Pub Date : 2016-06-20DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2016.1200540
Eric Kyere
{"title":"Making the unequal metropolis: school desegregation and its limits","authors":"Eric Kyere","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2016.1200540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2016.1200540","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"1 1","pages":"152 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2016.1200540","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60268392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-19DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2016.1198308
Janice D. McCall
regarding Milwaukee renters. Desmond describes how economic and psychological vulnerability, material hardship, and community disorganization are all interlocking aspects of housing instability, whose cumulative effects are tremendous. The seemingly perpetual stress of finding housing, which can be especially protracted for people with eviction records, can lead to hopelessness, lethargy, and depression. The people Desmond follows struggle to procure and keep employment even as their housing costs eat up as much as 80 to 90% of their monthly income. They fall further behind on debts they are already unable to pay, and often government aid and access to social services are severed. Children are especially vulnerable, as they bounce from school to school, falling ever further behind. Eviction is more than just a loss of a home; it is a loss of neighbors, friends, and vital social support networks. People forced to move in and out of homes are denied opportunities to invest in the collective good of a community. The people in Desmond’s research are in constant motion; they move in quickly and leave equally quickly. They inherit what was left behind by previous tenants even as they themselves often leave possessions when they are forcefully removed from their homes. Sometimes what they leave is refuse and physical dilapidation; equally often, it is furniture and children’s toys. These people are like fugitives from homelessness, moving from place to place, leaving a trail of personal possessions and hardship, dislocated from one squalid domicile after another. A unique aspect of this research is Desmond’s candid and uncensored access to landlords. Acting as gatekeepers to the low-income housing market, landlords have considerable power over the fates of the urban poor and their communities. As Desmond explains, eviction is one of many strategies employed by landlords to shape the ‘geography of advantage and disadvantage that characterized the modern American city’ (89). Through screening processes, evictions, and control over rents, landlords effectively funnel low-income renters into isolated communities where struggling schools, high crime, urban blight, and other elements of structural disadvantage are the norm. Desmond makes a compelling argument for a universal housing voucher program as a solution to the exploitation that is endemic to private housing markets available to the urban poor. He suggests that such a program, through which renters would pay 30% of their income for housing, would virtually eliminate evictions in this country. Families would have more income available for food and other necessities as well as for investments in education and job training. The combination of rigorous research and important policy recommendations makes this work valuable to a wide audience; it is a must-read.
{"title":"The poverty industry: the exploitation of America’s most vulnerable citizens","authors":"Janice D. McCall","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2016.1198308","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2016.1198308","url":null,"abstract":"regarding Milwaukee renters. Desmond describes how economic and psychological vulnerability, material hardship, and community disorganization are all interlocking aspects of housing instability, whose cumulative effects are tremendous. The seemingly perpetual stress of finding housing, which can be especially protracted for people with eviction records, can lead to hopelessness, lethargy, and depression. The people Desmond follows struggle to procure and keep employment even as their housing costs eat up as much as 80 to 90% of their monthly income. They fall further behind on debts they are already unable to pay, and often government aid and access to social services are severed. Children are especially vulnerable, as they bounce from school to school, falling ever further behind. Eviction is more than just a loss of a home; it is a loss of neighbors, friends, and vital social support networks. People forced to move in and out of homes are denied opportunities to invest in the collective good of a community. The people in Desmond’s research are in constant motion; they move in quickly and leave equally quickly. They inherit what was left behind by previous tenants even as they themselves often leave possessions when they are forcefully removed from their homes. Sometimes what they leave is refuse and physical dilapidation; equally often, it is furniture and children’s toys. These people are like fugitives from homelessness, moving from place to place, leaving a trail of personal possessions and hardship, dislocated from one squalid domicile after another. A unique aspect of this research is Desmond’s candid and uncensored access to landlords. Acting as gatekeepers to the low-income housing market, landlords have considerable power over the fates of the urban poor and their communities. As Desmond explains, eviction is one of many strategies employed by landlords to shape the ‘geography of advantage and disadvantage that characterized the modern American city’ (89). Through screening processes, evictions, and control over rents, landlords effectively funnel low-income renters into isolated communities where struggling schools, high crime, urban blight, and other elements of structural disadvantage are the norm. Desmond makes a compelling argument for a universal housing voucher program as a solution to the exploitation that is endemic to private housing markets available to the urban poor. He suggests that such a program, through which renters would pay 30% of their income for housing, would virtually eliminate evictions in this country. Families would have more income available for food and other necessities as well as for investments in education and job training. The combination of rigorous research and important policy recommendations makes this work valuable to a wide audience; it is a must-read.","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"22 1","pages":"150 - 151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2016.1198308","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60268384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-05-13DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2016.1184628
