"Code of the Street" by Elijah Anderson

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at "Code of the Street" by Elijah Anderson and discusses Anderson's analysis of the two types of families that exist in the streets; the decent type of family and the street family. The paper reviews the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the reasons for a family becoming either a decent family or a street family and looks at how eachy type of family copes with the situation it is in.

From the Paper:

"Street families, and the attitudes they are known for, are formed and developed as a result of one basic reality that American society, and even other societies, have failed to find solution to: poverty. The inescapable reality of not having the money to support one's self and his/her family is, as Anderson explicated, a reality that must be cope with by being "tough." That is, one's morale is preserved by being branded as "tough" rather than poor; in most street families, this is a better and more powerful description of themselves that they could live by. Indeed, as the author's study on America's streets proved, being tough meant being feared by other people, and being feared comes the power of being able to assert one's control over another--in the case of the street families, they "rule" the streets because they are capable of bringing violence in the streets, the only reason that makes decent families fear street families."

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