one of the central yet difficult issues facing criminology–race and violent crime. It discusses a theoretical strategy that incorporates both structural and cultural arguments regarding race, crime, and inequality in American cities. The basic thesis is that macrosocial patterns of residential inequality give rise to the social isolation and ecological concentration of the truly disadvantaged, which in turn leads to structu…
Cultures of Unemployment: A Comparative Look at Long-Term Unemployment and Urban Poverty
The "cultures" of unemployed people in the United States and abroad are complex, varied and offer explanatory power when analyzed, as they are here, in a systematic way. The authors use case studies and survey data to devise a framework for a better understanding of the effects of welfare state policy on the chronically unemployed. They analyze the
King and the Other America: The Poor People's Campaign and the Quest for Economic Equality
"An elegant and timely history of how black intellectuals have long made a case for the intersections between class and race."— The Nation "A meticulously researched look into the development of King’s thought. . . . Laurent’s important new book highlights the depth of the wisdom and organizing skill he brought to the movement for economic justice."— The Progressive Shortly before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. called for a radical red…
Antidemocracy in America: Truth, Power, and the Republic at Risk
King and the Other America: The Poor People's Campaign and the Quest for Economic Equality
Did the Civil rights movement of the Fifties and Sixties fail to address economic issues and to grasp that class, beyond just race, was the main cleavage and the greater hindrance in American Society? Many historians and social scientists contend that the movement too narrowly circumscribed its mission, deceptively assuming that specific race-based demands were the only way to achieve social equality and racial fairness. This book argues that, de…
The Bridge over the Racial Divide: Rising Inequality and Coalition Politics
In a work that will significantly influence the political discussion with respect to race and class politics, one of the country's most influential sociologists focuses on the rising inequality in American society and the need for a progressive, multiracial political coalition to combat it. The culmination of decades of distinguished scholarship, The Bridge over the Racial Divide brilliantly demonstrates how political power is disproportionately …
The Declining Significance of Race
Race relations in America have undergone fundamental changes in recent years, so much so that now the life chances of individual blacks have more to do with their economic class position than with their day-to-day encounters with whites. A brief considers of the theories, followed by a discussion of their basic weaknesses, will help to raise a number of theoretical issues that will be useful for analyzing the dynamics of racial conflict in the pr…
Pour une coopération multiraciale
"Reassessing "Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality: Enduring and New Challenges in 21stCentury America
In "Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality," Sampson and Wilson (1995) argued that racial disparities in violent crime are attributable in large part to the persistent structural disadvantages that are disproportionately concentrated in African American communities. They also argued that the ultimate causes of crime were similar for both Whites and Blacks, leading to what has been labeled the thesis of "racial invariance." In light …
Why Sociologists Matter in the Welfare Reform Debate
Race, class, politics, and the disappearance of work: A Rejoinder
I very much appreciate Jennifer Hochschild's thoughtful commentary on my article, "When Work Disappears: New Implications for Race and Urban Poverty in the Global Economy" (1999). She focuses on tw
Black youths, joblessness, and the other side of 'Black Lives Matter
When income segregation is coupled with racial segregation, low-income blacks cluster in neighbourhoods that feature disadvantages along several dimensions including joblessness. Residents of these neighbourhoods are often innocent victims of crime, including violent crime, which frequently goes unnoticed or unreported in the media. They represent the other side of 'Black Lives Matter', which suggests the need for a broader vision that also highl…
New perspectives on the declining significance of race: A Rejoinder
In sharp contrast to many earlier studies, the articles in this symposium encompass a careful discussion of the two major underlying themes of my book, The Declining Significance of Race: (1) the effect of fundamental economic and political shifts on the changing relative importance of race and class in black occupational mobility and job placement; and (2) the swing in the concentration of racial conflict from the economic sector to the sociopol…
Marginality, ethnicity and penality: A response to Loïc Wacquant
This article responds to Loïc Wacquant's elaboration of his overarching theoretical framework in his stimulating article ‘Marginality, Ethnicity and Penality in the Neo-liberal City: An Analytic Cartography’. I raise some issues that he might reflect on in his rejoinder to the comments on his essay. These include: (1) the need for greater specification and clarification of explanatory and conceptual variables in the elaboration of his theoretical…
The Travails of Urban Field Research
Sesión Inaugural del XIII Congreso Mundial de Sociología. Intervención del profesor William J. Wilson
Combating Concentrated Poverty in Urban Neighborhoods
