This article describes the development and use of a rapid evaluation approach to meet program accountability and learning requirements in a research for development program operating in five developing countries. The method identifies clusters of outcomes, both expected and unexpected, happening within areas of change. In a workshop, change agents…

In 2007, New York City launched the first test of a conditional cash transfer program in the United States. Called Family Rewards, the program sought to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty by offering cash assistance to poor families to reduce immediate hardship, but conditioned this assistance on families' efforts to improve their…

Through a year-long study of welfare-to-work students in the community college CalWORKs program, we investigated what self-authorship development looks like by examining developmental progress, and whether there are patterns in development along the three dimensions of self-authorship. Findings demonstrate progress toward self-authorship, but…

Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have two main objectives: reducing poverty and increasing the human capital of children. To reach these objectives, transfers are given to poor households conditioned on investments in their children's education, health, and nutrition. Targeting mechanisms used by CCTs have been generally successful in…

Objective: To examine the effectiveness of learner-centered education in conveying the message to change participants' fruit and vegetable consumption. Design: Focus groups were conducted with sites participating in the Finding the Teacher Within (FTW) program and comparison sites 4-6 months after participants attended the Special Supplemental…

The first thing many learn about international poverty measurement is that European nations apply a "relative" poverty threshold and that they also do a better job of reducing poverty. Unlike the European model, the "absolute" U.S. poverty threshold does not increase in real value when the nation's standard of living rises,…

This paper addresses a key methodological challenge in the modeling of individual poverty dynamics--the influence of measurement error. Taking the US and Britain as case studies and building on recent research that uses latent Markov models to reduce bias, we examine how measurement error can affect a range of important poverty estimates. Our data…

A first glance at almost any policy document generated by a bilateral or multilateral donor agency reveals a familiar rhetoric of participation, partnership, community, good governance, growth and strong democracy as key ingredients for a successful development program. While some critics of this rhetoric argue that this is merely a recasting of…

Although the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (EOA) created other programs, the most controversial one, and the one with which the antipoverty program came to be identified, was the Community Action Program (CAP). This bibliography covers materials about the formation and operation of Community Action Agencies themselves, usually involving such…

Unemployment insurance is the principal income program for workers who lose their jobs, however, it does not provide adequate income, nor does it provide for all unemployed persons. Because many different programs are operated for this purpose, they tend to have a fragmented effect and leave many unemployed persons with no income support. This…

This paper details the structure and eligibility criteria for the two largest public child care subsidy programs in Minnesota, the Minnesota Family Investment Program Statewide (MFIP-S) and the Basic Sliding Fee Program (BSF). These programs assist low-income families to pay for child care in order for parents to work, search for a job or…

Compares social reform strategies in Britain and America. Illustrates how programs in both countries had similar difficulties, including diffusion of research findings, clarification of objectives, and political manipulation of social research. (SK)

THE NEIGHBORHOOD YOUTH CORPS (NYC), A PART OF THE WORK-TRAINING PROGRAM AUTHORIZED BY THE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 1964, FIRST ENROLLED YOUTH DURING THE LATTER PART OF DECEMBER 1964. THIS REPORT COMPARES SOME OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIRST 50,000 ENROLLEES AND THEIR HOUSEHOLDS TO THE GENERAL CATEGORY OF POVERTY-STRICKEN HOUSEHOLDS…

This comparison of antipoverty strategies in Britain (Urban Programme) and the United States (War on Poverty) highlights their similar conceptions of the nature of the problem, differences in approach and implementation, and the contrasting political cultures of American community activism and British socialism. (SK)