Racial and Ethnic Groups (Essay Sample)

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Racial and ethnic groups across the globe have defined the culture of poverty as a mode of life that almost involves no future planning, no lasting commitment to marriages, and no work ethics and that this culture trails the poor even when they shift from slums. The culture of poverty is a popular myth that was written by the anthropologist called Oscar Lewis in his, The Children of Sanchez (Lewis, 2007).
The culture of poverty theory denotes that living in conditions of prevalent poverty will result to the emergence of a culture adapted to those prevailing conditions. This culture is surrounded by extensive feelings of helplessness, powerlessness and dependency. Furthermore, Lewis portrayed individuals living within this culture of poverty as having no or little sense of history and thus lacking the knowledge to lighten their own conditions through communal action, instead of having to focus solely on their own troubles (Carmon, 1985).
Nevertheless, I strongly do not believe that there exists such a thing as the culture of poverty. This is because despite Lewis studying a very small fraction of the world’s population but ended up extrapolating his findings to propose a universal culture of poverty. The culture of poverty suggests that poor people have weak work ethics and are unmotivated. Contrary to this, the poor do not have lower levels of motivation or weaker work ethics than wealthier people. It also states that poor parents are not involved in the learning of their children, mostly because they do not value education. In reality, poor parents have the same attitudes towards education that wealthy parents possess.  
References
Lewis, O., (2007). A review of the book ‘culture of poverty.’ New York: Random House publishers.