Poverty and Life Chances

Abstract

This assignment is designed to have students analyze the role of poverty in affecting people’s life chances, the difficulty of breaking out of poverty, and what obstacles exist when the poor attempt intergenerational mobility. Students will receive brief notes and discuss the effects of poverty. Students will also analyze a song related to life chances....

Download this resource to see full details. Download this resource to see full details.

Details

Subject Area(s):

High School Sociology

Resource Type(s):

Class Activity

Class Level(s):

Any Level

Class Size(s):

Any

Usage Notes

This activity can be carried out in one or two 50 minute class periods. Students will need access to a computer or an LCD projector to view the video and the PowerPoint. If students do not have access to Henslin's book, copies of the reading (Nickel and Dimed - pages 411-425 in Down to Earth Sociology by James Henslin) will need to be available as well.

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. 1) Students will be able to define life chances, poverty level, anomie, functionalist perspective, symbolic interaction, and conflict perspective. 2) Students will analyze the effects of poverty.
2. 3) Students will apply their newly acquired vocabulary and concepts to analyze a song.4) Students will analyze how poverty affects intergenerational mobility.
3. 5) Students will compare and contrast their analysis of the life chances of the woman in the song to the real woman on the video.

Goal Assessment(s):

1. 1) Students will take notes on a brief powerpoint to define sociological terms.2) Students will list ways that poverty may affect life chances.
2. 3) Students will analyze the song Fast Car by Tracy Chapman and describe how the woman in the song’s life chances were affected by poverty.4) Students will identify the obstacles that keep the woman in the song from breaking out of poverty.
3. 5) Students will apply the functionalist, interactionist, and conflict perspective to the woman’s situation in the song.6) Students will compare and contrast in discussion the life chances of the woman in the song and the woman in the video.