Increasingly national statistical agencies are being called upon to provide high quality data on a regular basis, to be used by governments for evidence-based policy development. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) give impetus to this, and bring a prerequisite for comprehensive "poverty diagnosis." Often the data that are required…

Poverty reduction is deeply implicated in structures of politics, economy, culture, and technology, from the global down to local levels. Irrespective of the particular political ideology of a nation and of the specific strategy of mobilization, adult and life-long education can and must play a significant role in reducing poverty, including…

The purpose of the study was to describe self-reported influences on undergraduate students to choose social work as a major--including the social work populations and activities of interest to social work students. Fifty junior undergraduate students from California State University, Long Beach, participated in the study. A self-administered…

Children living in poverty often have less than ideal home environments and are at an increased risk for depression in adulthood. Because we know from existing research that experiences in child care can have long-term affects for children socially, FPG researchers wondered if such experiences could temper the mental health impact of lower quality…

This paper considers the implications of current notions of the learning city. It argues that popular neoliberal ideologies create an environment in which lifelong learners strive for the learning city as an end product, both in production and for consumption, rather than embrace it as a living, social context. The rhetoric of the knowledge…

Despite strenuous attempts made by the New Labour government in the UK to progress towards its goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020, educational outcomes for disadvantaged children remain depressed compared to those of more advantaged children. The fact that children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are at much greater risk of language…

The article traces the policy history of Kenya over more than 40 years (1963-2006) in order to tease out the tensions between the key themes of its own national agenda and the priorities of its principal development partners. The national concerns with the education-and-employment connection and with the orientation of schooling towards skills for…

There is a general presumption among many policy makers that secondary and higher education is not necessary for economic growth and development. On the other hand, it is literacy and primary education that is argued to be important. Estimates on internal rate of return also contributed to strengthening of such a presumption. Accordingly,…

A major goal of Asian distance education is the creation of effective formal and nonformal programs for the benefit of the poor and needy; and the primary place in which distance education usually takes place is the home. This article addresses issues fundamental to the spread of distance education in Asia--factors affecting domestic and social…

Since the creation of "Sesame Street", children's educational television programs have grown in both number and popularity. However, controversy has shadowed the children's television arena for many years. Some have claimed that viewing television is a passive event, requiring little or no effort on the part of the viewer. However, research on…

This paper reports on the "Fair Go Project", research into student engagement among primary school students living in poor communities in South-Western Sydney, Australia. Taking as a starting point recent work into classroom pedagogies ("Productive Pedagogies") and drawing on Bernstein's concept of classrooms as message…

Canada faces steep, yet surmountable challenges in its efforts to significantly reduce child and family poverty. Most recent data indicate that more than one million Canadian children and their families live in low-income households. Although the House of Commons unanimously resolved to "seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among…

Auto insurance rates can vary dramatically, with much higher premiums in poor and minority areas than elsewhere, even after accounting for individual characteristics, driving history, and coverage. This paper uses a unique data set to examine the relative influence of place-based socioeconomic characteristics (or redlining) and place-based risk…

We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to investigate the impact that child Supplemental Security Income (SSI) enrollment has on household outcomes, including poverty, household earnings, and health insurance coverage. The longitudinal nature of the SIPP allows us to control for unobserved, time-invariant…

The focus of this chapter is continuity and change in attachment representations in a sample at risk because of early poverty. Its particular emphasis is adolescence and reasons that adolescence may be a period of attachment security change in the at-risk population. The authors begin with an overview of key issues in adolescent attachment,…