Introduction Summary and Analysis

A preliminary question one must ask before engaging in a study that involves living in a poor urban black community is how one's own personal identity will influence the results (in this case, the author is a white female). In the past, sociological studies of communities have started by contacting the community's authority figures, usually men. For poor black communities, these authority figures generally have been older professionals and church leaders. The problem with this method is that the families researchers are put in contact with are usually exceptional: a preacher will mainly know churchgoing families and will often not recommend families that have gone through a divorce or other domestic disruptions. Despite discouragement from her colleagues, Stack decided to find families for her study without resorting to a middlemen.

All the research in the study was done through informal interviews...