World’s richest 1% own 40% of all wealth
A new study on The World Distribution of Household Wealthby the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) launched on Tuesday 5 December 2006.
I know that was 10 months ago, but I’ve only just seen it.
I’m talking to some year 9 students about wealth and poverty next week so I was looking for resources and this report comes with a whole bunch of useful resources:
World Institute for Development Economics Research
Has anyone else been teaching on this subject to a large group? I’ll let you know how it goes. I’d be interested to hear anyone else’s experiences too.
Hi Dave – this is a very blunt instrument, but have you see this: http://www.globalrichlist.com/
According to that, I’m in the top 0.94% of the wealthiest people in the world.
Also there is this issue of New Internationalist.
Of course, that probably doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t know already, Dave.
Thanks for these, Joe.
Yep – globalrichlist is a great education tool – beautifully simple and to the point.
And the NI article is really nice too – I’ll leave a copy with the teachers in case they want to follow it up.
I wanted an activity that could be done quickly and helps them experience the reality of poverty without needing too much debriefing.
I’m going to break the 300 kids up into their 11 form classes and then divide up 300 minties between them as the world’s wealth is divided: 210 to the top group, 38 to the next, 20 to the next … 1 between the bottom 3 groups. And let them think about whether they want to redistribute the minties, and if so, how they might go about it.
I’ve done it with TimTams in a church before and it gave a few people something to think about, and encouraged most people towards healthy action. I haven’t done it with a group this large before, or of this age, and I’m not allowed to take chocolate biscuits into a school anymore.
I’m keen to hear how people will think it will go, or what else I might try. I’m doing it on Wednesday.
And thanks for mistaking me for Dave 🙂 I’ll take that as a compliment! There’s a bunch of us who are supposed to be writing here but Dave is certainly the most prolific.
Ralph -> Ralph Reilly ralph.blue at gmail.com
Sorry Ralph, I forgot to check who wrote the post. Let me know how you get on with the class.