class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide # SOC 2220 Discussion Section ## Week 6 ### Xuewen Yan ### 2020-10-9 --- # Announcements - Freebie quiz this week: Unconditional full credits if you check the question. - Register live in section for Ewing’s lecture next Thursday. Must attend live if you wish, as the lecture will not be recorded upon the speaker’s request. [https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_J4yYiEpNTAq5mE43sRjL1w](https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_J4yYiEpNTAq5mE43sRjL1w) --- # Discussion: Culture of Poverty - What is the “Culture of poverty”? - According to lecture, Gans (1994), McMilliam Cottom (2019), what are the problems and fallacies of the culture of poverty argument? Try to come up with at least one main summary/takeaway from each reading. - How does the Q&A with Eppard, Chomsky, Rank and Brady (the latter's work on the risk and penalty of poverty we read earlier on in the class) shed light on the ways in which we think about and address poverty? (Eppard et al. 2017) --- # Discussion: Culture of Poverty What is the “Culture of poverty”? - The idea that the values and decision-making of the poor play a significant role in perpetuating their impoverished condition, sustaining a cycle of poverty across generations. -- Problems and fallacies of the culture of poverty (COP) argument? (open-ended) - Mistakes structural dysfunctions for individual responsibility (the oxymoron of the "working poor") - Assumes that the poor have no intention to work or live independently - Legitimate the existing structure for the non-poor (the "positive function" of COP in Gans 1994) - "One thing I’ve learned is that one person’s illogical belief is another person’s survival skill."(McMilliam Cottom 2019) - "You have no idea what you would do if you were poor until you are poor" (McMilliam Cottom 2019) - The chair metaphor from Eppard et al. --- # Activity: College access and experience - Complete the quiz in groups: guessing average college costs of countries around the world. [https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilytrio/college-cost-around-world](https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilytrio/college-cost-around-world) Discuss the following questions after doing the quiz, drawing on class material and your own experience: - In what ways does college help socioeconomically disadvantaged students achieve mobility, and in what ways does it reproduce the existing class structure? (Jack 2014; Amstrong and Hamilton 2015) + What does Jack (2014) mean by the Privileged Poor and the Doubly Disadvantage? How do these concepts? + Do you personally see a “paying for the party” culture at Cornell? - Can we imagine an American society where access to college is more equitable and less determined by social class backgrounds? + What policy advice does Grusky et al.’s (2019) provide? Is their suggestion viable and/or sufficient in your opinion?