Chapter 8: Poverty Amid Affluence Learning Objectives

After reading Chapter Eight, you should be able to:

1. understand the importance of the distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

2. explain the extent of wealth in America, the meaning of "wealth-fare," and the question of whether the rich represent a social problem in America.

3. evaluate the extent of poverty in American society.

4. understand the relationship between poverty and social class.

5. distinguish between the absolute vs. the relative views of poverty.

6. explain the statistical relationship/relevant data involving poverty and single-parent families, minority groups, geography, welfare, the working poor, and immigration.

7. identify and discuss the concomitants of poverty discussed in the text: health care, education, housing and homelessness, and justice.

8. understand the key differences between structural and cultural explanations of poverty, including a working knowledge of the situational approach, the cultural-situational approach, the adaptation approach, and the value-stretch approach.

9. detail the text's discussion of the reform of "welfare as we know it."

10. identify and explain the social policy implications of current social-welfare pro-grams (including a familiarity with the programs themselves); the relationship between dependency, work, and responsibility; single mothers; and the prospects for moving people from areas of concentrated poverty to communities where they will have more opportunity.

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