1. Keeping on the issue of affordable housing, listen to the podcast There Goes The Neighborhood, Episode 1: “Mouth To Ear”. This podcast was created specifically in response to the decline of affordable housing in New York City. Compare the ideas of gentrifications and the lack of affordable housing in this podcast to what you know about income inequality from the chapter.

2. Work with a group of classmates to construct a basic, needs-oriented budget for a family of a specified size (e.g., 2 adults and 2 children or 1 adult and 3 children) for a month. Consider the estimated cost of rent or a mortgage, transportation, communication, food, clothing, school supplies, electricity, and so forth. When you have created an estimated budget, multiply it by 12 to determine how much your hypothetical family would need to meet its basic needs for a year. Compare your calculation with the government’s poverty threshold. Do your calculations suggest that the government’s estimate of what a family needs to cover basic needs is too low, too high, or about right?

3. Using the online version of a national newspaper such as the New York Times or the Washington Post, do a keyword search for “income inequality” (both sites provide a search engine). Choose an article or two and read it carefully. Does the article highlight any of the trends discussed in the chapter? Does it offer something new on the topic that was not covered? Share your findings with a classmate or the group or write a paragraph to situate your findings in the context of the chapter material on income inequality.

4. Carefully read the Inequality Matters box on child labor in the 21st century and organize a debate on the topic. Begin by determining at what age children can work in the United States. Does this differ by states? If so, how? Some students should research arguments advocating a need for child labor (working at family-owned businesses, farm work during harvest time, etc.), while others should research arguments against allowing children to work under any circumstances. While the debaters discuss the issue, others should observe and take notes. Assuming the role of decision makers at the state or national level, the observers should assess the arguments and come to a decision, offering justification for their choice to allow children to work in the United States.

5. Make a map of the town and city surrounding your college or university. Mark on the map all the places where you can get food of any kind. For each of these food locations, add a symbol if that location provides “competitively priced, healthy, and fresh food.” Are there any food deserts in your community? Are these two types of food places equally distributed? How well does public transportation in your community provide people the opportunity to shop at the locations providing “competitively priced, healthy, and fresh food?” Why do you think there are or are not food deserts in your community versus other communities?

6. With a group of your peers, each make a list of your personal statuses, both ascribed and achieved. Compare your lists. Which of your statuses carry the most influence? In what type of situations do your statuses matter more or less? Do you get advantages or disadvantages versus your peers based on your statuses?

7. Examine a week’s worth of stories from the print or online editions of a major U.S. newspaper (be sure to check each section of the paper, not just the front page). Track each news article that is about another country. If there are several different articles about the same event, count each article separately. List the name of the other country discussed in the article and what the article is about. At the end of the week, examine the list and group the articles by country. Are there patterns in what types of countries are discussed (high, upper middle, lower middle, and low-income)? Are the topics of the articles the same for the different types of countries? What overall message are these stories conveying about the similarities/differences between high, upper middle, lower middle, and low-income countries?

8. With a group of peers, have each of you write down from memory all the countries you believe are in Europe, Asia, Africa, Central America, and South America. Compare your lists to each other and to an actual map of these places. Discuss which regions’ countries you know better. Why are you more familiar with these regions geographically? Discuss what you know about the culture, history, and social institutions of these regions. Do you know more about the places you are more geographically familiar with? Why? What are the personal consequences for you of being more aware of some countries and regions than others? What are the global consequences of the people in some societies having higher awareness levels of some countries and regions than other?

9. Listen to the This American Life Podcast, Episode 503: “I Was Just Trying to Help”. You only need to listen to the “Prologue” and “Act 1: “Money for Nothing and Your Cows for Free.” What is your initial reaction to organizations like Heifer International and Give Directly? What conclusions can you reach based on what you know about global poverty from the chapter and this podcast? At this point do you think it is more effective to give money directly to the poor in developing countries like Give Directly? Why or why not?

10. Based on the previous question, visit the websites of Heifer International and Give Directly. Pick one campaign each organization is currently working on and list the benefits and weaknesses of each. Make sure to use a sociological perspective and not one based on personal opinion. What is a project that you would find yourself eventually participating in or replication locally? Explain.

12. The text gives an overview of modernization, dependency, and world systems theory in relationship to the case of Nigerian Oil Wealth. Watch the documentary Big Men (PBS, 2014) and and/or peruse the documents on the film. After watching the film or looking at the online resources for the film what theory do you think applies best to this conflict over global resources in this poor nation? Do you better understand the term “resource curse,” or the idea that a poor or developing nation has a natural resource (in this case, oil) that other rich, more developed countries want? Apply the concept “resource curse” to your analysis here.