Abstract
Poverty and structural power are immensely broad phenomena shaping economic and social architectures of societies globally. However, among the depth of complex mechanisms covertly functioning to perpetuate poverty, this chapter identifies structural power as one of the critical social constructs influencing systemic poverty. To explore structural power as a social force influencing systemic poverty, as a conceptual framework, and as means to support the overtone of social injustice, throughout this chapter an adaptation of the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) model is used. Through a more narrowed approach, the researcher uses the ACE model to explore structural power and systemic poverty through four experiential factors: educational, social, physical, and psychological. The experiences are motived by structural power and defined within the context of systemic poverty to explore the influence of those experiences on entrenchment of African American males later in adulthood.
TopBackground
Cultural diversity, along with the widening gap of economic disparity between marginalized groups and groups who structurally maintain various forms of power, continues to shape the landscape of the U.S. (Wade, 2017). Metzler, Merrick, Klevens, Ports, and Ford (2017) analyzed data from 10 states using the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) model in the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to examine an association between adverse childhood experiences and adult education, employment, and income. The ACE Model is a five-tier, adversely progressive pyramid model represented by Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Tier 1; Social, Emotional, and Psychological Impairment in Tier 2; Adoption of Health Risk Behaviors in Tier 3; Disease, Disability, and Social Problems in Tier 4; and Early Death in Tier 5 [adapted to Entrenchment for the purpose of this work] (Felitti et al., 1998). Participants with no ACEs compared to the scores of those with higher ACEs were more likely to report as high school dropouts, unemployed, and living in households below the federal poverty line (Metzler et al., 2017). The researchers further argued efforts to prevent childhood adversity [and economic disparity] might be more successful if the perspective of public and professional understanding of the associations between ACEs and the intergenerational continuity of poverty were to broaden (Metzler et al., 2017). For this reason we address the influence of covert structural power as a means to broaden public and professional understanding as it relates to the association between structural power, systemic poverty, and entrenchment among African American males.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Education/Life Outcomes: Defined as the educational, societal, and life effects which result from being educated. Education outcomes are the actual results individuals either achieve or fail to achieve during their education or later in life.
Entrenchment: For this study, entrenchment is defined as the firm establishment of an attitude, habit, or belief (mindset) that change is very difficult or unlikely.
Structural Power: Involves constitutive relations in which one more powerful actor constitutes the identity, preferences, and capabilities of the other actor(s).
Adverse Social Experiences: Negative social interactions or relationships (familial or non-familial), which might influence an attitude/mindset of entrenchment.
Adverse Educational Experiences: Negative interactions having to do with or related to interactions linked to education, which might influence an attitude/mindset of entrenchment.
Empowerment: Increasing the capacity of individuals and groups to make choices to then be able to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes.
Adverse Physical Experiences: negative physical interactions with individuals or groups (familial or non-familial) and/or physical lack of resources, which might influence an attitude/mindset entrenchment.
Adverse Childhood Experiences: Adverse childhood experiences are defined as relationships of childhood dysfunction, which may influence an attitude/mindset of entrenchment.
Cyclical Poverty: Defined as having two things void over multiple generations within a family structure: 1) not obtaining high school diplomas and 2) not having outside factors interrupt the cycle by encouraging groups to improve at points of need or lack.
Low Socioeconomic: Refers to the relationship between a community’s status relative to its access to resources.
Systemic Poverty: Refers to poverty that is derivative of the way we have structured the U.S. economy; generally referred to the way in which market economic structures (imposed by those in power) distribute income, and how that distribution cause regular patterns of impoverishment.
Adverse Mental (Psychological) Experiences: Negative mental or psychological experiences, which might cause mental trauma (ex. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]) and influence an attitude/mindset of entrenchment.