Gans' Uses of Poverty Flashcards
The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All is made by
Herbert Gans, 1971
Gans took note of Robert Merton’s concept of
“Manifest”, “Latent”, and “Dysfunctions.”
intended function of social policies, processes, or actions, to affect benefits
Manifest
Ex: The promotion of contraceptives helps couples manage their family size.
Manifest
not consciously intended but produces benefits.
Latent
Ex: The promotion of contraceptives helps prevent mortalities in unassisted abortions.
Latent
a harmful unintended outcome.
Dysfunction
Ex: The promotion of contraceptives leads to the surge of early engagement of young people to sexual activities, at least from the conservative standpoint.
Dysfunction
TRUE OR FALSE
Gans justifies and promotes poverty, he outlines the poverty’s latent function as a sociologist.
FALSE
TRUE OR FALSE
Gans enumerated the observed consequences of poverty (having poor) to other socio-economic interest groups or population aggregates.
TRUE
By learning the consequences of latent functions, it may:
offer an understanding of why some social phenomena persist in our society.
TRUE OR FALSE
The existence of poverty ensures that society’s “dirty work” will be done is one function of poverty.
TRUE
Ex: Garbage pickers or trash collectors usually take the job forced by poverty.
The existence of poverty ensures that society’s “dirty work” will be done.
the poor subsidize the lucrative living and activities of the rich because of this.
Because the poor are required to work at lower wages, they subsidize activities that benefit the upper class.
poverty unintentionally generates jobs because there must be people who should look after the well-being of the poor.
Poverty creates jobs that serve or “service” the poor or protect the rest of society from them.
The poor serve as consumers of “substandard” items (or of “poor services”).
The poor buy goods others do not want and thus prolong the economic usefulness of such goods.
The poor are found to be patronizing substandard medicines.
The poor buy goods others do not want and thus prolong the economic usefulness of such goods.
The poor can be used to justify social norms, most especially norms that benefit those that promote them.
The poor can be identified and punished as alleged or real deviants in order to uphold the legitimacy of conventional norms.
The rich demonize the poor as lazy, and sometimes associate their conditions to that laziness.
The poor can be identified and punished as alleged or real deviants in order to uphold the legitimacy of conventional norms.
It is in their intent to uphold hard work as a norm because if people are hardworking, it translates to _______.
profit
There seems to be an assumption that the poor engage in risky and deviant behaviors.
Poor can be identified as a group which participates more in uninhibited sexual, alcoholic, and narcotic behavior.
many crimes are almost automatically associated with people from economically depressed areas. This contributes to the “good image” of the affluent.
Poor can be identified as a group which participates more in uninhibited sexual, alcoholic, and narcotic behavior.
