Poverty Research & Policy

In this episode we hear from Jacob Faber of New York University about a federal government program called the Home Owners' Loan Corporation that started in the 1930s and how the decisions made in that program promoted residential segregation that is still with us today.

The goal of reducing incarceration has been gaining traction for at least the last decade in the United States. In an interview we did with sociologist Pamela Oliver in late 2020, she talked about how we got to where we are today when it comes to U.S. imprisonment (Part 1) and the impact that different reforms would have on reducing the U.S. prison population (Part 2).

The interview is based on a paper Professor Oliver wrote for the Marquette Law Review (Volume 103, Issue 3).

The goal of reducing incarceration has been gaining traction for at least the last decade in the United States. In an interview we did with sociologist Pamela Oliver in late 2020, she talked about how we got to where we are today when it comes to U.S. imprisonment and the impact that different reforms would have on reducing the U.S. prison population. This is part 1 of the interview.

The interview is based on a paper Professor Oliver wrote for the Marquette Law Review (Volume 103, Issue 3).

In this episode, Carolyn Heinrich of Vanderbilt University talks about a study she conducted with Jennifer Darling-Aduana, Annalee Good, and Huiping (Emily) Cheng that looked at the use of online education products in high schools to help students who were falling behind. Heinrich describes her team's observations of online course-taking and the longer-term academic and labor market outcomes of students in online settings versus those in traditional instruction. They find that, on average, students who took more credit recovery courses in online settings generally fared worse. Heinrich says that this raises equity concerns and asks if we are "disadvantaging the exact students we're trying to help in the way we roll this out?"

To learn more about the study, the instruments used in classroom observation, and related publications, see https://my.vanderbilt.edu/digitaled/.

In this episode we hear from Eleanor Pratt, a grant writer with the Heartland Alliance and recent graduate of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Pratt talks about the importance of developing writing and editing skills, what she's learned from her experiences, and the challenge of doing anti-poverty work.

For the first episode of the Anti-Poverty Intern, host Simon Guma talks to UW–Madison PhD candidate Troy M. Williams. They discuss Williams' path to pursuing a PhD at UW–Madison's School of Human Ecology, advice for students and researchers who are engaging with members of their communities, and the challenges of working in institutions that still have a lot of work to do when it comes to issues of race.

In this episode we hear from economist Eric Chyn about the impact of home removal—for reasons like neglect or abuse—on children's later outcomes. In a paper he co-wrote with Anthony Bald, Justine Hastings, and Margarita Machelett, their perhaps surprising main result is that temporary home removal increases later test scores and reduces grade repetition for young girls, but doesn't show any significant impacts for young boys.

Dr. Chyn is an assistant professor of economics at Dartmouth College and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper he talks about in this episode is NBER working paper number 25419 "The Causal Impact of Removing Children from Abusive and Neglectful Homes."

View transcript at https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/eric-chyn-on-the-impacts-of-removing-children-from-abusive-or-neglectful-homes/

In this episode, IRP and Morgridge Center for Public Service media intern Simon Guma talks to Troy M. Williams. They discuss Williams' path to pursuing a PhD at UW-Madison's School of Human Ecology, advice for students and researchers who are engaging with members of their communities, and the challenges of working in institutions that still have a lot of work to do when it comes to issues of race.

In this episode, Stephanie Canizales of the University of California, Merced discusses her work talking to undocumented and unaccompanied youth workers in Los Angeles about their experiences and struggles with work and social integration in the United States.

Read the transcript at https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/stephanie-canizales-on-the-experiences-of-undocumented-and-unaccompanied-youth-workers/

Mario Luis Small of Harvard University talks about social networks and social capital and about some of his work looking at those things in the context of programs like Head Start.

Read the transcript at https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/mario-small-on-how-social-networks-and-social-capital-matter-for-human-services-programs/