Appearing a few months after the 25th anniversary of the publication of The Truly Disadvantaged, this article critically reflects on some of the more important research on the nature of concentrated poverty that specifically relates to the problem of neighborhood effects. The article then considers whether the response of the policy community has sufficiently addressed the challenges posed
Poverty, Politics, and a “Circle of Promise”: Holistic Education Policy in Boston and the Challenge of Institutional Entrenchment
Cash-strapped municipalities throughout the United States are increasingly proposing innovative education policies linking school-based reforms with neighborhood-level interventions. Boston is one such city. In this paper, we describe, analyze, and critique the City of Boston’s “Circle of Promise” initiative, a holistic education policy designed to coordinate school reforms with local community-based organizational resources. We link our discussi…
The Red Day Star, the Women’s Star and Venus: D(L/N)akota, Ojibwe and Other Indigenous Star Knowledge
In Ojibwe the Morning Star is called which means the Women's Star.In D(L/N)akota the same planet Venus is called the Red Day Star.Both cultures have rich and interesting understandings of Venus that relate to other Indigenous cultures throughout the world.Venus is so often related to the feminine because native peoples carefully watched the movement of the 'star' and saw it in the east at sunrise for nine months and then in the west at sunset for…
Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect
The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy, Second Edition
The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions, Third Edition
The Truly Disadvantaged: The New Politics of Race
The problems of the truly disadvantaged may require nonracial solutions such as full employment, balanced economic growth, and manpower training and education. Since national opinion polls consistently reveal strong public support for efforts to enhance work in America, political support for a program of economic reform could be considerably stronger than many people presently assume. Racial discrimination is the most frequently invoked explanati…
Critical Commentary . Making the Connection between the Socialisation and the Social Isolation of the Inner-city Poor
A Conversation on the Future of Black Politics
This conversation, hosted by the Harvard Book Store and moderated by Rev. Eugene Rivers, took place in conjunction with the Boston Review's (2012) forum on the power and potential of black movements. Featuring a lead article by Michael C. Dawson, the Future of Black Politics forum included responses from William Julius Wilson, Andra Gillespie, Tommie Shelby, Rev. Patrick H. O'Connor, Jennifer L. Hochschild, Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, Dorian …
When Work Disappears
For the first time in the twentieth century most adults in many innercity ghetto neighborhoods are not working in a typical week. The disappearance of work has adversely affected not only individuals, families, and neighborhoods, but the social life of the city at large as well. Inner-city joblessness is a severe problem that is often overlooked or obscured when the focus is placed mainly on poverty and its consequences. Despite increases in the …
Studying Inner-City Social Dislocations: The Challenge of Public Agenda Research: 1990 Presidential Address
Simplistic eitherlor notions of culture versus social structure have impeded the development of a broader theoretical contextfrom which to examine questions raised by the continuing debate on the ghetto underclass. In this paper I present a framework that integrates social structural and cultural arguments. I hope elaboration of this framework can move social scientists beyond the narrow confines of the underclass debate in two ways: (1) by outli…
The Cost of Racial and Class Exclusion in the Inner City
Discussions of inner-city social dislocations are often severed from the struggles and structural changes in the larger society, economy, and polity that in fact determine them, resulting in undue emphasis on the individual attributes of ghetto residents and on the alleged grip of the so-called culture of poverty. This article provides a different perspective by drawing attention to the specific features of the proximate social structure in which…
The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy, Second Edition
The declining significance of race: Revisited but Not Revised
The role of theory in ethnographic research
■ Scholars, including urban poverty researchers, have not seriously debated the important issues that Loïc Wacquant raised in his controversial review of books by Elijah Anderson, Mitchell Duneier, and Katherine Newman concerning the disconnect between theory and ethnographic research. Despite the tone of Wacquant's review, we feel that he made a contribution in raising important issues about the role of theory in ethnography. The responses to hi…
"Reassessing "Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality: Enduring and New Challenges in 21stCentury America
In "Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality," Sampson and Wilson (1995) argued that racial disparities in violent crime are attributable in large part to the persistent structural disadvantages that are disproportionately concentrated in African American communities. They also argued that the ultimate causes of crime were similar for both Whites and Blacks, leading to what has been labeled the thesis of "racial invariance." In light …
The Declining Significance of Race: Revisited & Revised
