The first paper, "Introduction: The culture of poverty hypotheses and their import for social science and social policy," discusses three related hypotheses developed by Oscar Lewis concerning the poor with respect to the views of the other contributors to this volume bearing on those hypotheses. The second paper, "Family structure, poverty, and race," advocates that sociologists study the unique strengths in the Negro family in America that have enabled it to accomplish in one century a kind of stability similar to the stability that the white family in America has required almost three centuries to develop. The third paper, "The culture of poverty? What does it matter," discusses how the culture of poverty idea does matter to the behavioral science disciplines; to the images and life chances of poor people; and to the structuring of relations among individuals and groups. Also discussed are some of the ways in which the idea of the culture of poverty and the research methods associated with it fail to deal with some fundamental human and knowledge issues. The fourth paper is "Subculture and social reform: The case of the 'Culture of Poverty'." (JM)