1. Academic backgrounds:
During the years of undergraduate education, I have taken courses in the areas of social work including micro and macro level, e.g. Introduction to Social Work, System of Social Welfare, Social Policy, Social Casework, Social Group Work, Community Work, and Social Work Administration etc. These curriculums let me acquire necessary background knowledge. In my first two years, two courses of Social Welfare & Social Policy introduce me to learn needs of human being and poverty. Reading in the field and oral presentations in classes aided me in better understanding of the contents.

Along with these courses, I had complemented an internship in nursing home for one semester. From this internship, practical experiences that I have gained improve me to act initiatively with dealing with unexpected problems and adapt quickly to new situations. It also taught me the importance of teamwork and developed my communication skills.

2. Research field：
Risk and adversity always accompany the human development in this imperfect world, such as poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. The emergence of social work is relative with these. Accordingly poverty reduction is concerned by social work all through. As I have been in Shanghai, the important metropolis in China, for five years, urban issues appeals to me immensely. During my graduate studies, I aim to study the issue of urban poverty and intimately involve in every aspect of research, from proposal to data collection and analysis, thinking more critically, to learn how to be a researcher.

After the liberation of People's Republic of China in 1949，the Chinese government reduces inequality through narrow ranges of earned income and wants to eradicate problems of extensive poverty in the country. All the citizens with working ability should have an occupation and enjoy heavily subsidized benefits and welfare services provided by work units. Therefore, before the second half of the1990s, it is only absolute poverty in rural areas and remote mountainous regions. The anti-poverty policies mainly focus on the rural areas, whiles ignore poverty in cities. The relief program is only for three “No” s: those with no stable source of income, no ability work and no relatives to depend on.

Nevertheless under the rapid marketing-oriented economic reforms, the state-owned enterprises and collective-owned enterprises which are traditionally the sources of employment have broken, and lay-offs, the unemployed are becoming more widespread; the hukou system which restrict population floating between rural and urban areas began to relax and the number of migrants from rural areas to cities are sharply growing. They work hard to contribute to urban prosperity as an important component of de facto urban population；The income gap between rich and poor has widen rapidly, and strengthens the trend of social polarization; the perception of poverty has changed: in the past it is thought to be shortfall of income which can not satisfy basic physical needs. Now the conception is extend to lack of resources and powerlessness, linking with social exclusion. These are all the dominant factors contributing to urban poverty.

Nowadays the issue of urban poverty has been received more attention from the Chinese officials and researchers. It’s the key problem of poverty alleviation in China and the reasons are as below:（1）Current new urban poverty is different saliently from old urban poor. Some surveys indicate that traditional three “No” s are less in numbers. Most poor population living in the cities recently are consisted of lay-offs, the unemployed, migrants from rural areas, retiree, and other marginal groups who are excluded by the social mainstream. Especially the poor rural migrants are more vulnerable than permanent residents. The hukou system prevents them from welfare and subsidize of urban areas. They have higher expenditure in housing and are lack of social security;（2）Large number of data suggest that people living in the low standard in cities are growing year by year, over half of poor population are in urban areas, much larger than rural areas;（3）Both unequal earned income of different groups and widen gap of rich and poor are threats to social stability and development;（4）Compared with old urban poor, new urban poor mostly are able and willing to work , while as lack of education and skills , they are less competent in job-hunting and still have no jobs;（5）Some poor people in cities clustering around the poverty line. They are the high risk group falling into poverty and more vulnerable than those who fail below the poverty line. With a small reduction in income or rise in non-food expenditure, e.g. health care, education, housing, they are susceptible to a fall into poverty. The living condition where they live is awful. With shortage of social capitals and access to opportunities of employment, the poor maybe stuck in poverty for a long time and even transport it to next generation.

Since the mid-1990s, researchers have concerned and analysis this issue. As to measurement of poverty, though a number of Chinese organizations have calculated, there is still not an appropriate official urban poverty line in China. The methods of calculation are varied and millions of temporary migrants are excluded from the official data. Therefore, it’s uncertain to estimate the numbers of poor people existing in urban areas. Some researches use per income and personal expenditure to measure the poor conditions, some use non-income indicator and others may get complement data through fieldwork.