Alexandra E. Pavlakis
{"title":"School-based practice with children and youth experiencing homelessness","authors":"Alexandra E. Pavlakis","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2016.1184628","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2016.1184628","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"22 1","pages":"148 - 149"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2016.1184628","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60267801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-05-12DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2016.1182478
John E. Balzarini
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City By Matthew Desmond Desmond, M. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. New York: Crown Publishers, 2016. 432 pp. $28.00 paperback.Reviewed by Alen FejzicIn his most recent book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond recounts the events he witnessed while conducting ethnographic research in Milwaukee from early 2008 to late 2009. The purpose of the book is to provide a better understanding of poverty and inequality in the United States. What makes Desmond's approach unique is that he focuses on the effects of housing, especially eviction, on individuals and society. Desmond provides three categories of perspectives: the perspective of landlords, the perspective of poor Black citizens living in Milwaukee, and the perspective of poor White citizens living in Milwaukee in each of the three sections of the book: Rent, Out, and After.The first section of the book address the issue of rent from the perspectives of both tenants and landlords. Desmond describes the various methods tenants utilize to pay their rent such as forgo paying their utility bills, borrowing money from friends and family, asking for help from organizations such as churches or charities, and trying to work out a deal with the landlords by working off the difference. Desmond provides various methods used by landlords to collect overdue rent such as through the legal system.The second section of the book deals with the eviction process and some causes for eviction. Desmond describes nuisance laws that have a negative impact on tenants who must call 9-1-1 for assistance.The third section of the addresses the difficulty of finding new housing after being evicted. Desmond provides several factors that make this process much harder for individuals. These include previous evictions, needing a significant amount of capital (social capita; in the form of references and financial capita; in the form of cash for the first month's rent, deposit, and last month's rent) to get approved for an apartment, and having children (landlords prefer tenants without children because they believe children would be loud and are more likely to damage the property). Some other factors include an individual's criminal history (landlords prefer tenants with no felonies or violent misdemeanors on their record) and race (landlords prefer to rent to White tenants).Throughout the entire book, Desmond offers statistics about certain welfare programs, various legislation having an impact on people living in poverty as well as on landlords, the costs of housing, and the effects of the Great Recession on people, especially racial minorities and individuals in poverty. Desmond notes that the price of housing on the north side of Milwaukee is about the same price as in other parts of the city, even though the housing on the north side is in much worse condition. Desmond demonstrates how landlords abuse the housing voucher program, a pie
{"title":"Evicted: poverty and profit in the American city","authors":"John E. Balzarini","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2016.1182478","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2016.1182478","url":null,"abstract":"Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City By Matthew Desmond Desmond, M. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. New York: Crown Publishers, 2016. 432 pp. $28.00 paperback.Reviewed by Alen FejzicIn his most recent book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond recounts the events he witnessed while conducting ethnographic research in Milwaukee from early 2008 to late 2009. The purpose of the book is to provide a better understanding of poverty and inequality in the United States. What makes Desmond's approach unique is that he focuses on the effects of housing, especially eviction, on individuals and society. Desmond provides three categories of perspectives: the perspective of landlords, the perspective of poor Black citizens living in Milwaukee, and the perspective of poor White citizens living in Milwaukee in each of the three sections of the book: Rent, Out, and After.The first section of the book address the issue of rent from the perspectives of both tenants and landlords. Desmond describes the various methods tenants utilize to pay their rent such as forgo paying their utility bills, borrowing money from friends and family, asking for help from organizations such as churches or charities, and trying to work out a deal with the landlords by working off the difference. Desmond provides various methods used by landlords to collect overdue rent such as through the legal system.The second section of the book deals with the eviction process and some causes for eviction. Desmond describes nuisance laws that have a negative impact on tenants who must call 9-1-1 for assistance.The third section of the addresses the difficulty of finding new housing after being evicted. Desmond provides several factors that make this process much harder for individuals. These include previous evictions, needing a significant amount of capital (social capita; in the form of references and financial capita; in the form of cash for the first month's rent, deposit, and