Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Berkeley Sociology Poverty Course (Sandra Smith)/Course description

Course description
Why, in the midst of great affluence, are people poor, and in some cases, persistently so? This question has captured the imagination of social scientists and social critics for over one century. In this course, we will become intimate with some of the key theoretical, critical, and empirical writings that seek to provide insight into this enduring problem. In the process, seminar participants will become familiar with the key issues and debates animating discussions of American sociologists: Is there a culture of poverty? Why does poverty persist in the face of economic growth? What accounts for the feminization and juvenilization of poverty? Does government intervention help, or does it just make matters worse? As seminar participants deepen their knowledge in these areas, they will learn to identify and interrogate key assumptions driving these interventions and the evolution of the field, generally, and hopefully they will begin to offer critical perspectives of their own.