Underclass Formaton and Ethnicity in Comparative and Historical Perspective: The Case of Central and Eastern Europe

9906120 Rebecca Bogh Ivan Szelenyi该项目通过研究中欧和东欧几个小农村社区在过去150年的历史，研究了两个社会和历史过程的动态，1）下层阶级的形成和2）同化和异化的浪潮。 这是一个更大的研究工作的一部分，以了解贫困和种族之间的关系，在这一地区。 较大的项目包括在保加利亚、匈牙利、波兰、罗马尼亚、俄罗斯和斯洛伐克进行的全国代表性调查。 调查的目的是估计贫困程度，并评估某些族裔群体，特别是罗姆人（吉普赛人）是否可能集中在贫困中。 许多研究人员怀疑，由于最近向市场经济的过渡，该地区的罗姆人中正在形成一个下层阶级。 虽然调查是至关重要的，但它几乎没有揭示创造下层阶级或产生同化和异化浪潮的时间过程。本项目是研究的历史组成部分，通过研究下层阶级形成、同化和异化的长期过程，将其与资本主义和社会主义的经济制度以及同化政策联系起来，解决了这一遗漏。 具体来说，这个项目补充了定量（调查）方法与社区研究，使用深入访谈，参与者观察，历史，档案研究。 这项研究将有助于社会学文献的下层阶级和同化，通过检查这些理论结构以外的美国的背景下，他们通常被研究。 对下层阶级的研究通常与生活在城市贫民区的非洲裔美国人有关。 与此相反，本项目考虑中欧农村罗姆人中是否存在下层阶级。 同样，许多关于同化的研究都集中在美国移民同化的单向过程上。 与此形成对比的是，目前的项目考虑了非移民少数民族在跨国背景下的同化和异化浪潮。

9906120Rebecca EmighIvan SzelenyiThis project investigates the dynamics of two social and historical processes, 1) underclass formation and 2) waves of assimilation and dissimilation, by examining the history of several small rural communities in Central and Eastern Europe during the past 150 years. It is part of a larger research effort to understand the relation between poverty and ethnicity in this region. The larger project includes a nationally representative survey fielded in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Slovakia. The survey is designed to provide estimates of the extent of poverty, and also to assess whether certain ethnic groups, and in particular, the Roma (Gypsies), are likely to be concentrated in poverty. Many researchers suspect that an underclass is forming among the Roma in this region as a result of the recent transition to a market economy. Although a survey is crucial, it reveals little about the temporal processes that create an underclass or that produce waves of assimilation and dissimilationThis project, the historical component of the research, addresses this omission by studying the long-term processes of underclass formation, assimilation and dissimilation by linking them to economic systems of capitalism and socialism and to assimilationist policies. Specifically, this project complements the quantitative (survey) methodology with community studies, using in-depth interviewing, participant observation, and historical, archival research. This research will contribute to the sociological literature on the underclass and assimilation through its examination of these theoretical constructs outside the American context in which they are usually studied. Research on the underclass in usually linked to African-Americans living in urban ghettos. In contrast, this project considers whether an underclass exists among rural Roma in Central Europe. Similarly, much research on assimilation focuses on the unidirectional process of immigrant assimilation in the United States. Again, in contrast, this current project considers the waves of assimilation and dissimilation of non-immigrant ethnic minorities in a cross-national context.