Assessing whether or not an underclass exists, how it came to be, and what policies are likely to affect it all turn on how the term "underclass" is defined. The underclass has been variously defined by any or all of four characteristics: chronic poverty; nonnormative behavior with respect to income generation and family formation; spatial concentration of such poverty and/or behavior; and inte...

Fear of crime and the underclass represent two of the more prominent topics of discussion within the realms of criminology and sociology over the past several decades. There is little research, however, tying these topics together. Recently, a call has been reissued for the further understanding of the relationship between crime and class. Such an examination is essential to the understanding o...

The increased visibility of concentrated urban poverty has posed a variety of intellectual and policy challenges in the past decade. The spread of joblessness and economic disinvestment has left many urban neighborhoods in ruins. Fears about the culture and family life of the poor have motivated a variety of responses, including the recent “welfare reform” effort that ended the federal governme...

The meanings of being “underclass” in China are increasingly ambivalent when various disadvantaged social groups also get access to digital platforms which become more and influential not just facilitating people’s economic cultural practices online but mediating, distorting, reshaping these processes. Using critical techno-cultural discourse analysis about how the underclass represent poverty ...