As to the cause of poverty, they point out that it is a social construct problem rather than an individual problem caused by culture of poverty. The poverty in urban areas is the outcome of social and economic structural adjustment. Companying with urbanizational and modernizational development, structural adjustment happened from a planned to a socialist urban economy, equal distribution was phased out; the “iron rice bowl” was removed. The social welfare fund of work units is replaced by the new social security system including unemployment insurance, the Minimum Living Standard Scheme, etc. Nevertheless, the minimum standard varies between the provinces, even the cities in the same province. And the financial budget of local governments is limited. New social security system is severely criticized in its limitation of coverage and low level of benefits offered.

There is a research gap on the spatial pattern of urban poverty. In some case studies, it’s found that disparity between rich and poor has lead to the social stratum, the rich who can afford commodity housing gradually move out from old urban areas, leaving poor people without affordability. At the same time, migration to such areas is rapidly increasing. The concentration of urban poverty similar with western countries is also in existence, imminent menacing social stability.

3. Research objective：
(1)In order to conceptualizing the poverty community in the urban areas, firstly we need to definite the notion of poverty. As a multi-dimensional notion it should be captured by a poverty line in terms of measured social characteristics, besides expenditure/income. Next, by using some conventional measure criteria of concentrated urban poverty to select the proper communities in the city as the target for research, e.g. the concentration threshold or the index of dissimilarity or the spatial statistical approaches? Thirdly through statistical data and fieldwork, we should find the physical and social characteristics of communities, e.g. the size, number of households, land secure, condition for living, social structure etc.; dwellers’ characteristic in neighborhood and different sub-groups in community; maybe compared these characteristics with urban poor areas in the western countries such as slum and ghetto, analysis the similarities and differences between them.

（2）Evaluating the demands of community, how they definite the notion of poverty, what affect the poor to the poverty, how deep are their feeling of exclusion and deprivation, what kind of help they really expect and accept (using the participatory assessment involving local residents?). Then analysis the current poverty alleviation programs to make sure whether they are effective, whether there is a need for some changes and improvements, which strategy is the better choice.

4. Data source and Methodology
Both quantitative and qualitative approaches would be used in this research: quantitative approach e.g. statistical analysis to indicate the distribution and depth of poverty condition. The used data may be from urban household survey carried out by local officials. Whereas these official data exclude temporary living in cities, it need qualitative data from questionnaires to adding this shortage and use qualitative analysis of social structures and the demands of poor people. The data should be: (1) comparable (2) including immigrants (3) collecting income and expenditure of each month in a year (4) less margin of error.

The area of this research will confine in community level, as the reasons below: (1) the cause of poverty are not all specific to individuals, some causes affect a significant section of the population in the locality. And the community may be the appropriate level where economic interdependence is high than the whole cities. (2) We can get enough data from street offices in the community level to improve the reliability. (3) It has found the concentration phenomena of urban poverty in community level in some cities.

5. Possible conclusion
(1) The concentration of urban poverty in communities may not equivalent to the slum, ghetto etc. in developed countries, even in developing countries.
(2) Traditional individual-based approach for urban poor may not mismatch their valid demands. Poverty reduction is what development is about, and community’s demand-based approach may be the better choice to empower urban poor.
(3) In terms of income, the poverty rates among migrants may be lower than that among permanent residents; whereas, they are far more vulnerable with shortage of social sources and network. If most part of poor people in cities is temporary migrants, maybe the eager demands for them are increasing in social support than subsidies.

6. Research plan
(1) Literature review: Provide an overview of the issue of urban poverty, e.g. the definition and characters of urban poverty, the poverty line, the concentration in urban areas; relative research and theory; the used methodology
(2) Data prepare and analysis: Collect and analysis official statistical data, design questionnaires and make the fieldwork
(3) Evaluating the demands of urban poor living in the communities
(4) Analysis the current program implementing in the communities.
(5) With synthesize all the results, write and revise the draft. At the end, I expect to come out with final research paper for publication.