Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Poverty books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
- 1. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2017)
- 2. Teaching With Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids’ Brains and What Schools Can Do About It (2009)
- 3. A Framework for Understanding Poverty – A Cognitive Approach (Sixth Edition) (2018)
- 4. A Framework for Understanding Poverty; A Cognitive Approach (Out of Print) (2013)
- 5. Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap (Multicultural Education Series) (2017)
- 6. Experiencing Poverty: Voices from the Bottom (2nd Edition) (2008)
- 7. Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind: Practical Strategies for Raising Achievement (2013)
- 8. When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself (2014)
- 9. The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives (2014)
- 10. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (2017)
1. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2017)
In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is…
2. Teaching With Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids’ Brains and What Schools Can Do About It (2009)
In Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids’ Brains and What Schools Can Do About It, veteran educator and brain expert Eric Jensen takes an unflinching look at how poverty hurts children, families, and communities across the United States and demonstrates how schools can improve the academic achievement and life readiness of economically disadvantaged students. Jensen argues that although chronic exposure to poverty can result in detrimental changes to the brain, the brain’s very ability to adapt from experience means that poor children can also experience emotional,…
3. A Framework for Understanding Poverty – A Cognitive Approach (Sixth Edition) (2018)
New Chapters on the Brain, Intersectionality, and Parents Simple, proven strategies that schools can start using today With a view through an economic lens that has only become sharper and more focused since its initial publication in 1995, Framework s premise is unchanged: Middle-class understandings of children and adults in poverty are often ill-suited for connecting with people in poverty and helping them build up the resources to rise out of poverty and into self-sufficiency. Nearly 25 years and 1.8 million copies later, innumerable individuals and groups have…
4. A Framework for Understanding Poverty; A Cognitive Approach (Out of Print) (2013)
2014 Revere Awards – Golden Lamp WinnerWhen viewed through an economic lens, poverty can be defined as an absence of resources. Since 1995, Framework’s basic premise is that the middle-class understandings of those who work with children and adults in poverty are often ill-suited for connecting with and helping people build up resources and rise out of poverty. Now, 18 years and 1.5 million copies later, Framework: A Cognitive Approach has been revised, updated and expanded. The 5th edition features an enhanced chapter on instruction and achievement; greater emphasis on the thinking,…
5. Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap (Multicultural Education Series) (2017)
This influential book describes the knowledge and skills teachers and school administrators need to recognize and combat bias and inequity that undermine educational engagement for students experiencing poverty. The Second Edition features two new chapters―“Embracing a Structural View of Poverty and Education: Ditching Deficit Ideology and Quitting Grit” and “Cultivating School Change through Equity Literacy: Commitments and Strategies for School and District Leaders”―plus extensive revisions throughout based on newly available research and lessons from the author’s…
6. Experiencing Poverty: Voices from the Bottom (2nd Edition) (2008)
This collection of readings provides the voice, the presence, and the perspective of the poor who live on the margins and are generally invisible to the middle and upper classes. The goals of this reader are twofold: (1) to bring the realities of the lives of the impoverished as close to the reader as possible (2) to get the reader to listen carefully to these voices of the poor in order to enhance their understanding of:…
7. Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind: Practical Strategies for Raising Achievement (2013)
In this galvanizing follow-up to the best-selling Teaching with Poverty in Mind, renowned educator and learning expert Eric Jensen digs deeper into engagement as the key factor in the academic success of economically disadvantaged students. Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind reveals * Smart, purposeful engagement strategies that all teachers can use to expand students’ cognitive capacity, increase motivation and effort, and build deep, enduring understanding of content. * The (until-now) unwritten rules for engagement that are essential for…
8. When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself (2014)
Poverty is much more than simply a lack of material resources, and it takes much more than donations and handouts to solve it. When Helping Hurts shows how some alleviation efforts, failing to consider the complexities of poverty, have actually (and unintentionally) done more harm than good. But it looks ahead. It encourages us to see the dignity in everyone, to empower the materially poor, and to know that we are all uniquely needy—and that God in the gospel is reconciling all things to himself. Focusing on both North American and Majority World contexts, When Helping Hurts provides proven strategies for…
9. The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives (2014)
Fifty years after Michael Harrington published his groundbreaking book The Other America, in which he chronicled the lives of people excluded from the Age of Affluence, poverty in America is back with a vengeance. It is made up of both the long-term chronically poor and new working poor—the tens of millions of victims of a broken economy and an ever more dysfunctional political system. In many ways, for the majority of Americans, financial insecurity has become the new norm.The American Way of Poverty shines a light on this travesty. Sasha Abramsky brings the effects of economic inequality out of the shadows and, ultimately,…
10. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (2017)
Co-Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial PrizeA New York Times Notable Book of the YearA New York Times Book Review Editors’ ChoiceA Wall Street Journal Favorite Book of the YearA Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the YearA Publishers Weekly Favorite Book of the YearIn the United States today, one in every thirty-one adults is under some form of penal control, including one in eleven African American men. How did the “land of the free” become the home of the world’s largest prison system? Challenging the belief that America’s prison…
Best Poverty Books: The Ultimate Collection
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Genesis and download some poverty books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism
Author(s): Muhammad Yunus
ID: 2296862, Publisher: PublicAffairs, Year: 7 Dec 2007, Size: 2 Mb, Format: epub
The Fight Against Poverty and the Right to Development
Author(s): Mads Andenas, Jeremy Perelman, Christian Scharling
ID: 2888715, Publisher: Springer International Publishing;Springer, Year: 2021, Size: 5 Mb, Format: pdf
Broke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending US Poverty
Author(s): Colleen Shaddox and Joanne Samuel Goldblum
ID: 2909056, Publisher: , Year: 2021, Size: 29 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are really chart-busters according to USA Today, others are composed by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant resources you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.