Social Class Lesson 7: Effects of Poverty Day 2

Choose ONE of the following videos to watch about poverty.  Look for the effects of poverty from above in the video:

Different types of poverty:
The Line, MediaEd documentary (2015) 48 minutes on Mediacast.
Documentary about the varied types of people living at the poverty line.  The first two are from Chicagoland.  One is a white suburban Dad who lives in the western suburbs.  The next is a black woman living in the city who moves to Oak Park.  Here is a link to The Line on Mediacast.  

Google Form for this movie.

Children in poverty:
Poor Kids, Frontline documentary (2017).  54 minutes online at PBS.
Twenty percent of the children in the US are growing up in poverty! That's 1 out of every 5 kids in the United States is living at the poverty level! Yes, you read that correctly - 1 out of every 5 children in the United States is living in poverty right now!  That's a higher rate than 34 out of 35 Western countries.  

Here is an update from 2019 about how the families are doing 2 years after the end of the movie.

Google Form for this movie.

Rural poverty:
Children of the Mountain (2009), 49 minutes on Mediacast.  

Google Form for this video
Diane Sawyer did a special report on Appalachia that highlighted the children affected by poverty. I think there is a tendency for us to blame the adults for their impoverished situation, but we forget that these adults were once children born into a world of difficulties and obstacles that led to an adulthood of poverty. You can hear Diane Sawyer talk about it here. Can you use your sociological imagination to see all of the social forces that limit those who are in poverty in America? Watch the excerpt below from 20/20 to see the complicated life of the rural impoverished American:

Additionally:

Tammy's Story from People Like Us documentary (2001/2015) online at youtube and also at the Everyday Sociology blog.

In 2001, Tammy and her family were featured in the documentary People Like Us. In 2001, her son Matt was winning awards and hoping to go to college because he was embarrassed by his family's social class.  And his mom, Tammy was working hard and still hoping to become a school teacher. Watch the first 2:45 of the video and pause it at "14 Years Later".  How do you think Tammy and her son did?  Did they make it?  Then, continue watching - fourteen years later, the producers of the show caught up with Tammy and Matt to see how they did.

  

Other Resources:

Here are some more resources about poverty:

• Poverty USA has stats and graphs here.
• Stanford Social Innovation Review published this critique of how poverty is measured.
• Teaching Tolerance has a lesson about the poverty line here.
• Here is a link to the University of Michigan's school of Poverty Solutions, which is full of resources and research on poverty. 
• Here is the website, Spotlight on Poverty with numerous resources, stories and links.
• Two American Families from PBS.  Bill Moyers follows two families for 20 years and their struggle to stay afloat in the U.S.
• My Reality with Diane Sawyer on Hidden America.
• 
  
  
  
  This video explores the working poor in America.  These are people who are struggling to make ends meet but they are working.  They may not be below the poverty line, but they are working a lot.http://abcnews.go.com/US/deepdive/diane-sawyer-income-inequality-my-reality-hidden-america-44770807
•