This study uses data from the 1990 General Social Survey to examine how Protestants explain the existence of poverty. The denominations are categorized using Steensland et al's (2000) methodology and include evangelical, mainline, and black Protestants. This study seeks to expand on prior research which uses Feagin's (1975) individualistic and structuralistic explanation scales to examine how individuals explain why people are poor. Individual explanations investigated include lack of effort, loose morals, poor schools, and lack of jobs. Ordered Logistic Regression models are used to investigate differences between the Protestant groups. Findings indicate support for Smith's (1998) subcultural theory of identity as evangelicals are more likely to assert loose morals as an important reason for why people are poor. Additionally, black Protestants were also more likely than mainline Protestants to indicate loose morals is an important explanation for poverty indicating a possible shift away from their traditional structuralistic oriented belief system. / Department of Sociology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/188496 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Flowers, Daniel R. |
| Contributors | Kapinus, Carolyn A. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | iv, 57 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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