Instead of conceptualizing poor people as a group with a fixed culture, we need to understand diverse, shared frameworks for responding to economic adversity. Over half of all Americans of working age can expect to be in a poor or near‐poor household at some point. Differing interpretations of their low incomes under flexible capitalism are illustrated by the responses of two unemployed middle‐aged sisters from a white working‐class family in now poverty‐stricken San Bernardino County, California. Their divergent interpretations (one blamed herself and fell into depression; the other did not) show that even members of the same subgroup can draw upon different personally compelling cultural models to navigate social and individual change. This person‐centered multiple‐cultural‐models approach is needed as a corrective both to portrayals of culture as a stable group adaptation to an unchanging economic situation and to theories of persons as buffeted by economic shifts without guiding narratives.

中文翻译：

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“感觉如此外星人”或同一个旧S-：在不安全的时代对多样化文化模型的依恋

与其将穷人概念化为具有固定文化的群体，不如我们需要了解应对经济逆境的多样化，共享框架。在某个时候，所有工作年龄的美国人中有一半以上可能会生活在贫困或接近贫困的家庭中。灵活的资本主义下他们低收入的不同解释，来自加利福尼亚州圣贝纳迪诺县一个贫穷的白人工人阶级家庭的两个失业中年姐妹的回答。他们的不同解释（一个责备自己，陷入沮丧；另一个没有）表明，即使是同一小组的成员也可以借鉴不同的个人吸引力文化模型来应对社会和个人的变化。