Wilson reflects on the nearly eight hundred research studies that claim to provide an empirical test of the arguments presented in his book The Declining Significance of Race (1978; second edition, 1980). Wilson considers representative studies that incorrectly address his book, before discussing those publications that correctly address his thesis, including those that uphold, partially support, or challenge his arguments and basic claims. In th…
Why Both Social Structure and Culture Matter in a Holistic Analysis of Inner-City Poverty
A complex web of racialist and nonracialist structural forces, along with cultural forces, have adversely impacted life in inner-city black neighborhoods. Yet a number of studies have raised questions about the real effects of living in such neighborhoods, including the widely cited studies on the Moving to Opportunity experiment. The author highlights studies that provide compelling evidence for considering the cumulative effects of residing in …
Another Look at The Truly Disadvantaged
In the aftermath of the controversy generated in 1965 by the Moynihan report on the black family, empirical research on inner-city poverty and other social dislocations ground to a halt. In the past few years, however, such research activity has revived as media reports and debates among academics have captured public interest in the growing problems of urban ghettos. Like the 1960s discussions of the causes and consequences of urban poverty that…
The Underclass: Issues, Perspectives, and Public Policy
This article critically reviews the other articles in this volume and integrates some of their major arguments. Attention is given to the substantive arguments advanced by each author and how they relate to the points raised by the other authors. In conclusion, the policy recommendations put forth in several of the articles are assessed
The Moynihan Report and Research on the Black Community
Daniel Patrick Moynihan; The Negro Family; race; inequality; single-parent families; poverty
Cycles of Deprivation and the Underclass Debate
In the mid-1960s, liberal scholars forcefully and candidly discussed the rise of social dislocations in the inner city and effectively challenged conservative arguments regarding the culture and behavior of the ghetto underclass. This article attempts to explain why the liberal perspective on the ghetto underclass has now receded into the background and why the conservative perspective enjoys wide and increasing currency. A suggestion is made as …
Race, class and urban poverty: A rejoinder
In this article I discuss the major arguments in three of my books that are the focus of attention in this special issue. The Declining Significance of Race (1978, 2nd edn 1980), The Truly Disadvantaged (1987), and When Work Disappears (1996). This discussion serves as the backdrop for my rejoinder to the points made in the preceding articles, including those on the relative significance of race and class, social isolation, the concept 'ghetto', …
When work disappears: New Implications for Race and Urban Poverty in the Global Economy
This study highlights some of the main arguments raised in my latest book, When Work Disappears (1996), and discusses their implications for understanding issues related to race and urban poverty in Britain and other European countries. I emphasize that public understanding of these issues has been hindered by two pernicious effects of racial ideology in America: (1) a tendency among those on both the left and the right to disassociate the high i…
Way Down in the Hole: Systemic Urban Inequality and The Wire
The Wire is set in a modern American city shaped by economic restructuring and fundamental demographic change that led to widespread job loss and the depopulation of inner-city neighborhoods. While the series can be viewed as an account of the systemic failure of political, economic, and social institutions in Baltimore in particular, the fundamental principles depicted in The Wire certainly parallel changing conditions in other cities, especiall…
Toward a Framework for Understanding Forces that Contribute to or Reinforce Racial Inequality
The Black Community in the 1980s: Questions of Race, Class, and Public Policy
Because the dissimilar effects of policy pro grams on different segments of the black population are usually not specified or recognized, recent developments involving Blacks are puzzling to observers of race relations. This article argues for a return to the emphasis on the eco nomic dimensions of racial inequality that characterized important writings on race in the mid-1960s. The deteriorating economic conditions of the black poor and the chan…
The Political and Economic Forces Shaping Concentrated Poverty
Journal Article The Political and Economic Forces Shaping Concentrated Poverty Get access William Julius Wilson William Julius Wilson WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University and has published numerous books on race and urban poverty. This article is adapted from his forthcoming book, More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (New York: Norton, 2009). Search for other works…
The Changing--Not Declining--Significance of Race
Reflections on a Sociological Career that Integrates Social Science with Social Policy
This autobiographical essay reflects on my sociological career, highlighting the integration of sociology with social policy. I discuss the personal, social, and intellectual experiences, ranging from childhood to adult life, that influenced my pursuit of studies in race and ethnic relations and urban poverty. I then focus on how the academic and public reaction to these studies increased my concerns about the relationship between social science …
Aspects of Concept Formation, Explication, and Theory Construction in Sociology
