Historically, blacks have viewed their lower socioeconomic status, relative to whites, as a result of structural limitations of society. People, white and black, have accepted that blacks have had more difficulty in making economic advancement due to societal barriers such as discrimination. As structural barriers have come down and it has become easier for blacks to move into the economic mainstream, it may be that those blacks who are moving upward no longer see structural limitations as the reason for economic inequality.Recent research distinguishes between two types of explanations for the gap. Theindividual explanation asserts that blacks' lower socioeconomic status is due to a lack of will power or effort on the part of blacks. In contrast, the structural explanation states that institutional barriers such as discrimination are to blame for the black-white socioeconomic gap. This study laid a solid foundation for an analysis of explanations for the black-white socioeconomic gap. However, it failed to investigate the relative proportion of blacks who adopt these explanations.It is the purpose of this paper to determine whether the individual and structural explanations for economic inequality is the same for blacks and whites.The most recent data from the General Social Survey is used to investigate this possibility. The sample and sub-sample sizes are 1517 and 1024, respectfully. / Department of Sociology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/184357 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Guidry, Sherry L. |
| Contributors | Ball State University. Dept. of Sociology., Condran, John G. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | iv, 29 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us--- |
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