Poverty ideology and participants' experiences

This study examines the connection between poverty eradication and participant experiences. Predominant views of poverty origination oscillate along the poverty ideology paradigm: a conceptualization that represents research conversations on the cause of poverty and strategies for its alleviation, the Contemporary Culture of Poverty, Structural Inequality, and Culture of Poverty with Structural Accountability. Ideology, an individual or entity's theoretical vantage point, establishes the foundation upon which poverty eradication centers develop their services, and engage their participants. I employ a mixed-method qualitative investigation mechanism, focus groups with participants and in-depth interviews with administrators at poverty eradication programs, to view how organizational understandings of poverty origination and production impact participants. As this study was inductive and explorative, it revealed a variety of concepts expressed by participants and administrators including poverty as material and non-material, and the overarching concept personal responsibility.Advisers: Salvador Vidal-Ortiz; Natalia Ruiz-Junco.