Welcome to Understanding and Solving Poverty and Inequality

Welcome to the course!

Poverty and inequality are key challenges facing governments owing to the impact they have on individuals throughout their life. What can we do about this?

Over the next three weeks, we will look at:

• Poverty: history of the concept, a global look at the issue, a focus on child poverty in the UK, an exploration of why it matters
• Inequality: history of the concept, a global look at the issue, a focus on health inequalities in the UK, an exploration of why it matters
• Solving Social problems: a look through the lens of different perspectives.

Please note that active tutor facilitation is limited to the number of teaching weeks from when the course run started. Please do not therefore expect any further tutor engagement from beyond then, although you are very welcome to continue to work through the course materials in a self-directed fashion from that point.

Learning outcomes

As we work through the materials and activities, we will enable you to:

• Explain the concepts of poverty and inequality
• Present an overview of the two concepts from a historical perspective
• Engage with key critical and theoretical arguments about both concepts
• Reflect on why both concepts are important
• Explore these insights to offer solutions from multiple perspectives as to how we might solve such issues.