Poverty: Methodology Findings And Discussion (Dissertation Sample)

POVERTY
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Table of contents
Declaration…………………………………………………………………………………..…….3
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………4
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………….5
Literature review………………………………………………………………………………......6
Methodology findings and discussion………………………………………………………..…...8
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………..…18
Declaration
I neither make a declaration that this dissertation is my original work and that the contents are not partially nor in verbatim copied from any other source written by any other person. I also declare that this dissertation has neither been presented in part nor in full by me or anyone to any institution for academic purposes. All ethical factors have been considered in this write-up. I have referenced all other sources used as references in the writing of this dissertation, and their contents are also acknowledged.
Abstract
This dissertation discusses poverty in different ways as it is manifested in the photo elicitations with children of five to seven years in London. Some photographs are analyzed carefully based on the feelings about poverty that they evoke. The dissertation construes the effects of poverty and the different ways that it affects lives of the people who cannot afford the decent life. Children from the low-income families cannot afford proper clothing and are unhappy, a condition brought about by difficult life conditions that their families face. On the other hand children from well-off families dress well, look healthy, and this depicts the general lifestyle that affluent families lead. The dissertation further elucidates the constraints that the low-income families face and the rift between the poor and the rich regarding their residential areas, the places where they spend their holidays, vehicles that they ride and propensity to spend on recreational amenities. It seeks to derive by reason that, life lead by the poor people is very distinctive from that of their wealthy counterparts and this is brought about by the availability of resources.
Introduction
Building on the seminal of Charles Lingard of 2012 ‘The poverty and the lifestyle of people whose families are penury stricken,’ poverty is a condition resource inadequacy and it its effects can physically manifest in the lives of the poor people as the photographs elicit. This dissertation aims at logically deducing the feelings on poverty as portrayed by the pictures, the differences in the lifestyles that the poor and the rich people lead and the general view of luxurious life as explained by the London children. Photo-elicitation is the use of single or sets of photographs as the stimulus to trigger attitudes, opinions and investigate group dynamics to examine the lives of children in London. This concept seems to have been of particular use when working with the kids and young people. The use of photos elicits attitudes and beliefs about potential careers, and such an approach was found to be valuable for evaluations of poverty in London among children aged 5-6 years old.
Photo-elicitation within the sociology of children helps to grasp the viewpoints and social world of young people. Substantially, the photos provide strikingly descriptive data and the potential of this data is well beyond the visual content of the photograph. Photo-elicitation can be used to investigate the phenomenon in some ways most commonly identifying the poverty level of 5-7-year-old children in London. Moreover, the photo of 5-7-year-old children in London encourages discussion of experiences and abstract concepts to probe how they define their world and retrieve information. Many children in developing countries younger than five years are exposed to multiple risks such as poverty, poor health, and malnutrition. Photos viewed are connected with the moment in time whereby ideas, emotions, and thoughts are expressed to offer opportunities which make photographic methods highly compatible with participatory research for the purpose of the social action. This popular technique provides robust evaluation and enhances the level of reciprocity as well as positive feelings towards poverty levels in London. Therefore, poverty is all about lacking the resources to participate fully in society.
Literature review
It is clear that Charles Lingard’s work of 2012 in his book, ‘Poverty and lifestyle-Photo elicitation’ is put into a clear perspective there exist differences between the poor and the rich regarding the lifestyles that they both lead. But, “the biggest determinant is poverty levels between these two groups,” Lingard writes on page 275 in his book. It is six years since, and now his research is extended in this dissertation to give in-depth comprehension on poverty by emotions and feelings that photos evoke. He wrote, “poverty levels dictates the lifestyle and the poor people are compelled to restrict their lives within their economic capacities,” page 279. Similarly, this dissertation reaffirms the finding made by Lingard that poverty affects learning and development of children which in the long run as they are deprived of some privileges that their counterparts from wealthy families enjoy.
Low-income families would not prefer to spend much of their resources of recreational activities instead they prefer to spend all their income on food and shelter and the remainder on clothing and school expenses for their children. These findings are consistent with Lingard’s findings that, “Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs is extended to the extent in which each fulfills his/her needs irrespective of the level of requirements.” All the people would like to live in luxurious apartments, ride classy cars and even spend time on the picnic in magnificent sceneries but poverty always stands out as the limiting factor.
According to the report that was released in 2013 by the United Nations on global poverty indices, there is a constant widening of the rift between economically challenged African and Asian families versus many stable European and American families, (United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, 2015, p.318). The report pointed some reasons that have contributed to this phenomenon which include historical injustices done to the predecessor of the current struggling generations environmental factors. Colonialism in Africa stands out as the main reason behind absolute poverty that the citizens are facing. Most of the resources have not been utilized efficiently, and there are little or no efforts in place to make use of the available natural wealth so as to improve the living standards of the citizens. Illiteracy has also magnificently contributed to the current poverty that African countries experience. The United Nations reports further clarify that 53% of children in sub-Saharan Africa do not attend formal education institutions as they grow and this has significantly affected their chances to compete in the sophisticated contemporary environment. People are still embracing old ways of life and there so little motivation to adopt new technologies, education systems, and innovation. Asian countries like Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Thailand are still challenged in the fight against poverty as most of their citizens live below one dollar a day, the minimum expenditure per person as set by the United Nations. Modern apartments that are equipped with all the facilities are not common in Africa and Asia countries; they are only constructed in cities and major towns. Corruption is another factor that is pushing citizens of most of the countries into the extremes of poverty as public funds are siphoned from economies only to benefit a few individuals in power.
As the population of these countries increases, persons with low income becomes poorer since the initially vast fields that were available for cultivation and herding keeps on reducing. Vision 2030 is set in a way as to ensure that every person in the world access all the necessary requirements to live considerably modest life and this include living above the set minimum expenditure per person by the United Nations of one dollar, (Scott, 2012, p.241). The last picture in the photo elicitation shows residential houses that are packed together and do not seem to be spacious enough as compared to the last apartment that is equipped with an orchard and even a swimming pool. The elicited a feeling in the children is that these houses are for the poor people who cannot affor...