Inequality and Stratification Commons^™

2015 Community And Family Institute Homeless Report: A Comprehensive Examination Of Homelessness In Washington And Benton Counties, Kevin M. Fitzpatrick, Stephanie Collier, Gail O'Connor

Homelessness

This report highlights the findings from the 2015 PIT Homeless Census in NWA. In addition, the report provides an overview of how the population has changed with regards to the PIT reporting since 2007. Finally, this report highlights a comprehensive random, representative survey of 168 homeless adults living in Washington and Benton Counties.

Assessing Income Eligibility By Statewide Assistance: Staying Off The Cliff's Edge, 2015, Kevin M. Fitzpatrick

Poverty

In 2013, the United States Census Bureau reported over 45 million people were living in poverty. This number is calculated by the government based on the minimum income a family needs to cover the basic necessities of life. Poverty is often interpreted by the thresholds and levels determined on a yearly basis; thresholds are an exact dollar amount that indicates whether a family’s combined income is considered to be exceedingly poor. The Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is another way the federal government measures poverty in the United States. The FPL helps guide the development of financial eligibility for federally funded …

Notes On The Practice Of Food Justice In The U.S.: Understanding And Confronting Trauma And Inequity, Rachel Slocum, Kirsten Valentine Cadieux

College of Liberal Arts All Faculty Scholarship

In this article, we focus on one of the four nodes (trauma/inequity, exchange, land and labor) around which food justice organizing appears to occur: acknowledging and confronting historical, collective trauma and persistent race, gender, and class inequality. We apply what we have learned from our research in U.S. and Canadian agri-food systems to suggest working methods that might guide practitioners as they work toward food justice, and scholars as they seek to study it. In the interests of ensuring accountability to socially just research and action, we suggest that scholars and practitioners need to be more clear on what it …

Breastfeeding And Subsistence Work: Connecting Theory And Experience, Olivia M. Mclaughlin

The Hilltop Review

No abstract provided.

The Deborah M. Olsen Public Service Internship: The Colombian Refugee Project, Paulina Rodriguez

Examples of Student Work

In this essay, Paulina Rodriguez reflects on her seven months in South America interning with the Colombian Refugee Project in Quito, Ecuador.

Why Is There So Much Poverty In California? The Causes Of California’S Sky-High Poverty And The Evidence Behind The Equal Opportunity Plan For Reducing It, David Grusky, Marion Coddou, Erin Cumberworth, Jonathan Fisher, Jared Furuta, Jasmine Hill, Sara Kimberlin, Molly M. King, Yana Kucheva, Ryan Leupp, Marybeth Mattingly, Natassia Rodriguez, Charles Varner, Rachel Wright

Sociology

The purpose of this report is to describe the current state of poverty in California, to discuss concrete steps that could be taken to reduce poverty in California, and to present the best available evidence on the likely effects of those steps. We take on an important but infrequently-posed question: If California were to seriously commit to reducing poverty, how might that commitment best be realized?

This is of course a hypothetical question, as there is no evidence that California is poised to make such a serious commitment, nor have many other states gone much beyond the usual lip service …

Gender Equality In University Education In Egypt [Arabic], Nagwa Megahed

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

No abstract provided.

The Adolescent Experience In-Depth: Using Data To Identify And Reach The Most Vulnerable Young People—Belize 2011, Population Council, Unicef Belize

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

“The Adolescent Experience In-Depth: Using Data to Identify and Reach the Most Vulnerable Young People: Belize 2011” is part of a series of Population Council guides that draw principally on data from the Demographic and Health Surveys to provide decisionmakers at all levels—from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and advocacy groups—with evidence on the situation of adolescent girls and boys and young women aged 10–24 years. The data are presented in graphs, tables, and maps (wherever possible), providing multiple formats to make the information accessible to a range of audiences. Section I is the Foreword. Section II offers brief technical notes specific …

A Review Of Critical Buddhism: Engaging With Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought, Ronald S. Green

Philosophy and Religious Studies

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Welfare Participation During Childhood On Adult Income, Curran A. Prettyman

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

This paper analyzes the impact of welfare participation during childhood on adult income. In the United States, welfare programs have a long history originating from the 1800s, and over $20 billion are currently allocated to various anti-poverty programs, such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Supplemental Security Income. Many people believe that these programs effectively eradicate childhood poverty. However, ordinary least squares and instrumental variables regression models suggest welfare programs are counterproductive. On average, holding all else constant, with 95% confidence, the total dollar amount of funding received from welfare programs during childhood is statistically significant to a …

Surveillance, Knowledge And Inequality: Understanding Power Through Foucault And Beyond., Simon Purdy

The Hilltop Review

Understanding a concept as complex as power, in the social sciences, can often be a daunting task. In order to fully comprehend power, it is therefore necessary to examine it through the lens of other issues and theoretical devices. In this paper, power is approached through an examination of surveillance and associated technologies. Utilizing the theoretical work of Michel Foucault, and stepping beyond this basic groundwork, we explore the contentions surrounding the study of power within sociology, the ways in which surveillance constitutes and even threatens structures of power. The paper concludes with an analysis of inequality, welfare and the …

Inequality And Involvement: Participatory Trends In The Politics Of A Rural Maine Town, Shelby O'Neill

Honors Theses

Interdisciplinary research suggests that participation in most forms of political activity in the United States is stratified by socioeconomic status. People with higher socioeconomic statuses are more able and willing to participate in politics than people with lower socioeconomic statuses. This participatory inequality amplifies the political voice of the upper class relative to the lower class. However, little academic attention has been paid to analyzing the impact of socioeconomic inequality on participation in local politics. By analyzing participatory trends in the politics of the rural town of Belgrade, ME, this honors thesis fills a gap in the academic literature on …

Socio-Economic Equity In University Education In Egypt [Arabic], Magued Osman

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

No abstract provided.

