To begin I feel as if the cause of poverty throughout every nation in the world is the ability of the citizens to have class mobility. If we want a solution to the issue of poverty we have to give people the option to get them out of poverty. This deals a lot with strengthening the middle class. Also, a big issue with the increased rates of poverty is that 20% of the population has 50% of the wealth. How can we expect people to not be in poverty when we aren’t sharing the wealth? During chapter 2 and chapter 1 the perspective in which I have the most issues with is the functionalist perspective. Particular in its ideas of what the solutions to poverty are I found myself questioning a lot of their ideas. First of all, they admit themselves that
The functionalist view is one where an individual considers that everything in society must have a proper function. If it is part of society it must have a function, which also encompasses those at the poverty level. Based on the functionalist poverty level it is viewed to have two main functions. First it acts as a motivator because it is viewed as a warning. People would most likely and want to strive to work harder and succeed than be considered labeled as an individual at the poverty level. At some level, many individuals have seen poverty, and this is a constant reminder for him or her to work hard to avoid society associating poverty to them. Second, poverty acts as a means to have a “feel good factor.” It is a way of measuring how well one is doing and to work harder to attain and maintain a level above poverty. When individuals have struggled and experienced poverty, he or she realizes that their due diligence to rise above this level has proven to be successful. These individuals find themselves exceeding
1. Poverty in the U.S. is explained by the individual behavior. As a nation we believe hard work will make anyone successful and we exclude all the structural conditions that put many people below the poverty lane. We forget that people do not have equal opportunities to be successful at life such as access to education, healthcare, and nutrition. In short, our ideologies do not help people in poverty to get out of the sitiation that they are in because we keep blaming the poor and do nothing to help them.
Identifies skills, theories of change, program designs, partnerships, and ways of building schools where students achieve.
Social Inequality refers to any difference between groups or individuals in society which results in one having inferior life chances than the other. Functionalists believe these inequalities are the result of the meritocracy we live in. This is a system based on the idea that social stratification is necessary and desirable for the society. Functionalists argue that inequalities have a purpose; they are functional for society. Functionalism is a structural theory based on the notion that society is based on shared values. This consensus means that society will be in a state of equilibrium and there is harmony, as a result of which there will be social solidarity.
Poverty is not easily defined, because it plays out in many different ways. To be in poverty, one is generally making at most three times the amount of money they would need to sustain themselves and their family members living a minimalist lifestyle. These families tend to eat cheaper food, use public transport, have less access to good educational institutions, are exposed to harmful environments, and have less access to healthcare, among many other things. Through the lenses of conflict theory and functionalism, one can begin to understand why poverty so affects many aspects many people’s lives in ways that carry them through adulthood, and sometimes pervades later generations of their families.
There seems to be an increase in poverty in the United States and there are so many theories behind why this might be a problem. It seems as if Society as a whole wants to blame this social “condition” on Society itself. I believe that the problem of poverty lies within the actual individuals that are experiencing poverty. There are a few reasons why people experience poverty. They are as follows: One, the liberal welfare programs that were started in the 1960’s, two, individuals lack the characteristic of power and individuality, three, anti-social behavior and the idea that poverty passes from one generation to the next.
The structural-functionalist perspective states that “poverty results from institutional breakdown” (Mooney et al. 176). People in today’s society do not have the skills or education needed for employment. The majority of those living in poverty are people who are willing to do the “dirty work” than those not living in poverty. It can be assumed that those living in low income homes are the one who are going to do the hard labor such as being a maid, gardener, janitor, etc., when it comes to being in the workforce. They are the people that are willing to do these jobs just to make ends meet. Many living in poverty are also single parents. “A third of all families headed by a single woman were in poverty last year” (Gongloff). Another issue is the unequal pay in the workplace today. There are many factors that come in to
People are dying every minute because of this terrible disease. No antidotes have been found to eliminate it. Poverty is like an epidemic with no antidote affecting the entire world. It has already killed billions of people, and will continue killing unless we do something to stop it. Have you ever thought what living in poverty is like? Seeing a shocking picture in which people were trying to survive gave me a whole different perspective. That image showed me one of the poorest areas of the planet where people were living under despicable conditions. They were working in sweatshops, collecting garbage and living in broken down huts in order to survive. A polluted river passes across from their humble homes, causing incomparable complication to their lives. I could observe the terrible conditions in which this people are working, fishing and collecting garbage. Not only pollution is shown in this photo, above of the photograph a bridge could be observed. I imagine the noise, and the dust that this little detail brings to their lives. That photograph made me feel angry at politicians because they could do a better job helping the needy. Since they were almost dying, I felt sad for the circumstances they live in. A sense of admiration for the way they are able to survive, gave me the strength to fight against this global scourge. The author of this picture is trying to convey a message, showing us poverty in all its faces and inviting us to be part of his fight against
Another theory that relates to poverty is the conflict theory. Conflict theory is a paradigm that sees social conflict as the basis of society and social change and emphasizes a materialistic view of society, a critical view of the status quo, and a dynamic model of historical change (Ferris & Stein, 2008, 2010). The theory was originally brought on by Karl Marx, and was later adapted and further developed by other theorists; for example, Max Weber. Looking at poverty through the lens of the conflict theory, we
the paper I will address these issues along with sociological views of poverty. Poverty is a social
There are three main arguments believed to be the explanations for the existence and persistence of poverty. The first account is the Dependency-Based Explanation that puts the blame of poverty to the individual or to their cultural background. The Exclusion-Based Explanation and Structural-Based Explanation are the next two which establishes the society that condemns people to poverty.
Functionalism is a consensus perspective, whereby society is based on shared values and norms into which members are socialised. For functionalists, society is seen as a system of social institutions such as the economy, religion and the family all of which perform socialisation functions.
In today's world, some only have one reason on how poverty can be explained but there are certain psychology methods that can go into depth on poverty. Throughout all the different types of countries they all experience the struggle of their economy and people being in poverty. There are different perspectives that poverty can be possibly explained and why it happens in the world. People have been announcing and declaring different possibilities on how poverty is in the world; ranging from 1938 to 1989. The different perspectives of psychology are psychoanalytic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, biological, and sociocultural.
Poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (Dictionary.com, 2017). Based off this definition poverty is a condition that can cause a cascade of cause and effect actions that is detrimental to families and individuals both physically and mentally. Haan, Kaplan, & Camacho (2017) completed a study on the correlation between social and economic status and health in adults in Oakland, CA. They found that the lower the socioeconomic class the higher incidents of diseases and deaths related to chronic diseases (p.1161-1162). Just being without money or little money was not the only indication of health indication, a person living in an area with higher poverty issues
A social problem, is “a general factor that effects and damages society”. It can be used to describe an issue or a problem within a certain group of people or an area in the world. Examples of contemporary social problems today include anti-social behaviour, drug abuse, and sexual abuse. Poverty is an example of a social problem that exists all over the world, and to different extents. In the UK, poverty has effected at least a third of the population, as shown by the Office of National Statistics, providing evidence that it is a massive social problem in the country. Tameside has a big poverty problem. 1 in 4 children in Tameside are born into poverty, and workers in Tameside earn significantly less than other workers in the rest of the North-West area. In addition, Tameside has the largest proportion of people claiming unemployment benefits compared to the rest of the North West of England.