This thesis focuses on the social determinants of health in Appalachia. Using anthropological ethnographic field methods, this thesis explores the ways in which public assistance programs and exchanges between health care practitioners and clients result in discourses of blame and responsibly. Also included is a discussion of the role that health insurance plays in granting or denying individuals living in poverty the opportunity for treatment and care. The narratives collected for this project then become the bases for a critical examination of the public discourse surrounding health care reform in the United States in 2009 and 2010.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Donald Mrozek / Scholars identify the early 1960s as the moment when Americans rediscovered poverty – as the time when Presidents, policymakers, and the public shifted their attention away from celebrating the affluence of the 1950s and toward directly helping poor people within the culture of poverty through major federal programs such as the Peace Corps and Job Corps. This dissertation argues that this moment should not be viewed as a rediscovery of poverty by Americans. Rather, it should be viewed as a paradigm shift that conceptually unified the understanding of both foreign and domestic privation within the concept of a culture of poverty. A culture of poverty equally hindered poor people all around the world, resulting in widespread illiteracy in India and juvenile delinquency in Indianapolis. Policymakers defined poverty less by employment rate or location (rural poverty in Ghana versus inner-city poverty in New York) and more by the cultural values of the poor people (apathy toward change, disdain for education, lack of planning for the future, and desire for immediate gratification). In a sense, the poor person who lived in the Philippines and the one who lived in Philadelphia became one. They suffered from the same cultural limitations and could be helped through the same remedy. There were not just similarities between programs to alleviate poverty in either the Third World or America; the two became one in the mid-1960s. Makers of policy in the War on Poverty understood all poverty around the world as identical and approached it with the same remedy. President John Kennedy inspired the paradigm shift. After reading about the culture of poverty in Dwight Macdonald’s review of Michael Harrington’s book The Other America: Poverty in the United States, Kennedy began to bring together experts within a new mentality to discuss a program to end poverty. The experts had been working for separate programs that focused on seemingly disparate issues—juvenile delinquency, poverty in New England, and Third World development—but they now realized that they were all working on the same problem, namely, the culture of poverty. The understanding that cultural values created poverty led them to unify their programs and approaches as they created the War on Poverty in 1964. The discovery was not the beginning of national attention on poverty but a culmination that brought together prominent people, ideas, and programs already in existence within a new paradigm.

本研究透過多元方法(mutimethod)之研究設計，第一階段整理運用官方統計性資料，分析民國76年至85年台北市低收入戶人口特質，並作為第二階段質性研究之基礎；第二階段運用立意取樣，進行深度訪談及參與觀察，分析台北市低收入戶日常生活文化內涵。 　　在低收入戶人口特質部份，本研究歸納出下列重要發現與趨勢：1.「個人性因素」的低收入戶歸因；2.低收入戶人口涵蓋度穩定且流動率低；3.「低收入戶女性化」的現象不顯著；4.低收入戶集居化、都市邊陲化之趨勢；5.低收入戶高齡化的趨勢；6.較高等的教育程度已無法保證能夠脫離低收入戶；7.「家庭解組」因素可預測低收入戶之發生；8.低收入戶健康狀況呈兩極化發展；9.低收入戶之基本家庭設備已逐年普及化；10.低收入戶自有住宅比例逐年降低；11.低收入戶戶量減少之趨勢；12.「工作中貧窮」的趨勢。 　　在低收入戶文化分析部份，本研究運用參與觀察法分析台北市低收入戶文化內涵，俾供後續研究檢證與修正；另以深度訪談歸納分析台北市低收入戶的五大類型：1.原來貧窮；2.低度就業或失業；3.殘障或久病不癒；4.家庭解組或負擔家計者死亡；5.年老而獨居，並分別針對不同之低收入戶類型提出政策因應策略之建議。

This research entails an ethnographic study of a community that has a culture of poverty. The aim of this research was to identify personal and environmental assets that could be used to enrich pre-school learning within a culture of poverty. These assets included anything that could be used for pre-school learning, observations, field notes, interviews, photographs and artefacts were used to study the community while participating as a member of the community. Numerous assets were identified. Seven main themes were derived from a collective summary of data. The main themes were: children, culture, man-made products, the natural environment, local institutions and citizens’ associations, crafts and caretakers. The themes were expanded into categories and sub-categories. Each sub-category is discussed as an asset in the light of various activities the asset can be used for, the skills and the learning outcomes practiced by these activities. Using these assets as stated by the Revised National Curriculum, all the learning outcomes for the Foundation Phase were covered. Literature that relates to the theme of this research study is incorporated to verify the results from this study. The results of this research study suggest that this particular community is rich with potential, opportunities and material to enrich the pre-school learning of children. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

The main goal of this diploma thesis is based on conceptual analysis and empirical research to assess the suitability of the concept of poverty culture (Oscar Lewis) for analyzing the situation of socially excluded people - specifically Roma - in the Czech Republic with emphasis on education. In the first part of the work I will focus on the analysis of key terms and concepts related to racism, ethnicity and especially the culture of poverty. The second part is devoted to the issue of Roma education in the Czech Republic. I will use the knowledge from these parts as a basis for the operationalization of the given conceptual field into a form usable for empirical research. The last part introduces the implementation of a qualitative research probe between teachers and teaching assistants in a selected socially excluded locality, which focuses mainly on their work motivation and approach to socially excluded localities, etc. My research shows that the concept of Oscar Lewis can be applied in a school environment.

