Many believe that the urban underclass in America is a large, rapidly increasing proportion of the population; that crime, teenage pregnancy, and high school dropout rates are escalating; and that welfare rolls are exploding. Yet none of these perceptions is accurate. Here, noted authorities, including William J. Wilson, attempt to separate the truth about poverty, social dislocation, and changes in American family life from the myths that have become part of contemporary folklore.
Christopher Jencks is the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the author of The Homeless (Harvard, 1994) and Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty, and the Underclass (Harperperennial, 1993), and the coeditor of The Urban Underclass (Brookings, 1991). Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard, the director of PEPG, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is author or editor of numerous books, including The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools, with William G. Howell (Brookings, 2004 and 2006). He is coeditor (with Martin West) of No Child Left Behind? The Practice and Politics of School Accountability (Brookings, 2003).
"surveys the controversies surrounding the emergence of an urban underclass and picks up where Wilson's The Truly Disadvantaged left off. It should be read by anyone searching for an antipoverty agenda for the 1990s." --Sheldon Danziger, The University of Michigan "... some of the best and most up-to-date research and thinking on the topic. Inspired by the earlier writing of Wilson, these authors attempt to put empirical flesh on his more theoretical bones, and move our understanding forward." --Isabel V. Sawhill, The Urban Institute "a welcome addition to research on ghetto poverty and a stimulating discussion of policy alternatives... The book will undoubtedly become the standard reference work for teachers and researchers... " --Lee Rainwater, Harvard University
"surveys the controversies surrounding the emergence of an urban underclass and picks up where Wilson's The Truly Disadvantaged left off. It should be read by anyone searching for an antipoverty agenda for the 1990s." -Sheldon Danziger, The University of Michigan |"... some of the best and most up-to-date research and thinking on the topic. Inspired by the earlier writing of Wilson, these authors attempt to put empirical flesh on his more theoretical bones, and move our understanding forward." -Isabel V. Sawhill, The Urban Institute |"a welcome addition to research on ghetto poverty and a stimulating discussion of policy alternatives... The book will undoubtedly become the standard reference work for teachers and researchers... " -Lee Rainwater, Harvard University
