In an earlier issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy, we published an article critical of the Ruby Payne phenomena sweeping workshops for teachers, social workers, and human service providers across the country. Our author cautioned readers about the return of language that conceptualizes issues like poverty in a deficit mode, once again seeing the issue as a problem with the individual rather than a set of systemic problems found in the larger social order. We invite authors to reexamine our thinking about the intractable issues associated with poverty in this country. How should teachers and other human service providers think about issues of poverty? What are the advantages and disadvantages in conceptualizing the problem one way or another? What do students who are preparing to become teachers or human service providers need to know and understand about the lives of their students and clients. What should we be teaching them?

We welcome articles that provide historical perspectives, social and political analyses, views on the economics of poverty, examination of research, and conceptual and philosophical analyses.

We are also seeking views by classroom teachers and their experiences.

MANUSCRIPTS DUE: DECEMBER 31, 2007
PUBLICATION DATE: SUMMER 2008