Addressing Poverty Issues in Christian Schools: Teachers’ Perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of Christian education is to incorporate Biblical values in the curriculum, and one essential message in the Bible is to reach out and liberate the poor. Through interviews, writing protocols, a focus group meeting, and document analysis, this narrative study focuses on the question of how do Christian educators create pedagogical spaces in their classrooms in order to address issues of poverty and connect these issues to Biblical ideas. Important themes that are discussed include teachers’ perspectives of poverty, classroom strategies, and student responses. In the final analysis, a critical framework is implemented to discuss possible obstacles to teaching about poverty to higher socioeconomic students in a Christian environment.