Poverty's Counterstories: Debunking Deficit Discourse

• In Event: Poster Session 3
  In Poster Session: Culture and Resilience

Abstract

The purpose of this multiple case study is to understand the lived home, school, and work experiences of successful adults who lived in poverty as children. For participant recruitment purposes only, success is generally defined as producing a legitimate middle class income of $39,736 - $200,000 yearly (Elwell, 2014). Poverty is generally defined as qualifying for reduced or free lunch in school meaning the household income is up to 130% of poverty (e.g. $30,615 for a family of 4 annually) (OTDA, 2014). While poverty and success are often described in monetary terms, they are multi-faceted concepts. For this reason, participants described their personal meanings of poverty and success throughout the study.

Author

• Tiffany M Nyachae, University at Buffalo - SUNY