The Structural Theory Of Poverty

Poverty is a multifaceted issue, it is dependent on many factors and the ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work. Out of all the possible explanations as to why people are still living in poverty in the U.S., the structural view of poverty covers the most bases. The structural view of poverty explains that poverty can only ‘be understood and explained only with reference to political and economic characteristics of the society’ (Kerbo, p.266). With this in mind, this theory considers the position of the poor in the occupational structure. Since the poor have jobs that require low skill, which means anyone can learn how to do them, there is much more competition for such jobs. Those with jobs that require greater skills, such as doctors,

Poverty is a common social issue that has troubled nations for thousands of years. While nations like the United States of America have worked diligently to eradicate it domestically, it still widely exists.“According to the U.S. Citizen burow 47.6 million citizens living in poverty.With 20% of those households living in extreme poverty.”(PBS.org)

Parsing out the influences of cultural and structural factors leading to differential behaviors among the poor and nonpoor is a difficult challenge for sociologists concerned with stratification and inequality. This is largely due to the fact that they appear to be so heavily intertwined. Structural and cultural factors reinforce each other in complex ways. Pervasive cultural elements such as ideologies and values are used to frame and interpret existing socio-economic structures and their effects on individuals. Structural forces such as access to resources such as information, education and employment shape cultural views and attitudes as well.

|poverty and inequality using sociological theories. Ending this report you will read into the effects of poverty and inequality in |

Identifies skills, theories of change, program designs, partnerships, and ways of building schools where students achieve.

It's hard to believe in a country as wealthy as the United States, that we have the problem of poverty. Poverty has not become a recent problem of our

Poverty is not only an individual problem, but a societal problem. Harrell R. Rodgers wrote an article, “Why are People Poor in America?” Rodgers gives two categories of theories that are used when cultural /behavioral or structural/economic. Behavior/culture theorists look at the behavior, culture and values of the poor as the reason for poverty. While structural /ecIn western culture statistics are an excessively used tool in describing social issues. Numbers help explain a situation, but in excesses, can dehumanize a population. A serious social issue that suffers from desensitization is poverty. Poverty, as it is defined by Webster, is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of supporting; the condition of being poor. The condition of poverty plagues many American families. According to the Census bureau, 15.1 percent of the United States population falls below the poverty threshold. 15.1 percent does not draw the same effect as the actual 46.6 million individuals living in those circumstances. In the United States, poverty has become a growing problem. There are 15 million more people living in poverty today than in the year 2000 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2013). The poverty threshold, developed by Molly Orshansky, is a tool used to help indicate how many Americans are in poverty. According to the census, 46.6 million of America’s total population makes less than the poverty threshold for a family of four. The condition of being

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.

Even though having the “poor class” is a necessary evil needed for society to function, most Americans, at some point in time, will experience what it is like to live in poverty or live below the poverty line. One main reason for having a high percentage of people living in poverty is because the U.S. policy makers have ignored the poor and have given tax breaks to those with a much higher income. Funding for welfare was slashed and extended unemployment benefits were ended. With little success with the economic reform the United States has been going through for the past five years, about 14.5 percent of Americans are still living under the poverty line.

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.

Living with a poverty level income is a difficulty facing many people around the world; poverty is a cultural universal, or trait found in every known culture – not an expression of individual differences. The most basic explanation for this is the trend towards social stratification, the system by which society organizes itself into a hierarchy. In some cultures this is manifest in the form of a caste system in which people who are in poverty have little to no chance of escaping it. In the United States the system is more in the form of a class system in which there is at least some degree of social mobility, and less status consistency allows people in poverty to have the possibility of changing their social status, but rarely the

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

Poverty for centuries has been a very severe issue that has troubled many nations while impeding economic developments and progress. Poverty stricken countries are majorly concentrated in the continents of Africa and Asia. Continents like the Americas and Europe have globally been recognized as been wealthier yet still many parts of these ostensible countries face massive cases of poverty. Most at times, countries with high populations owing to high birth rates face the most cases of poverty. The definition of poverty can be boundless in the sense that poverty entails so many subsections as it sometimes gets complicated to group everything under one umbrella. Society tends to focus more on the tangible aspects of poverty because many people associate poverty with lacking money and it makes sense because poverty in terms of lacking money is a major problem affecting almost every country in the world. Even though it is debatable that poverty can be physical, intellectual, spiritual and even emotional, it is best to talk about the lack of money and economic developments in this essay. With reference to the oxford English Dictionary, poverty is state of being extremely poor and the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount. Reflecting on this definition given, I deduced that malnutrition and hunger can define poverty. In the light of this, I think poverty is lacking a comfortable place of shelter, being ill and not having access to a better

This review is formulated with scholarly sources and references based off of poverty in America. This disclosure is approached with a value free sociological approach, and it will give insight on the social causes of poverty and the effects it has on America. Poverty is a very controversial topic. Many will assume that people living in poverty are lazy, made bad life decisions, or that they are solely the reason for their predicament however, people living in poverty would argue that their are deeper issues for it. Poverty will be deeply explained and researched from both perspectives

the paper I will address these issues along with sociological views of poverty. Poverty is a social