Need people to interview for a term paper on Poverty.?

Question

Please e-mail me if I can interview you for my research paper in sociology. The topic of my paper is POVERTY. The title is Poverty Among Working Americans and Possible Solutions. If I can find people to interview I will make up a questionnaire. Please e-mail me at Natasha71684@yahoo and put POVERTY INTERVIEW as the subject. This is an important paper so only serious people only please.

If you can barely make your ends meet and do not see a way out you are a great candidate for this.

If you have been poor or come from a poor family, but you have achieved success you are a great candidate.

Answer 1

i would like to help.i am 78 yrs.old. i learned coming from a family of ten children.and very little to eat.that you learn to be needed in the talents you learn. then you are ready for the work place.and your life starts to improve.you also know comming from this kind of backround not to spend on things you dont need. todays most popular mistake.people in so called poverty choose to be there in my opinion. as for being poor.the only deffinition for poor is lazy.except for some who are not able to handle life as we know it.there will always be those who need help.today to many people make a proffesion out of being poor.again what ever that means.one thing is for sure. if you come up with true deffinition of poverty and poor.and have what it takes to present it.dont expect to be popular or accepted.life is easy.just get a job.and climb up lifes ladder.get rid of those who spend there time pushing that ladder down.but learn to push each other up.up,up.there is no end to how high you can go.if you believe in the god of the bible you can even go that high.the bible also teaches.if you dont work.you dont eat.i lived by that principal all my life.i am where i put myself.not held back by those people who pull others down.stay clear of them.theres a lot of them out there.but it can be done.i proved it.

Answer 2

I don't know if this is the best forum to be asking this question. Visitors to Yahoo! Answers are less likely to be below the poverty line AND over the age of 18, non-student, working (of course, this is just  a generalization - a stereotype, if you will - I could be wrong).

I wouldn't apply for the study, because even though my Tax Return Income each year has always put me below the official poverty line, I do not consider myself "in poverty." I'm just a broke/discarded middle classer. My class orientation is not working-class. I'm more like a starving artist.

But, as for the state of Working America, I would consider myself "Working Poor" (this hasn't always been my state - but it has been this entire decade).  I make $11.00 an hour in Tampa, Florida - I have not completed a lease in over five years, I'm always moving back in with the folks, or taking temporary shelter in a cheap motel, I've never made more than my bills - which has been my fault at times - but a lifetime of this is wearing down on me. I'm downwardly mobile, because I have a Bachelor's Degree and have gotten nowhere in life. I've almost completed my Master's -100% loan funds, which I have no idea how I will pay back. If I had received a Master's Degree when I was younger, perhaps I could have done some good with it. But a lifetime of being broke with a stint of homelessness when I was younger has made me bitter toward those that I would seek as employers. I'm so busy being mad that I would probably just as soon curse them as say, "I'm going to protect the profitability of your company, and here's how." I don't know why I even chose Business as a major. It's particularly unsuited to me. I've been de-classed slowly over a period of time. A lifetime of economic bullshit has made me identify closely with working class movements, so I'm basically a Communist with a Business Degree. I'm at such a weird point in my life right now. Let me just say, life is hard right now and I think that we actually need a social movement to turn things around.

I hope I publish a lot of books, because I don't see a way out of this mess right now.

Answer 3

Hello. I believe you are doing this completely the wrong way. The way you're trying to carry out your research is not correct. The first step is to define your subject, which you have done nicely. Now what you need is to define WHO is working class and what YOU consider poverty. What do you mean by 'solution' (it is too vague). You might want to have a look on a book called 'Europe Against Poverty - The European Poverty Programme 1975-1980'. You can use the book as a context book so it doesnt matter if youre a US citizen.  It will also help you to OPERATIONALIZE your concepts of class and poverty and make the solution part more specific. Just remeber that it is NOT your job as a sociology student to offer solutions. Its one thing to do social research and a completely different thing to formulate social policies. Another social scientist you might want to have a look at is Peter Townsend.

Do not attempt to acquire a stratified sample if your research is QUANTITATIVE. The 'strength' of statistical analysis comes from having a random sample.

Now, if your research is QUALITATIVE your best chance is to visit a welfare office and get some info about poverty in your area (city, state, etc). I dont know how serious this research is but you also might need an ETHICS form filled out and signed from your school/Uni. Once you get that, you can actually request the help of your local welfare office in bringing you in touch with poor people.

Looking for poor people on yahoo is a little bit redundant...people that 'can barely make your ends meet ' wont spend time on the net or yahoo.

Also, dont you have some kind of supervisor/professor that could point you to the right direction?

Last but not least, you are making a tragic mistake with the questionnaire. The questionnaire should be ready BEFORE you acquire your sample. It is a part of the research design. Think about the nature of the questionnaire - whether you want it to be semi-structured i.e. allow him to express herself but keep the interview under control by asking/leading him on the issues you believe are more important. Or have a completelety open-ended interview with your interviewee i.e. let him do most of the talking and lead the dialogue - albeit this is quite difficult for a 'rookie' researcher.

My advice to you is to identify the most critical issues and create a semi-structured questionnaire based on these. Test (pilot) the questionnaire before you use it and note the time needed to be carried out and any inconsistencies. Think about 'time' very seriously. People would start getting tired after 45mins to 1hour, so try to make your questionnaire short and to the point.

Please have a look on the books I mention below for further help...you MUST read Bourdieu's book! Also dont forget to read 'The Sociological Imagination' by C. Wright Mills and Emile Durkheim's 'Rules of Sociological Method'.

Good luck and let me know if you need further help!

Answer 4

I will be more than happy to help you with your paper.. send me a message and I will then send you my e-mail addy.,.. I don't post that on here and I have nothing handy to write yours down. At the present time I am not working though I do try to occasionally but I would be happy if I could make ends meet ..it's that bad..feel free to write me...