last month's rent) to get approved for an apartment, and having children (landlords prefer tenants without children because they believe children would be loud and are more likely to damage the property). Some other factors include an individual's criminal history (landlords prefer tenants with no felonies or violent misdemeanors on their record) and race (landlords prefer to rent to White tenants).Throughout the entire book, Desmond offers statistics about certain welfare programs, various legislation having an impact on people living in poverty as well as on landlords, the costs of housing, and the effects of the Great Recession on people, especially racial minorities and individuals in poverty. Desmond notes that the price of housing on the north side of Milwaukee is about the same price as in other parts of the city, even though the housing on the north side is in much worse condition. Desmond demonstrates how landlords abuse the housing voucher program, a pie","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"22 1","pages":"149 - 150"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2016.1182478","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60268104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-05-11DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2016.1184629
Amber McDonald
Eventually, you will very discover a supplementary experience and execution by spending more cash. yet when? realize you give a positive response that you require to get those every needs like having significantly cash? Why don't you attempt to acquire something basic in the beginning? That's something that will lead you to understand even more not far off from the globe, experience, some places, behind history, amusement, and a lot more?
{"title":"Domestic minor sex trafficking: beyond victims and villains","authors":"Amber McDonald","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2016.1184629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2016.1184629","url":null,"abstract":"Eventually, you will very discover a supplementary experience and execution by spending more cash. yet when? realize you give a positive response that you require to get those every needs like having significantly cash? Why don't you attempt to acquire something basic in the beginning? That's something that will lead you to understand even more not far off from the globe, experience, some places, behind history, amusement, and a lot more?","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"29 1","pages":"147 - 148"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2016.1184629","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60267861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-03-29DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2016.1163665
Alice E. Donlan, J. E. Prescott, J. Zaff
ABSTRACT We present an analysis of the contexts within which adolescents graduate from high school and enroll in college. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health show that adolescents’ school engagement, maternal academic monitoring, and community poverty significantly interact to explain differences in high school graduation and college enrollment rates (n = 7100). To examine this association, we performed weighted logistic regression analyses, controlling for gender, race, block level unemployment, and block level median income. Findings suggest that protective factors can help youth overcome the challenges associated with community poverty and achieve academically in low and medium levels of poverty, but that youth in high-poverty contexts may need more resources to reach higher levels of academic attainment.
{"title":"Differential predictors of academic achievement: individual and familial factor interactions with community poverty","authors":"Alice E. Donlan, J. E. Prescott, J. Zaff","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2016.1163665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2016.1163665","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We present an analysis of the contexts within which adolescents graduate from high school and enroll in college. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health show that adolescents’ school engagement, maternal academic monitoring, and community poverty significantly interact to explain differences in high school graduation and college enrollment rates (n = 7100). To examine this association, we performed weighted logistic regression analyses, controlling for gender, race, block level unemployment, and block level median income. Findings suggest that protective factors can help youth overcome the challenges associated with community poverty and achieve academically in low and medium levels of poverty, but that youth in high-poverty contexts may need more resources to reach higher levels of academic attainment.","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"22 1","pages":"113 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2016.1163665","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60267998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-02-29DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2016.1148673
E. Brown, Duhita Mahatmya, Colleen K. Vesely
ABSTRACT Framed within contextual systems model, this study examines how home and school operate together to shape behavioral and academic outcomes for 544 low-income African American (56%) and Latino/a (44%) elementary school-aged children (mean age = 7.88 years, SD = 1.46, 50% male). Using data from Welfare, Children, & Families Study: A Three City Study and multiple group path analysis, we found that for children in kindergarten through third grade, the adequacy of the home resources was positively related to applied problem scores (e.g. math literacy) and negatively associated with externalizing behavior. For fourth- to sixth-graders, the adequacy of classroom resources was negatively associated with applied problem scores. For both age groups positive teacher–child relational quality was also a positive predictor of externalizing behavior. Results revealed that barriers to parental involvement in school were a negative predictor of applied problem scores for low-income children in early and later elementary school. Implications for policy and practice aimed at strengthening opportunities for children and families from marginalized communities are discussed.
