Megan Dudley Soc111 Food/Homeless Quiz

Megan Dudley,  528 Words

Even though the U.S. is a powerful and wealthy country, tons of individuals go without food every day. This is something that has been an increasing problem throughout the years and especially very recently.  The article, "A Decade of Change: Measuring the Extent, Depth and Severity of Food Insecurity" talks about this problem and how they were able to evaluate the severity of this issue. It focuses on predominantly ethnicity and race, whether subjects have children and of course income. The food insecurity issue could be related to the recession in our economy in 2008 and the unemployment rates this caused. Food can be very expensive and without a job obviously there would not be enough for an abundance of food. However food is extremely important and is necessary for life which is why this is a crucial problem. The study looked at surveys done throughout the decade to see what the change was. They found that Black families suffered the most overall. This was consistent whether they had children or not. The study looked at low income levels particularly to be able to truly understand how severe the situation was. The food insecurity levels were much higher in individuals with low income and without children. All patterns indicated a steady increase in food insecurity throughout the decade. Ultimately even though the economy has been steady increasing since the Great Recession, food insecurity levels remain severe. Whether the households had children or not had an impact however it remain constant that low income households suffered the worst. 

The article, "Revisiting the Contact Hypothesis: The Case of Public Exposure to Homelessness" is looking at overall public opinion of homelessness. It looks at people's attitudes about homeless and how it is related to how close you are to homeless. The article focusses on in-group and outgrip ideals about homeless and whether this has an impact of beliefs.  The contact hypothesis suggests that  the more exposure the in group gets to the out group the more likely attitudes turn less negative toward the there and vice versa for either groups. The article shows that as humans  we are often more prejudice against people because we are not exposed  to them or from being ignorant about the topic overall. Once you become exposed to homelessness these prejudices tend to disappear. This is true for generally any group in society. Also just because exposure is high does not mean that prejudices will go away, individuals can still remain stuck in their beliefs regardless of exposure levels. This study uses a national survey to gather the data. They first looked at individuals general attitudes about homelessness. They also looked at television the individuals watched, conversations they had with homeless, jobs, neighborhoods, etc. It was found that overall high exposure leads to more positive ideas about homelessness. This supports the authors hypothesis suggesting that people with lowest exposure have most negative attitudes of homeless and vice versa. Overall more exposure leads to  more positive attitudes.To increase exposure to homeless one could volunteer in a homeless community, they could talk with family and friends, or simply just figure out a way they can become involved and aware.Attitudes about dangerousness  also go down after exposure is increase as well as empathy or compassion going up with more exposure.