Listening To The Voices Of Poor Women

The subject of poverty in the United States is one of central concern, with regards to social issues and justice. Its relative invisibility in psychology reflects the discipline's dominant middle-class standpoint. This issue focuses specifically on the voices of poor women in the United States.

Bernice Lott is Professor Emerita of Psychology and Women's Studies at the University of Rhode Island. She received her university's Excellence Award for scholarly achievement and an honorary degree in Humane Letters. She served as president o APA's Division 35, and the Association for Women in Psychology. Among these honors was receipt of the Carolyn Wood Sherif Award. She is the author of numerous theoretical and empirical articles, chapters, and books on social learning, gender, and social issues. Her areas of research interest are interpersonal communication; gender, ethnicity, and social class; and the social psychology of poverty.

Heather Bullock is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She conducts research on classist discrimination and the relationship between attributions for poverty and support for welfare policies. She has a strong interest in public policy and spent a year as an APA Congressional Fellow with the Democratic Office of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. As a legislative fellow, she studied the impact of welfare reform and assisted with the development of antihunger, violence prevention, and early education legislation.