{"title":"Home and school influences on the behavioral and academic outcomes of low-income children of color","authors":"E. Brown, Duhita Mahatmya, Colleen K. Vesely","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2016.1148673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2016.1148673","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Framed within contextual systems model, this study examines how home and school operate together to shape behavioral and academic outcomes for 544 low-income African American (56%) and Latino/a (44%) elementary school-aged children (mean age = 7.88 years, SD = 1.46, 50% male). Using data from Welfare, Children, & Families Study: A Three City Study and multiple group path analysis, we found that for children in kindergarten through third grade, the adequacy of the home resources was positively related to applied problem scores (e.g. math literacy) and negatively associated with externalizing behavior. For fourth- to sixth-graders, the adequacy of classroom resources was negatively associated with applied problem scores. For both age groups positive teacher–child relational quality was also a positive predictor of externalizing behavior. Results revealed that barriers to parental involvement in school were a negative predictor of applied problem scores for low-income children in early and later elementary school. Implications for policy and practice aimed at strengthening opportunities for children and families from marginalized communities are discussed.","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"22 1","pages":"112 - 93"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2016.1148673","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60267836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2016.1141182
Belinda Passafaro, L. Gomez, Jennifer Weaver-Spencer
ABSTRACT Across the United States, many afterschool and out-of-school time programs are making constructive and lasting impacts on the lives of homeless children and youth by providing expanded learning opportunities and positive youth development outcomes in a safe space. In this brief, we profile two youth-serving organizations and the After School Division of the California Department of Education to illustrate how afterschool programs can be part of the solution for homeless children and youth. Staff from these organizations shared their practices, successes, challenges, and lessons learned. Most importantly, they shared a message of hope and a vision for what is possible in the midst of trauma, uncertainty, and displacement.
{"title":"Afterschool programs that support homeless youth: igniting hope and opportunities in the midst of trauma, uncertainty, and displacement","authors":"Belinda Passafaro, L. Gomez, Jennifer Weaver-Spencer","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2016.1141182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2016.1141182","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Across the United States, many afterschool and out-of-school time programs are making constructive and lasting impacts on the lives of homeless children and youth by providing expanded learning opportunities and positive youth development outcomes in a safe space. In this brief, we profile two youth-serving organizations and the After School Division of the California Department of Education to illustrate how afterschool programs can be part of the solution for homeless children and youth. Staff from these organizations shared their practices, successes, challenges, and lessons learned. Most importantly, they shared a message of hope and a vision for what is possible in the midst of trauma, uncertainty, and displacement.","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"22 1","pages":"57 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2016.1141182","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60268034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2015.1134451
Melissa Crum
Worker Community Building Initiative, which managed $50 million in philanthropic giving. These initiatives purportedly identified ways in which growers and workers could collaborate in a ‘win-win’ model for improving working conditions as well as economic prosperity. But as the author argues, this model failed to address the more basic conditions and causes of poverty and inequality for farmworkers. One interesting insight that emerges from these case studies is that grass roots organizers and nonprofit organizational staff are sometimes forced to negotiate, interpret, defy, or subvert the conservative agendas of funding organizations in order to advance activist initiatives that challenge the dominant power structures. As the book reveals, a central dilemma or contradiction of self-help philanthropy is that activism on behalf of farmworkers and immigrant labor actually threatens the social and economic infrastructures of organizations that fund such nonprofits, since nonprofits will most often be supported by surplus capital that is the result of wealth acquired at the expense of low-wage workers. One might wonder whether or not this contradiction is a permanent and intractable problem at the heart of nonprofit funding organizations. Kohl-Arenas concludes her study by saying that we are caught between two views of poverty: the self-help narrative that urges poor people to help themselves by changing their behaviors, negotiating conflict, and working within systems of power; and a narrative about the self-determination and dignity of poor people’s movements that demands ‘ ... respect, in treatment, in pay, [and] in rights and opportunities... ’ (189). My only criticism of this well written and fascinating organizational study is that the author, in her final analysis, seems to retreat from the normative conclusion(s) for which she has so painstakingly made a case throughout most of the book. The self-help narrative is a ‘myth’ after all. The descriptions of how professional managers of nonprofit organizations struggle with this narrative are poignant and revealing. But readers might also want more practical guidance about how best to challenge the prevailing assumption that a solution to poverty involves ‘asking the poor to help themselves’.
