The family is the basic socializing unit of our society, and has one of the most persistent influences of all social groups regarding behavior, individuals' self-concepts and worldviews of any other socializing unit. The structure of the family comes from the very real need of survival, from which the world of childrearing, intimacy and work to support the unit intersect. It is through the family that culture is passed on; and that is why Staples chose the family as the subject of his study. The sociology of poverty springs from this intersection, where in minority families, the absence of well-paid work and de fact equal opportunity are visited upon hungry children and their mothers and fathers, who feel their failure to provide materially or in other ways to provide an example of their own personal worth.
As Staples sets the scene for his compilation of research about multiple aspects of the Black family and their environment, he discusses why Black families are special and why, as a special group, they are subject to a separate sociological discussion: "Their special status as a racial minority with a singular history continues to give the Black marital and family patters a unique character. Despite what many allege to be the positive gains of the sixties and seventies, the problems of poverty and racial oppression continue to plague large numbers of Afro-Americans" (Staples1).
Staples compilation is more than slightly reactionary - he mentions the research studies that have been done on the black family, finding that the Black family developed its own forms, variations in sex and marital practices which came from a history of slavery, a pattern of racial and economic deprivation and other factors (Staples 2).
A study Stapes is determined to refute is a 1965 study developed by Daniel Moynihan from census data of American Black families of the time. This study attempted to confirm the theory that the Black family was di...