Cluster focus

This cluster is integrated into the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), established at UW-Madison in 1966 as the nation's first poverty research center, which hosts an existing group of faculty working on poverty-studies issues. The cluster faculty have not only benefited from the people and resources already working at UW-Madison, but also have brought new ideas for collaborative research and new sources of funding to the institute. These faculty combine both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to help ensure that UW-Madison remains a national leader in poverty studies. Today, one in six children is being raised in poverty. Dramatic changes in antipoverty programs have created new administrative responsibilities for city and state governments. Understanding and confronting poverty requires the best insights from a variety of disciplines and methodologies.

Cluster accomplishments

  • One of the major cluster accomplishments includes a training program for doctoral students in economics, social work, sociology and political science. Forty students participate in this highly regarded and competitive program. A cluster faculty member who is also the IRP associate director for research and training leads the program.
  • The contributions of the cluster faculty were instrumental in the Institute for Research on Poverty’s successful bid for renewal of core funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A recent site-visit review noted the impressive interdisciplinary and multi-method research being undertaken at IRP, with the key participation of cluster faculty.
  • Cluster faculty are taking the lead in two of the three research areas specified under the current three-year award to IRP from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
  • Cluster and other poverty researchers are working with the Wisconsin Bureau of Child Support on a broad range of issues, including implementing and evaluating a child support debt-reduction pilot program in Racine County.
  • A cluster faculty member began a once-a-month lunchtime reading and discussion group on politics, democracy and citizenship for faculty and graduate students in the Department of Political Science.
  • A cluster faculty member organized an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation, “Making the Politics of Poverty and Inequality: How Public Policies are Reshaping American Democracy,” and edited papers from the conference are being published.
  • In addition to numerous refereed publications related to poverty studies, all of the cluster hires have published research in Focus, IRP's widely disseminated general-audience newsletter.
  • A cluster faculty member received the David N. Kershaw Award at the October 2004 conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, which recognizes research on social-welfare policy, public management and labor markets. The award honors people younger than 40 who have made a distinguished contribution to public-policy analysis and management.
  • In late fall 2006, a cluster faculty member was the respondent in a widely attended seminar by Martha Albertson Fineman, the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Emory Law School, whose talk was the second in IRP’s innovative new New Perspectives on Social Policy Seminar Series. Additionally, the cluster faculty member presented a special discussion of Professor Fineman’s talk for poverty-studies graduate students.

Cluster structure

The cluster is part of the larger UW-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty, which consists of about 75 formal affiliate faculty representing a variety of disciplines, including economics, sociology, social work, public policy, political science, human ecology, developmental psychology, educational policy studies, rural sociology, population health sciences and law. The faculty members offer numerous courses each semester related to poverty. Two cluster faculty members also serve on the Institute Executive Committee. All cluster faculty receive research support from the IRP core grant and participate in the intellectual life of the IRP research community. They have also presented their research in the weekly seminar series organized by the institute.

Cluster coordinator, faculty and lead dean

Cluster Coordinator

  • Maria Cancian, IRP Director and Professor, La Follette School for Public Affairs and School of Social Work

Cluster Faculty

Lead Dean