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Culture and Context: The Emergence of Hebrew Free Loan Societies in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Shelly Tenenbaum
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Extract

American ethnic groups vary in terms of movement on the economic ladder, position on the political spectrum, and educational attainment. Members of individual groups also congregate in particular occupations; Koreans in Los Angeles are overrepresented in the retail liquor industry (Light and Bonacich, 1988) and Greeks in New England are concentrated in pizza businesses (Lovell-Troy, 1980). While many of these differences may be obvious, an explanation for why they occur poses a serious challenge to social scientists. In response, scholars have proposed two theoretical frameworks, cultural and contextual, for understanding ethnic behavior. A cultural interpretation stresses that American ethnic groups’ behaviors are based on cultural traits brought from their countries of origin. In contrast, a contextual analysis explains ethnic conduct as immigrants’ responses to their new societies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , Fall 1989 , pp. 211 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1989 

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