Poverty continues to be a significant public health crisis across the United States, and its impact is particularly prevalent among school-aged youth and their families. Many K–12 educators do not fully understand the realities associated with living in poverty. Such a lack of understanding impacts teachers’ ability to meet the unique educational needs of students experiencing poverty and develop positive teacher–student relationships. This article sets the stage for further discussion on the lack of quality training, education, and professional development for teachers on poverty. The authors propose a model for professional development aimed at increasing empathy and understanding among K–12 educators through experiential learning tools such as the Community Action Poverty Simulation. The article concludes with an in-depth discussion on implications for future practice and a call to action for school social workers to bring innovative solutions to their campuses that pull from their educational background in advocacy and social justice to enhance teacher training through an interdisciplinary approach.
Current welfare policies denying additional benefits to women who have children while on assistance are premised on the idea that the giving of aid causes reproduction, an idea that has its origins in earlier debates over aid policy. This paper examines ideas concerning the relationship of public aid policy to reproduction by its recipients in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century England, and the influence of these ideas on the poor law policy of the period. The thoughts of leading theorists on this relationship, such as early political economists Joseph Townsend and Thomas Robert Malthus, are analyzed. This examination shows that these theorists asserted that the giving of aid led to reproduction by its recipients. Further analysis of proposed and enacted policies, particularly the Poor Law Reform of 1834, shows that these ideas asserting a relationship between poor relief and reproduction appear to have influenced policy in this era.
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