Browsing by Subject "poverty"
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Item Examining causes of poverty in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa(2009-06-02) Anderson, Garnett Murphy, IISolenopsis invicta, the red imported fire ant, has recently become associated with Antonina graminis, an invasive pest, and Neodusmetia sangwani, biological control agent, and maybe negatively affecting established biological control. A preliminary survey outlined the range of A. graminis and its parasitoids, and found N. sangwani was present at a reduced rate in South Texas and in the southeastern United States. A greenhouse experiment demonstrated that S. invicta decreased the rate of parasitism of A. graminis by N. sangwani, with S. invicta directly interfering with oviposition. Interactions between S. invicta and A. gaminis may be facilitating the spread and establishment of two invasive pests which has a negative impact on established classical biological control of A. graminis by N. sangwani. algorithm, assumptions, and significance level. In addition, two graphs were built from a combination of the data from Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Results show only one variable (birth rate), out of a possible fourteen, to be a possible cause of poverty. This possible causal relationship showed up four times out of the six graphs built. Poverty was actually shown to be a cause of birth rates in two of the graphs that were built. These results also show that the poor do not necessarily benefit from an increase in GDP or an influx of foreign aid as is commonly thought.Item Negotiating the paradoxes of poverty: presidential rhetoric on welfare from Johnson to Clinton(Texas A&M University, 2005-02-17) Carcasson, MartinThis project examines how Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton discussed issues of poverty and welfare from Johnson?s declaration of War on Poverty in 1964 to Clinton?s signing of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996. I argue that there are four critical tensions relevant to the debate concerning contemporary poverty in the United States?politics vs. policy, deserving vs. undeserving, help vs. hinder, and equality vs. freedom?and the key to improving the manner in which the nation confronts the problem of poverty requires understanding and negotiating these tensions. The analysis reveals that the five presidents had a mixed but overall rather poor record in confronting the four paradoxes. In general they tended either to avoid the tensions altogether, or fall to one or the other extreme. That being said, the analysis also reveals that there is considerable common ground concerning some critical issues between all the presidents, whether they were Democrats or Republicans, ideologically moderate or more partisan. Foremost among these are the beliefs that equal opportunity should be the overarching ideal, work should be rewarded well, and those that cannot help themselves should be supported as generously as possible by the government. I conclude that the 1996 law, while based in part on questionable assumptions concerning the condition of the poor, could lead to a significant re-framing of the debate away from the generally unpopular focus on welfare and welfare recipients and toward the working poor and the conditions and difficulties under which they labor, which could potentially lead to other positive transformations beneficial to the American poor.Item Sociospatial Inequality: A Multilevel and Geo-Spatial Analysis of Latino Poverty(2012-02-14) Siordia, CarlosSociology at its core has always been interested in understanding how society works. Previous studies on social stratification have sought to outline who gets what, when, and why. This project introduces the where element to advance our understanding of how resource distribution affects life chances. The research question is: Does the percent of Latinos in the area of residence have an influence on Latino?s individual poverty over and above the influence on poverty of the person characteristics? The study ascertains how micro-level inequality is influenced by macro-level attributes and explores how spatial non-stationarity plays a role in these mechanics. This sociospatial inequality investigation will delineate how individual-level stratifying mechanisms are influenced by context-level structural attributes and how sociospatial non-stationary processes play a role in these mechanics. The dissertation is conceptually driven by Hubert M. Blalock's 1970 theory on minority relationships. Blalock posited the testable hypothesis that discrimination against oppressed groups increases when their population rises. Using theoretical propositions inspired by Blalock leads to the testing of the following two formal hypothesis: the multilevel hypothesis (H1) focuses on macro-level effects, I hypothesize that as the percent of Latinos/as in the area of residence increases, the odds of being in poverty will increase for Latinas/os; on the spatial hypothesis (H2), I hypothesize that the statistical association between percent Latina/o and percent poverty is spatially nonstationary. I find that H1 cannot be falsified. The models reveal, as Blalock predicted, that as the percent of Latinos/as in the area of residence increases, the odds of being in poverty increase for Latinas/os (even after controlling for various level-1, level-2, and GWR-level-2 factors). I also find that H2 could not be falsified. I find that the statistical association between percent Latina/o and percent poverty is spatially nonstationary. My multilevel and spatial modeling investigation was unable to falsify Blalock's minority group threat theory. Hierarchical models indicate that as the percent of Latino/a increases, the likelihood of being in poverty for Latinas/os increases. This statically significant relationship holds constant even after spatial nonstationarity level-2 control factors are introduced.Item The Relationship between Students? Verbal and Nonverbal Test Scores within the Context of Poverty(2013-03-13) Kaya, FatihThe association between intelligence and achievement has been investigated by many researchers, and a moderate to strong correlation between the two has been repeatedly found. Few researchers, however, have studied the intelligence?achievement relationship within the context of poverty. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the verbal and the nonverbal scores of students within the context of poverty. The study investigated how students? verbal and nonverbal scores differentiate by ability levels within each grade, specifically kindergarten through fifth grades. It also focused on gifted fifth grade students, and investigated the relationship between their verbal scores and poverty status. Research questions guiding the study were: (1) What is the relationship between verbal and nonverbal intelligence scores of students from poverty, (2) how does this relationship differ by ability levels within each grade, and (3) what is the relationship between verbal scores and poverty status of fifth grade gifted students? The data was collected and analyzed with quantitative methods. The study had two different samples. The first sample consisted of 1935 kindergarten through fifth graders and was used to answer the first and second research questions. The second sample consisted of 128 gifted fifth grade students and was used to answer the third question. The Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scale (RIAS), the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, Eighth Edition (OLSAT 8), and the Stanford Achievement Test?Tenth Edition (Stanford 10) were used to collect data. The results indicated that students living in poverty, as measured by free- or reduced lunch status, evidenced large gaps between their verbal and nonverbal intelligence scores. The observed gaps were not specific to any grade level or ability level. Rather, all grades from kindergarten through fifth, demonstrated large gaps between their verbal and nonverbal IQ scores. These gaps were even larger for students with higher nonverbal IQ scores. In addition, free or reduced-lunch status was a significant predictor of verbal intelligence scores as well as of achievement scores. In the light of the results, the study discussed the findings and offered implications: Identification and placement processes for gifted and talented students from poverty should be extra cautious given this demonstrated verbal-nonverbal score discrepancy. Verbal abilities should be assessed when placing students into advanced programs given the verbal demands of these programs. While many students with high nonverbal scores may have had the potential to learn, they were not ready to learn due to their lower verbal scores. Therefore, building verbal intelligence of impoverished students with lower achievement scores will make them more likely to be successful in academic coursework that demands high verbal ability.