CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POOR:

Though most social scientists acknowledge that the general population in the United States accepts individualistic explanations of poverty, a recent study (Henslin and Roesti, 1976) claims that social scientists conversely hold predominantly stmctural explanations of po\'crty. The present study questions this conclusion with an analysis of poverty articles in five major sociology journals from 1965 and 1975. The data show that though social scientists may at times m~ke structural theoretical statements, their research o\'crwhclmingly focuses Oil 111e characteristics of the poor in explaining poverty. The data also show 111at this type of poverty research has been increasing, and that government funding for poverty research goes almost ex clusively to research focusing on characteristics of the poor or po\'erty programs. In understand ing reasons for this focus on the poor in poverty research, the data suggests we must go beyond allv individualistic value orientations among sociologists and also sec the effects of funding and do~inant research methods. Time and again the affects of the dominant ideology of individualism on our views of social problems in this country have been noted (Huber and Form, 1973