The Pedagogy of Poverty: Instructional and Technological Challenges

Poverty is discussed here from pedagogical and therefore instructional perspectives. It is analyzed in novel ways, seeing charities as environments wherein adult learning occurs. Charities are shown as overlooked “adult learning institutions” that “instruct” the poor by conveying to them (indirectly through the type of aid offered and the conditions for obtaining aid) by using three ideologies of poverty: ontological, epistemological, and axiological. Ideology 1 presents poverty as an ontological (tangible) matter of limited (real or digital) resources—some of the tangibly poor have access to the Internet (to unlimited digital resources), being digitally nonpoor but tangibly poor. Ideology 2 portrays poverty as an epistemological (cognitive) issue of limited abilities—some poor people (with access to the Internet and therefore to unlimited, free-of-charge learning opportunities) have exploited these opportunities to gain skills. Ideology 3 paints poverty as an axiological (value-based) lack of valuing poverty—although some poor people have positive attitudes towards poverty, their access to the Internet (to the lifestyle of the wealthy) has made them reconsider their attitudes. Being influenced by these ideologies, the poor perceive poverty (a) as limited resources and therefore as external to them, thereby feeling disempowered; (b) as limited skills and thus as internal to them, therefore feeling empowered; or (c) as a positive value and accordingly take no action. Previous works discuss the potential of adult learning to break the cycle of poverty, whereas this article demonstrates that adult learning can encourage individuals to remain poor and value their status of being poor.