Understanding Persistent Poverty: Social Class Context in Rural Communities1

Abstract Urban and rural poverty researchers have been paying increased attention to the social context in which the poor are embedded. This paper argues that the scale, familiarity among social actors, and relatively bounded nature of poor rural communities offer unique advantages for understanding why poverty persists across generations in the same places. Rural sociologists can observe the social interaction associated with particular class and race relations, track the evolution of these patterns over time, and uncover the process through which the social class context perpetuates poverty and underdevelopment. Studies of poverty in rural Texas, rural Mississippi, and Appalachia are reviewed to illustrate how political economies that rely on low wages and extreme control over labor generate rigid stratification. This structure of inequality determines social interaction and the allocation of opportunities in rural communities, blocking upward mobility, and undermines investment and trust in social institutions, blocking development.