In today's anthropology, the word "culture" is conspicuous by its absence from anthropological discourse. But the word is still alive outside anthropology, particularly in sociology and psychology, in ways anthropologists cannot ignore, as fields like urban poverty and education have been altered by the introduction of the culture concept. In this paper, the author revisits the stakes of the debate over the analytic term "culture" within anthropology in the hope of revivifying the particularly anthropological take on "culture" that may help answer more effectively those who still argue that poverty is reproduced through what poor people learn in childhood. The author argues that the assumptions behind the marked term "culture" within the culture of poverty thesis are heir to two competing interpretations.