The master thesis "Lomnička now and then: Changes of social structure in a village and its reflection in life-worlds of Gypsy children" reconstructs a life in Lomnička together with capturing a change of social structure of inhabitants by creating a past and present picture of the village. A result of the reconstruction is an environment that shows signs of a culture of poverty. This environment sets a base of living space for children in village. In short, it describes problems of the space as well as character of Gypsy family (beliefs, habits, social organization, and relationship to nature) and childhood itself. The aim is to find out how children in Lomnička reflect contemporary environment in their life-worlds. With a help of mental maps, this thesis describes life-world of children in which environment created by family and environment created by church is interconnected. Such a fact is reflected, in children's life-worlds, in positive presentation of their environment and mainly in change of their habits.

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ABSTRACT A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF WORKING URBAN POOR IN ISTANBUL AND GAZiANTEP Neriman A&ccedil / ikalin PhD, Department of Sociology Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sibel Kalaycioglu Eyl&uuml / l, 2004, 242 pages In this study, the aim is to find some indications about urban poverty in Turkey, which recently became a major topic in sociological studies. In order to study this topic, the thesis focuses on working urban poor to be able to examine the effects of the changing labor market. Urban poverty in general, and more specifically the working urban poor, are analysed in three levels, namely macro, mezzo and micro. In the macro level, the effects of great transformations after the 1980&rsquo / s and the new international division of labor, on the emergence of new urban poor is discussed. In the mezzo level, &ldquo / Structural Adjusment Policies&rdquo / as one of the significant impacts of this transformation, which mostly have affected the underdeveleped countries like Turkey is understood. The thesis, however, will mostly focus on the micro aspects of poverty. In the micro level, family and kinship reciprocal relations and mutual ties of solidarity / values and customs about social and economic life / survival strategies / the effects of culture of poverty / and factors of disempowerment are examined. Furthermore, the starting definitions of the urban poor are based on Peter Lloyd&rsquo / s study, which was carried out in Peru. In this context, a field study was carried out in Istanbul and Gaziantep to find out some indications to understand the regional differences of the working urban poor in Turkey. Turkey has also been affected by the conjunctural changes in the world and a new urban poor has been also emerging. In terms of regional differences of working urban poor istanbul labor market reflects the effects of new international division of labour and the structural adjustment policies more than Gaziantep. istanbul has an urban labour market which mainly performs as the periphery of international capital. Urban labour market in Gaziantep however, includes rural and local elements of causal labour as well, besides its links to the new international division of labour. In the micro level, istanbul working urban poor represent more western and urban values, more literacy and higher level of education and more positive attributes to the role of education, better working conditions of casual labour, more feelings of isolation but also more hopeful for future prospects and more motivated for initiating coping mechanisms. On the other hand, Gaziantep working urban poor represent a very complicated and multi-step migration process compared to istanbul migrants and migrant women in Gaziantep tend to work more in pieceworking jobs due to agro-industry. Hence, the thesis argues that to designate urban poverty and more specifically working urban poor in Turkey, regional, cultural factors and dynamics of migration are significant.

Basée sur la méthode d’observation ethnographique suivant une approche emic, cette étude a pour objet l’humanisation de l’espace et l’invention des formes de solidarité à travers les pratiques minimes de la vie quotidienne. Cette recherche a commencé sur le terrain d’Islamâbâd, un quartier auto-construit qui fut d’abord un bidonville, situé en banlieue de Téhéran, habité par une population précaire issue de l’exode rural. Une étude compréhensive a porté sur tous les aspects de la vie de ce quartier. Puis le parcours personnel de la chercheuse l’a conduite à un nouveau terrain, le quartier parisien de Saint Blaise, marqué par de grands ensembles de logements et une population, souvent immigrée, vivant des minimas sociaux. On s’est alors demandé ce qu’il en était de la solidarité et de l’appropriation de l’espace dans la capitale française d’aujourd’hui. Cette recherche a ainsi pris la forme d’une étude comparative des pratiques quotidiennes d’interaction dans deux systèmes étatiques et sociaux aussi différents que l’Iran et la France. Les résultats montrent que les usages de la solidarité, exemplairement la relation don/contre-don, et les efforts d’appropriation de l’espace, sont caractéristiques de ces deux sociétés, en dépit de toutes leurs différences sensibles / Based on the methods of ethnographic observation and according to an emic approach, this study is meant to understand the humanization of space and the invention of the forms of solidarity through the tiny practices of the everyday life. This research started on the field of Islamâbâd, a self constructed community which was initially a shantytown, located in suburbs of Teheran, inhabited by a precarious population resulting from the rural migration. This is a whole study related to all of the aspects of the life of this community. Then the personal experience of the researcher led her to a new field: the Parisian community of Saint Blaise, marked by great public and social housing with an often immigrant population living of the social minimums. One of the questions was about the signification of the solidarity and appropriation of space in the actual situation of French capital. This research thus took the form of a comparative study of the everyday practices of interaction in two official and social systems as different as Iran and France. The results show that the uses of solidarity, particularly the relation “don/contre-don”, and the efforts of appropriation of space, are characteristic of these two societies in spite of all their obvious differences

In this thesis I describe the transformation process of Tepito, the "brave neighbourhood" in Mexico City, from 1960 to the present day. In this microhistory, I intend to explore how the great socio-economic changes, that have occurred in Mexico in the last 60 years, have been reflected locally. I especially focus on the incorporation of the traditional Mexican society into the modern and globalized world; The process of corporatization of the popular sector into the politics of the single party; The transition from the stabilizing development economic model (characterized by the Import substitution industrialization) to neoliberalism; The gradual rupture of the social fabric hastened by the urban planning in the 60s and 70s, the 1985 earthquake and the proliferation of drug trafficking and armed violence; And the beginning of the digital era. I also try to explore the validity of the Culture of Poverty theory which was formulated by the anthropologist Oscar Lewis during his field research in Tepito in the late 50's of the last century and I describe which of the aspects of the theory have changed.