本文将沿结构和文化两个面向, 对现有的贫困研究作一系统的综述和评价。力求在“综述”中透析贫困研究随社会发展从经验迈向理论的路程 ;在“比较”中阐释结构和文化解释的异趣及其关系,以期为社会学的贫困研究提供新思路 。

This paper reviews and discusses western sociological theories and research about poverty in structural and cultural perspectives .Structural explanations focus on how social and economic forces produce and reproduce poverty ; cultural explanations, on the other hand , approach poverty problemsfrom the viewpoints of poverty culture and environmental adaptation , analyzing such underlying factors as social anomie , absence of values, inconsistency between expectation and reality , tensions out of broken promises, discrimination , social isolation and exclusion .Comparing the two perspectives, the author maintains that when poverty is structurally produced and reproduced, cultural factors become important in either reinforcing or reducing poverty .Thus, the paper is intended to show that these two sets of explanations are complementary to each other:while structural explanation fails to fully account for poverty , it is cultural explanation that shows its interpretative power.

周怡；

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