CONCEPTS Many concepts in sociology cannot be evaluated on this basis, however, because they do not operate within the context of a formal theory, be it a theory sketch or an explicit theory. For those of us concerned not only with evaluation, but also with theory construction, the question is whether or not there is any basis for giving special attention to some of these isolated concepts in sociology. Before attempting to answer this question, …
The Precariousness of Social Class in Black America
New perspectives on the declining significance of race: A Rejoinder
In sharp contrast to many earlier studies, the articles in this symposium encompass a careful discussion of the two major underlying themes of my book, The Declining Significance of Race: (1) the effect of fundamental economic and political shifts on the changing relative importance of race and class in black occupational mobility and job placement; and (2) the swing in the concentration of racial conflict from the economic sector to the sociopol…
Critical Commentary . Making the Connection between the Socialisation and the Social Isolation of the Inner-city Poor
Aspects of Concept Formation, Explication, and Theory Construction in Sociology
CONCEPTS Many concepts in sociology cannot be evaluated on this basis, however, because they do not operate within the context of a formal theory, be it a theory sketch or an explicit theory. For those of us concerned not only with evaluation, but also with theory construction, the question is whether or not there is any basis for giving special attention to some of these isolated concepts in sociology. Before attempting to answer this question, …
A Plan for Racial Unity
Revolutionary Nationalism ‘Versus’ Cultural Nationalism Dimensions of the Black Power Movement
The introduction and subsequent widespread use of the slogan 'Black Power' added a new dimension to the philosophy and strategy of black protest. As the activist civil rights movements gradually lost their interracial character and increasingly became black organizations, the long sought after goal of integration was either deemphasized in importance or altogether rejected. The changing mood of black activists ushered in a new goal-the acquisitio…
Work Attachment among Black Men
Mirror of Man: Readings of Sociology and Literature
Power, Racism, Privilege: Race Relations in Theoretical and Sociohistorical Perspectives
Dimensions of Racial Ideology: A Study of Urban Black Attitudes
Six dimensions of racial ideology were analyzed based on interview data from 1934 blacks in a northern city and a southern city. Blacks who favor separatism tend to be more alienated, fearful of race genocide, race conscious, and supportive of racial violence than those who endorse interracial cooperation. An orientation of suspiciousness, distrust, and estrangement toward white society was particularly evident in the sentiments of blacks who res…
Power, Racism, and Privilege: Race Relations in Theoretical and Sociohistorical Perspectives
The declining significance of race: Revisited but Not Revised
The Tradition of the Sorcerer and the Ethnic Revival
A Response to Marrett and Pettigrew
The Precariousness of Social Class in Black America
The Changing--Not Declining--Significance of Race
Human Nature, Class, and Ethnicity. Milton M. Gordon
The Black Community in the 1980s: Questions of Race, Class, and Public Policy
Because the dissimilar effects of policy pro grams on different segments of the black population are usually not specified or recognized, recent developments involving Blacks are puzzling to observers of race relations. This article argues for a return to the emphasis on the eco nomic dimensions of racial inequality that characterized important writings on race in the mid-1960s. The deteriorating economic conditions of the black poor and the chan…
Books in review
Class Cleavages and Ethnic Pluralism
Inner-city woes
Cycles of Deprivation and the Underclass Debate
In the mid-1960s, liberal scholars forcefully and candidly discussed the rise of social dislocations in the inner city and effectively challenged conservative arguments regarding the culture and behavior of the ghetto underclass. This article attempts to explain why the liberal perspective on the ghetto underclass has now receded into the background and why the conservative perspective enjoys wide and increasing currency. A suggestion is made as …
Social Change and Racial Progress
The Politics of Social Policy in the United States
From Structural Analysis to Public Policy
The Truly Disadvantaged
A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged
I appreciate the thoughtful comments by the authors of those papers that focused on my book, even though I disagree with many of the arguments. I was especially pleased with Edna Bonacich's accurate interpretation of my arguments in the first several pages of her article. And I was impressed with Andrew Billingsley's comprehensive discussion of what he takes to be the "three distinct, yet overlapping phases or central themes in" my work. I wish I…
The Cost of Racial and Class Exclusion in the Inner City
Discussions of inner-city social dislocations are often severed from the struggles and structural changes in the larger society, economy, and polity that in fact determine them, resulting in undue emphasis on the individual attributes of ghetto residents and on the alleged grip of the so-called culture of poverty. This article provides a different perspective by drawing attention to the specific features of the proximate social structure in which…
Sociology (71 works) · Political science (67 works) · Law (42 works) · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies (36 works) · Law (34 works) · Gender Studies (30 works) · Economics (25 works) · Politics (23 works) · Gender Studies (21 works) · Poverty (17 works)