Final is on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 10 am until 1 pm. Talk to me if you need arrangements for more time. It seems like we'll be trying to do two exams--the individual and group. You don't have to arrive early if you think one hour is plenty of time to finish the exam--I have designed it as a 50-minute exam. But we'll try to start the group exam by 11:45 at the latest.

• Corporate welfare (outline page)
  • captive agencies, flows of money, as corporate investment, lobbying industry, relationship between corporate welfare and democracy, examples . . . just the basics
  • Is it welfare?
  • Are corporate welfare and welfare for the poor related? How?
  • What are the special roles of Congress?
• Stigma of poverty and welfare (outline page)--A different dimension here--what do we do with the unsympathetic, stigmatized, stereotyped figures who receive welfare benefits? Is there a relationship between poverty and deviance?
• Relationship between low wage work and welfare (remember that concept mapping exercise. You don't need to re-create that, but that might help you approach thinking about this one)
  • Understand the structural and individualist views surrounding low wage work--what is the logic behind each--can you critically evaluate them?
  • Ehrenreich's last chapter is a must read (outline page). Also, the experiences of just finding low wage work.
  • Shipler and his ideas as well
  • What sorts of human capital would really lead to greater self-sufficiency in the job market?
  • Understand something about the different forms of low-wage work out there (some of the Shipler readings have discussed this)
• Key obstacles faced by working poor--how do they appear next to welfare reform ideology of self-sufficiency and independence, the poor as dependent and unmotivated?
  • What sort of leverage do employers have over low wage, low security employees (how do they keep them working for such low wages, why do the workers stay)?
  • Remember we talked about McDonaldization of work (outline page)--why is this important to the relationship between work and welfare? What about how it affects people's prospects for escaping poverty?
  • We also discussed the concept of a living wage, and household budget math, the definition of the poverty line (and its age and weaknesses . . . ), and other trends taking place that affect work and welfare.
• Social capital, community development (outline page)
  • Can you think of issues or problems that would lend themselves better to one approach or the other (community development versus social services models)?
  • What is social capital? How is it different from human capital? What role can it play in communities? We talked about 'bonding' versus 'bridging' social capital--what are the implications for those hovering between low wage work and welfare--how might social capital affect them (theirs or others)?
  • Be able to illustrate, with respect to welfare, the difference between 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' models. We've discussed welfare bureaucracy and compared it to a more general model of community development.
• Addressing welfare problems, designing a welfare system
• Gladwell's chapter on the KIPP open enrollment schools is instructive as to how education can serve the poor more effectively--understand some of the lessons from that description.
• Annette Lareau's book--we read several chapters during the second half of the term. Be familiar with her argument about how child rearing practices affect children's upbringing, as well as their future opportunities, and their relationship (as well as those of their parents) with various institutions--institutions reflecting middle class values, but dealing with a much wider range of families within society. All kids learn valuable skills, but Lareau sez that some of those skills are more useful for later success in our economy and society than others.
• Social Security--understand how it works, why it faces a looming crisis, what some of the proposed solutions are, and what resistance they may face (and from whom) -- this class discussion went pretty much South, but you'll be expected to know this for the exam.