Expanding the Domain of Policy-Relevant Scholarship in the Social Sciences

In this paper the author argues that social scientists need to do more to provide policy-relevant research. Rapid technological and economic change raise new issues about how policy should adjust that are not adequately addressed by older and narrower approaches. The author suggests two ways in which the domain of policy-relevant scholarship can be expanded. First, social scientists should be more flexible about the kinds of data they use and the ways they use them. Preliminary data can suggest new hypotheses, which can widen debate, and ethnographic and other qualitative methods can uncover patterns of behaviour invisible in quantitative sources. Second, social theories, concepts and ideas should play a greater role in the policy arena, shaping the way policy actors think about how the world works.social science, policy debates, research approaches

When Work Disappears: New Implications for Race and Urban Poverty in the Global Economy

This paper discusses the impact of growing joblessness and dwindling work opportunities on inner-city areas in America. The lack of low-skilled manual work in the inner city is linked to poverty, crime, family dissolution and the social life of neighbourhoods. The paper discusses this impact at a neighbourhood-wide, family and individual level, noting the interaction between these levels and the intergenerational repercussions that result. The paper goes on to look at race in this context, identifying a new form of cultural racism. It examines the way race becomes an issue as black people become disproportionately represented in neighbourhoods where there is a high ratio of joblessless and very few work opportunities. The paper shows how this segregation plus its interaction with other changes in society, escalates rates of neighbourhood joblessness and compounds existing problems in these neighbourhoods. Finally the paper examines the role of public policy, the way it has exacerbated inner-city joblessness and how it attempted to resolve the problem, but failed. The paper concludes by pointing to a way forward to improve work opportunities for all sectors of society that are struggling to make ends meet, including inner-city poor and the working- and middle- classes.joblessness, race, urban poverty

Social exclusion and the future of cities

In both Britain and the United States, people have been moving away from the inner cities to suburban developments, often leaving behind concentrations of poverty and decaying neighbourhoods. Anne Power's paper focuses on the British situation. As Britain comes to terms with the implications of urban renaissance, a new way must be found of looking at regeneration based on rebuilding urban neighbourhoods. The key points for the future are: limiting suburban land supply and creating higher density in depleted urban neighbourhoods; equalising the incentives to recycle old buildings and used land rather than greenfield sites; improving public transport; managing neighbourhoods to encourage a social mix; and protecting green spaces. William Julius Wilson, looking at the American situation, addresses the rediscovery of 'metropolitan solutions' as answers to the common problems of America's cities and suburbs. This rediscovery reflects the recognition that metropolitan areas constitute the real competitive units in the new economy and that competitiveness requires a healthy urban core; the growing awareness that complex issues such as pollution and traffic congestion cross boundaries and are immune to localised fixes; and the co-existence of persistent joblessness in the central cities and labour shortages in the suburbs

Social Exclusion and the Future of Cities

In both Britain and the United States, people have been moving away from the inner cities to suburban developments, often leaving behind concentrations of poverty and decaying neighbourhoods. Anne Power's paper focuses on the British situation. As Britain comes to terms with the implications of urban renaissance, a new way must be found of looking at regeneration based on rebuilding urban neighbourhoods. The key points for the future are: limiting suburban land supply and creating higher density in depleted urban neighbourhoods; equalising the incentives to recycle old buildings and used land rather than greenfield sites; improving public transport; managing neighbourhoods to encourage a social mix; and protecting green spaces. William Julius Wilson, looking at the American situation, addresses the rediscovery of 'metropolitan solutions' as answers to the common problems of America's cities and suburbs. This rediscovery reflects the recognition that metropolitan areas constitute the real competitive units in the new economy and that competitiveness requires a healthy urban core; the growing awareness that complex issues such as pollution and traffic congestion cross boundaries and are immune to localised fixes; and the co-existence of persistent joblessness in the central cities and labour shortages in the suburbs.Social exclusion, urban poverty, area regeneration, urban development

The Declining Significance of Race: Revisited & Revised

I published The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions thirty-two years ago, in 1978. Given the furor and controversy over the book immediately following its publication, I did not anticipate that it would go on to become a classic. Indeed, the book’s impact on the field of race and ethnic relations–its arguments have been discussed in nearly eight hundred empirical research articles, not to mention the non-empirical studies–lends credence to the idea of productive controversy and to George Bernard Shaw’s famous dictum: “[I]t is better to be criticized and misunderstood than to be ignored.” My motivation for this essay is to reflect on responses to the book that claim to provide an empirical test of my thesis. In the process, I indicate the extent to which important findings have influenced my thinking since the book’s publication

Toward a Framework for Understanding Forces that Contribute to or Reinforce Racial Inequality

For many years social scientists have debated the role of social structure versus culture in explaining the social and economic outcomes of African Americans. The position that one takes often reflects ideological bias. Conservatives tend to emphasize cultural factors whereas liberals pay more attention to structural conditions, with most of the attention devoted to racialist structural factors such as discrimination and segregation. In this article I develop a framework for understanding the formation and maintenance of racial inequality and racial group outcomes that integrates cultural factors with two types of structural forces—those that directly reflect explicit racial bias and those that do not. In so doing, I hope to spark greater interest and dialogue in the research and policy arenas around a more holistic approach to poverty alleviation

Framing Race and Poverty

William Julius Wilson argues it's extremely important to discuss how race and poverty are related in public policy discussions. Policies must be framed to facilitate a frank discussion of the problems that ought to be addressed and to generate political support to alleviate them. And we can do that by combining a powerful discussion of structural inequities with an emphasis on personal responsibility.African and African American StudiesSociolog

More Than Just Race: A Response to William Darity, Jr. and Mark Gould

I welcome the opportunity to respond to two extensive and provocative review essays of my book, More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. An author seldom gets the chance to reply to reviews in the same issue in which they appear, including a chance to express both appreciation for the reviewers’ comments and to elaborate on major points of disagreement

Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform in the New Economy

In 2001, University Professor, William Julius Wilson of Harvard University, delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s twenty-first Annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture: Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform in the New Economy. William Julius Wilson is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University. He is one of only 20 University Professors, the highest professional distinction for a Harvard faculty member. After receiving the Ph.D. from Washington State University in 1966, Wilson taught sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 1972. In 1990 he was appointed the Lucy Flower University Professor and director of the University of Chicago\u27s Center for the Study of Urban Inequality. He joined the faculty at Harvard in July of 1996