The Adolescent Experience In-Depth: Using Data To Identify And Reach The Most Vulnerable Young People—Tanzania 2009–2012, Population Council, Tanzania Commission For Aids (Tacaids), Zanzibar Aids Commission (Zac), Unicef Tanzania

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

“The Adolescent Experience In-Depth: Using Data to Identify and Reach the Most Vulnerable Young People: Tanzania 2009–12” is part of a series of Population Council guides that draw principally on data from the Demographic and Health Surveys to provide decisionmakers at all levels—from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and advocacy groups—with evidence on the situation of adolescent girls and boys and young women aged 10–24 years. The data are presented in graphs, tables, and maps (wherever possible), providing multiple formats to make the information accessible to a range of audiences. Section I is the Foreword. Section II offers brief technical notes specific …

Statedata: The National Report On Employment Services And Outcomes, 2015, John Butterworth, Frank A. Smith, Jean Winsor, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Alberto Migliore, Daria Domin, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This report provides statistics over 25 years from several national datasets that address the status of employment and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The authors use abbreviations for both intellectual disability (ID) and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in this report. We do this because data sources vary in the specific target groups that can be described.

We provide a comprehensive overview that describes national trends in employment for people with IDD, and the appendices provide individual state profiles with data from several sources. These include the ICI’s IDD Agency National Survey of Day and Employment …

Cultural Capital In The Classroom: The Significance Of Debriefing As A Pedagogical Tool In Simulation-Based Learning, Bedelia N. Richards, Lauren Camuso

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Although social inequality is critical to the study of sociology, it is particularly challenging to teach about race, class and gender inequality to students who belong to privileged social groups. Simulation games are often used successfully to address this pedagogical challenge. While debriefing is a critical component of simulation exercises that focus on teaching about social inequality, empirical assessments of the significance and effectiveness of this tool is virtually nonexistent in sociology and other social sciences. This paper analyzes the significance of debriefing in a simulation game called “Cultural Capital in the Classroom” in order to address this lacunae in …

Preventing Balkanization Or Facilitating Racial Domination: A Critique Of The New Equal Protection, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court requires that equal protection plaintiffs prove defendants acted with discriminatory intent. The intent rule has insulated from judicial invalidation numerous policies that harmfully impact racial and ethnic minorities. Court doctrine also mandates that state actors generally remain colorblind. The colorblindness doctrine has led to the judicial invalidation of policies designed to ameliorate the conditions of racial inequality. Taken together, these two equality doctrines facilitate racial domination. The Court justifies this outcome on the ground that the Constitution does not protect "group rights. "

Constitutional law theorists have criticized these aspects of equal protection doctrine. Recently, however, some …

Equality And Difference - The Restrained State, Martha Albertson Fineman

Faculty Articles

Contemporary American law, culture, and political theory restrain the concept of equality as a tool of social justice. Equality in conjunction with a strong emphasis on personal liberty operates as a mandate for curtailing state action, rather than an aspirational measure of the comparative wellbeing of individuals. As a check on state involvement, our cramped notion of equality limits the state's ability to affirmatively address economic, political, social, and structural inequalities.

As interpreted in modern Supreme Court jurisprudence, the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution actually works to restrict the remedial ability of the state. Equality is understood as …

Framing Elite Consensus, Ideology And Theory And A Classcrits Response, Athena D. Mutua

Journal Articles

This short paper, really a thought piece, builds upon the examination begun in the Foreword of the ClassCrits VI Symposium which sought to outline a ClassCrits critique of neoclassical economic principles. It argues that neoliberal practices, theory and ideology, built on the scaffold of neoclassical economic ideas, frame an elite consensus that makes elites feel good but which are ethically, intellectually, and structurally problematic for the social well-being of most Americans. It does so, in part, by chronicling a number of recent practices of large corporations, including for example, the practice of inversion. Again, this paper takes as its specific …

Are Parents Talking To Adolescents About Sexuality? Evidence From Four Slums In Ghana, Selina F. Esantsi, Francis Onyango, Gloria Quansah Asare, Emmanuel Kuffour, Placide Tapsoba, Harriet Birungi, Ian Askew

Reproductive Health

This evidence brief summarizes the essential information from a part of a larger study that assessed the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of adolescents in four slums in two regions of Ghana. The objective of this brief is to provide evidence to support and facilitate the improvement of parent–adolescent communication on sexuality. This study echoes several other studies by providing evidence that a majority of parents are not opposed to in-school sex education for their children and welcome the idea of empowering themselves (parents) to have productive discussions with their children. Nevertheless, there is a mismatch between the proportion …