Causes of Poverty:
What is the basic argument of those like Murray and Hernstein who say poverty is inherent in the individual? What is the role of the IQ test in this theory?
How do studies on poor kids who are enrolled in early education programs call this theory into question?
What does the cultural inferiority theory claim to be the cause of poverty? Critics of this theory say that it is backwards: its not that having present time orientation causes poverty, its that poverty and the conditions poor people live in cause present time thinking.
Thinking about what you read in the first part of the chapter; what kind of conditions faced by the poor might cause people to feel trapped, hopeless, and think more about the present than the future?
How does Capitalism as an economic system cause lots of people to be poor? Who benefits from lots of people being poor? How?
Read over the section on Elimination of Poverty. How are the assumptions put forth in that section illustrative of the structural theory of poverty?