{"title":"Shapeshifters: Black girls and the choreography of citizenship","authors":"Melissa Crum","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2015.1134451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2015.1134451","url":null,"abstract":"Worker Community Building Initiative, which managed $50 million in philanthropic giving. These initiatives purportedly identified ways in which growers and workers could collaborate in a ‘win-win’ model for improving working conditions as well as economic prosperity. But as the author argues, this model failed to address the more basic conditions and causes of poverty and inequality for farmworkers. One interesting insight that emerges from these case studies is that grass roots organizers and nonprofit organizational staff are sometimes forced to negotiate, interpret, defy, or subvert the conservative agendas of funding organizations in order to advance activist initiatives that challenge the dominant power structures. As the book reveals, a central dilemma or contradiction of self-help philanthropy is that activism on behalf of farmworkers and immigrant labor actually threatens the social and economic infrastructures of organizations that fund such nonprofits, since nonprofits will most often be supported by surplus capital that is the result of wealth acquired at the expense of low-wage workers. One might wonder whether or not this contradiction is a permanent and intractable problem at the heart of nonprofit funding organizations. Kohl-Arenas concludes her study by saying that we are caught between two views of poverty: the self-help narrative that urges poor people to help themselves by changing their behaviors, negotiating conflict, and working within systems of power; and a narrative about the self-determination and dignity of poor people’s movements that demands ‘ ... respect, in treatment, in pay, [and] in rights and opportunities... ’ (189). My only criticism of this well written and fascinating organizational study is that the author, in her final analysis, seems to retreat from the normative conclusion(s) for which she has so painstakingly made a case throughout most of the book. The self-help narrative is a ‘myth’ after all. The descriptions of how professional managers of nonprofit organizations struggle with this narrative are poignant and revealing. But readers might also want more practical guidance about how best to challenge the prevailing assumption that a solution to poverty involves ‘asking the poor to help themselves’.","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"22 1","pages":"69 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2015.1134451","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60267373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10796126.2015.1130124
Juliana Carlson
ABSTRACT Studying the perceptions of the causes of poverty is warranted because individual perceptions shape behavior toward poor people and actions related to poverty. Prior studies relying heavily on survey methodology fail to capture deeper and fuller meanings participants apply to poverty. This study explores how child welfare workers understand poverty by examining their definitions of, and what they see as causal explanations of, poverty. Individual interviews were conducted with 30 child welfare workers throughout a Midwestern state. Analysis indicated that workers all defined poverty as ‘not getting basic needs met,’ corresponding to the underlying assumptions of absolute poverty measures. Workers simultaneously augmented these definitions using other poverty constructions, namely the federal guidelines and more complex views – conceptually in line with relative poverty measures – that account for factors outside income or consumption. Workers’ causal explanations of poverty were multifaceted. Causal explanations included structural/systemic, individual, family/generational, and luck, with the first three being most prominent. These findings have implications for practice and training in the child welfare system as it relates to poverty.
{"title":"Child welfare workers’ constructions and causal explanations of poverty","authors":"Juliana Carlson","doi":"10.1080/10796126.2015.1130124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2015.1130124","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Studying the perceptions of the causes of poverty is warranted because individual perceptions shape behavior toward poor people and actions related to poverty. Prior studies relying heavily on survey methodology fail to capture deeper and fuller meanings participants apply to poverty. This study explores how child welfare workers understand poverty by examining their definitions of, and what they see as causal explanations of, poverty. Individual interviews were conducted with 30 child welfare workers throughout a Midwestern state. Analysis indicated that workers all defined poverty as ‘not getting basic needs met,’ corresponding to the underlying assumptions of absolute poverty measures. Workers simultaneously augmented these definitions using other poverty constructions, namely the federal guidelines and more complex views – conceptually in line with relative poverty measures – that account for factors outside income or consumption. Workers’ causal explanations of poverty were multifaceted. Causal explanations included structural/systemic, individual, family/generational, and luck, with the first three being most prominent. These findings have implications for practice and training in the child welfare system as it relates to poverty.","PeriodicalId":35244,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Children and Poverty","volume":"22 1","pages":"41 - 56"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10796126.2015.1130124","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60267575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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