Poverty 101: Teaching about Poverty and Inequality, 2013

Strategies and resources for instructors developing college-level courses and lessons about poverty and inequality. These presentations were developed for IRP's inaugural Teaching Poverty 101 Workshop. Any views expressed in these materials are those of the presenters alone and not necessarily those of the sponsors.

Introductory Commentary

Poverty 101 Workshop Group Picture

The Rise and Fall of Poverty as a Policy Issue
Thomas Corbett, UW–Madison

Poverty: The Concept and its Measurement and Study

Perspectives on Measuring Poverty in the United States
Robert Haveman and Timothy Smeeding, UW–Madison

Who Is Poor in the U.S. and Across Nations, How Poor, and What Are the Trends?
Geoffrey Wallace, UW–Madison

Approaches to the Study of Poverty
Daniel Meyer (with Robert Haveman), UW–Madison

The Causes of Poverty

The Causes of American Poverty, an Overview: Labor Market, Family Structure, Racial Discrimination, and Culture
Robert Haveman, UW–Madison

The Labor Market and its Role in Poverty/Inequality Growth
Timothy Smeeding, UW–Madison

Self-Sufficiency, Assets, and Poverty
J. Michael Collins, UW–Madison

Undergraduate and Professional Poverty Education Beyond 101: A Consortium Approach
Harlan Beckley, Washington and Lee University

Impact of Anti-Poverty Programs in the United States
John Karl Scholz, UW–Madison

Health Policy and the Poor
Barbara Wolfe, UW–Madison

Qualitative Approaches and the Role of Public Policy in Reducing Poverty

The Use of Qualitative Research to Understand the Lives of the Poor
David Pate, UW–Milwaukee, (including presentation of a service learning component, or community-based research project [with Matissa Hollister, Dartmouth College])

Family Structure, Poverty, and Inequality
Marcia Carlson, UW–Madison

The Politics of Poverty
Thomas Oliver, UW–Madison

Telling the Poverty Story...to journalists and others
Sandra Shea, Philadelphia Daily News

Predicting the Benefits of Anti-Poverty Policies
David Weimer, UW–Madison

Early Childhood Experience and Poverty
Katherine Magnuson, UW–Madison

Roundtable: What Issues Will Dominate the Poverty Debate Over the Next Decade?
Maria Cancian, Thomas Corbett, and Jennifer Noyes, UW–Madison

Syllabi Developed by Poverty 101 Workshop Participants

Please also see this collection of poverty-related course syllabi from classes taught by participants in the Poverty 101 Workshop.