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This book will likely generate controversy because I dare to take culture seriously as one of the explanatory variable in the study of race and urban poverty (p. 3)

Definitions of 'culture' as distinguishes from 'structure'

This book examines two types of cultural forces: (1) national views and beliefs on race and (2) cultural traits--shared outlooks, modes of behavior, traditions, belief systems, worldviews values, skills, preferences, styles of self-presentation, etiquette and linguistic patterns--that emerge from patterns of intragroup interaction in settings created by discrimination and segregation.

culture ... group norms, values, and attitudes, ... and also cultural repertoires (habits, styles, and skills) and the micro-processes of meaning making and decision making. (p. 15)

and again

"cultural factors" ... culture provides tools ... and creates constraints (restrictions ... on outlooks and behavior) .. including cultural frames. (p. 42-43)

Chapter 4 -- The Fragmentation of the poor black family

Wilson starts with a laudatory discussion of the Moynihan report (1965) and blasts against its critics in the late 1960s and 1970s

Because the Moynihan report was an internal document written for ... the executive branch of the government ... its findings and commentary were not edited to minimize the chances of press distrotions and the odds of offending civil right groups. (p. 96)

In this atmosphere of racial chauvinism, a series of scholarly studies proclaiming a black perspective were published. ... Consistent with the emphasis on black glorification .. analyses that described ... as pects of ghetto life as pathological tended to be rejected in favor of those emphasized black strengths. Arguments that focused on the deterioration of the poor black family were dismissed in favor of those that extolled the strenghts of black families. Thus ... behavior that Moynihan, .. Clark, and ... Rainwater had described as self-destructive were proclaimed as creative ... families were described as resilient. (p. 98)

Given the sharp increase in single-parent families and out-of-wedlock births in the African American community and the research showing a relationship between these trends and economic hardships, few serious scholars would maintain that Moynihan's concerns ... were unjustified. What continues to be disputed in how we account for the fragmentation of the African American family. What is often overlooked is that Moynihan attempted to synthesize structural and cultural analyses to understand the dynamics of poor black families. (p. 104-5)

by implication, Wilson makes the "fragmentation" of the African American/black family a matter that is not even to be discussed. The two tables on p. 100 (non-marital births) and p. 101 (families headed by a single mother) establish this fact

The role of structural factors

joblessness

The role of cultural factors

Lewis and culture of poverty Wilson: perhaps

cultural continuity through slavery and emancipation and the arguments against it Wilson: Gutman and others go to far in their critique

Ethnographic data from our Chicago study revealed that the relationships between inner-city black men and women ... were often fractious and antogonistic ... women routinely said they distrusted men ... the men complained that it was not easy to deal with the women's suspicions ... Black women ... were more interested in marriage, but their expectations... were low .. both men and women believe that since most marriages will eventually break up ... it is better to avoid the entaglements of wedlock. (pp. 117-125)

and [passim] in Chapter 5

the main difference between Wilson and Lewis may be that Wilson mentions the cultural attitudes of whites as one of the 'forces contributing to racial inequality' and that he understands culture as a matter of limited interaction (rather than simply socialization). Apart from that, the framework is directly Parsonian in its distinguishing of the 'social structural' from the 'cultural' and in its presenting the cultural as essential a matter of psychological properties of individuals.

This book should be related to Furstenberg et al., Managing to make it (1999) which provides systematic research evidence from the same theoretical framework.