Synopses & Reviews
Poverty continues to be a social problem of epidemic proportions in America.
Experiencing Poverty, Second Edition, reveals the realities of the lives of the impoverished.
D. Stanley Eitzen and Kelly Eitzen Smith have brought together a timely collection of readings that examine those who have lived in poverty, those who continue to live in poverty, and successful efforts by the poor to change social arrangements that impact them negatively.
Topics covered include:
- How people become poor
- Why the poor stay poor
- How the poor cope with acquiring the daily necessities of food, shelter, water, clothing, and medical care
- How the poor are treated by individuals and organizations in the community
- What consequences arise from the welfare-to-work federal legislation
- How human agency can create changes from the bottom up
A new section in this edition, “Poverty and Vulnerability,” focuses on how people living in poverty are extremely vulnerable in such situations as war, natural disasters, job loss, family disruption, and health problems.
Synopsis
This collection of readings provides the voice, the presence, and the perspective of the poor who live on the margins and are generally invisible to the middle and upper classes.
The goals of this reader are twofold:
(1) to bring the realities of the lives of the impoverished as close to the reader as possible
(2) to get the reader to listen carefully to these voices of the poor in order to enhance their understanding of:
- How the poor became poor.
- How the poor are treated by individuals and organizations in the community.
- What keeps the poor poor.
- How the poor manage day-to-day.
- What theory of causation best explains poverty.
- The consequences of the welfare-to-work federal legislation.
- The best solutions for ending poverty.
About the Author
D. Stanley Eitzen is professor emeritus in sociology from Colorado State University, where previously he was the John N. Stern Distinguished Professor. He recieved his Ph.D. from the Unitsity of Kansas. Among his books are: Social Problems, which was awarded the McGuffey Longevity Award for excellence over multiple editions in 2000 by the Text and Academic Authors Association, and Diversity in Families (both co-authored with Maxine Baca Zinn), Solutions to Social Problems: Lessons from Other Societies (with Graig S. Leeham) , Paths to Homelessness: Extreme Poverty and the Urban Housing Crisis (with Doug A. Timmer and Kathryn Talley), Sociology of North American Sport (with George H. Sage,) and Fair and Foul: Rethinking the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport. He has served as the president of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport and as editor of The Social Science Journal.
Kelly Eitzen Smith received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Arizona in 1999. She is currently the director of the Center for Applied Sociology and a lecturer at the University of Arizona. At the Center for Applied Sociology she has conducted research in the areas of day labor, homelessness, poverty, urban housing and neighborhood development. Her sociological interests include gender, family, sexuality, stratification, and social problems. She is the co-author of Experiencing Poverty, 1/e, Social Problems 11/e, and In Conflict and Order 12/e (forthcoming).
Table of Contents
Preface
Part I: POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES
Poverty in the United States and the Sociological Imagination
The Extent and Distribution of Poverty in the United States
The Sociological Imagination
Notes and Suggestions for Further Reading
Part II: THEORIES OF POVERTY: WHY ARE THE POOR POOR?
Chapter 1: Theories of Poverty: Who or What Is to Blame for Poverty?
Jackie Spinks: Poverty or At Home in a Car
Steven VanderStaay: The Armstrongs: An Oral History of a Homeless American Family
Nikkie Thompson: Feeling Trapped
Robert D. Bullard: No 40 Acres and a Mule: An Interview with a Displaced Black Farmer
Brian K. Fair: Notes of a Racial Caste Baby
Part III: POVERTY AND VULNERABILITY
Chapter 2: One Step Away
Ron Kovic: A Veteran Speaks of the Forgotten Wounded of Iraq
Janis Johnston: On the Margins: The Lack of Resources and the Lack of Health Care
Emma Dixon: Personal Voices: An Unnatural Disaster
Sharon Hays: The Domino Effect
Part IV: LIVING ON THE ECONOMIC MARGINS
Chapter 3: Survival and Finances
Susan Sheehan: Ain’t No Middle Class
David K. Shipler: The Working Poor
Chapter 4: Discrimination/Racism/Stigma
Robin Rogers-Dillon: The Dynamics of Welfare Stigma
Allan Bérubé with Florence Bérubé: Sunset Trailer Park
Toby F. Sonneman: Migrants and the Community
Charlie LeDuf: At a Slaughterhous
Chapter 5: Parenting in Poverty
Tamicia Rush: The Empty Christmas
Steven VanderStaay: Karla
Greg Halpern: Vinela Tejada: Custodian, Vanderbilt Hall, Harvard Medical School
Part V: THE IMPACT OF SOCIETAL INSTITUTIONS ON INDIVIDUAL LIVES
Chapter 6: Housing/Homeless Shelters/Neighborhoods
Bobby Burns: Shelter
Susan J. Popkin, Victoria E. Gwiasda, Lynn M. Olson, Dennis P. Rosenbaum, and Larry Buron: The Residents of Rockwell Gardens
Chapter 7: The Welfare System
Jason DeParle: Money: Milwaukee, Summer 1999
Alejandra Marchevsky and Jeanne Theoharis: Trapped in the Double-Bind of Welfare
Chapter 8: Schools and Schooling
Delphia Boykin: Seventh Grade Disaster
Luis Rodriguez: Always Running
Chapter 9: Work and Working
Toby F. Sonneman: Looking for Work, Waiting for Work
An Interview with Linda Lord: Chicken Run
Lisa Liu: The Story of a Garment Worke
Greg Halpern: Frank Morley: Custodian, Littauer Center for Public Administration
Part VI: INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE AGENCY AND EMPOWERMENT
Chapter 10: Changes from the Bottom Up
Hazel Johnson: Surviving Chicago’s Toxic Doughnut
Dottie Stevens: Welfare Rights Organizing Saved My Life
David Bacon: Josefina Flores: A Veteran of the War in the Fields
David Swanson: How Predatory Lending Victims Fought Back and Won