William Julius Wilson

Sociologist, born in Derry Township, Pennsylvania, USA. He earned his PhD at Washington State University and joined the faculty of the University of Chicago (1971). He studied the ghetto poor and the cycle of poverty in America, and developed city programmes in Chicago to help urban African-Americans. His works include Power, Racism and Privilege (1973), Through Different Eyes (1973), and The Truly Disadvantaged (1987).

In The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions (1978) Wilson argues that the significance of race is waning, and an African-American's class is comparatively more important in determining his or her life chances. In The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy (1987), Wilson was one of the first to enunciate at length the "spatial mismatch" theory for the development of a ghetto underclass. In "the Truly Disadvantaged" Wilson also argued effectively against Charles Murray's theory of welfare causing poverty.

A relatively unknown revision of Wilson's theories was postulated in Still the Promised City by Roger Waldinger.

Wilson was an original board member of the progressive Century Institute.

Wilson received National Medal of Science in 1998.

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