Perspectives on Poverty in the United States

Catalog description

Perspectives on Poverty in the United States will provide students with an opportunity to explore the dynamics of and cultural attitudes surrounding poverty in the United States. This course will provide an atmosphere conducive to critical thinking, personal reflection, and social action. The essential inquiry of the course is to task students with critical interrogation of the question “what is poverty all about?” using multiple perspectives and diverse frameworks. To do this, students will explore diverse disciplinary viewpoints, including those of sociology, social work, economics, history, and media. This course will use an historical lens to investigate cultural constructions of the problem of poverty from colonial times to present. Modern conceptualizations of poverty from the perspective of popular culture and our own families and experiences will likewise be interrogated. The primary lens of the course will be the use of personal narratives that people in poverty have written about their own experience to help students develop social empathy. Additionally, the course will task students to also explore both cultural and personal assumptions associated with poverty, a pedagogical strategy that will help poise them to begin a journey as community leaders in advancing social justice. Throughout this critical inquiry, students from all disciplines will explore the complexities of poverty and economic vulnerability, developing empathy, knowledge, and skills that will help them to become thoughtful and productive citizens in any field. Prereq: ENGL 110 and COMM 100