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Socio economic status and academic achievement
Influence of social class on academic achievement
Influence of social class on academic achievement
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In Children of the Dust Bowl, Jerry Stanley reveals an inspiring story to the rise to success for the Oklahoma native children who were affected by the conditions of the Dust Bowl. In the beginning, Stanley explains the conditions that the children and their families face such as a limited income and lack of support. The conditions later cause a rejection of acceptance from classmates at school. Even though the conditions the Okies faced were relevant to the 1930s’, the same struggles are still relevant all across classrooms in America. Many schools in America try to balance the line of success. Usually, success takes years to research and map the data out to show improvements. For the children at “Weedpatch Camp,” their success improves
In Dalton Conley’s memoir “Honky”, written in 2000, Conley talks about his experience of switching schools to a primarily white elementary school. He discusses the major differences between his prior, very diverse school and his new, primarily caucasian school. He focuses on the main topics of race and class, and how they enhanced the differences between these two schools.
Poverty can be a terrible thing. It can shape who you are for better or for worse. Although it may seem awful while you experience it, poverty is never permanent. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which takes place in Alabama in the middle of the Great Depression, Walter Cunningham and Burris Ewell are both in a similar economic state. Both of their families have very little money; however, they way they manage handle themselves is very different. In this essay, I will compare Walter Cunningham and Burris Ewell’s physical appearance and hygiene, their views on education, and their manners and personalities.
The children in this book at times seem wise beyond their years. They are exposed to difficult issues that force them to grow up very quickly. Almost all of the struggles that the children face stem from the root problem of intense poverty. In Mott Haven, the typical family yearly income is about $10,000, "trying to sustain" is how the mothers generally express their situation. Kozol reports "All are very poor; statistics tell us that they are the poorest children in New York." (Kozol 4). The symptoms of the kind of poverty described are apparent in elevated crime rates, the absence of health care and the lack of funding for education.
In doing so it showed how powerless and mentally damage these children were. It is not by far an excuse for their actions. But is does show how these children were seeking for the love and acceptance of someone, anyone. This led them down path of destruction. This program is a huge success and has 74 percent rate of recidivism (Hubner, 2005, xxi). This is due to the fact that they are treated like human being and children. Their lives at the school revolves around the concept of resocialization, from lodging, to their therapy sessions, to their schools, to their vocational programs, to recreation program which is football (Hubner, 2005, xxi). This allows the youths to learn and grow from their actions in an area where they are being
She would mostly be alone and sit by herself being buried in books or watching cartoons. In high school she attended a program for troubled adolescents and from there she received a wide range of support from helping her get braces to helping her get information to attend community college. (59) Even with this she was already too emotionally unstable due to her family issues and felt like she couldn’t go through with her dreams to travel and even go into the art of culinary. She suffers from psychological problems such as depression and worries constantly about almost every aspect in her life from work to family to her boyfriend and just hopes that her life won’t go downhill. (60) Overall Kayla’s family structure shows how different is it now from it was in the 1950’s as divorce rates have risen and while before Kayla’s type of family structure was rare now it is becoming more common. This story helps illustrate the contributions of stress that children possess growing up in difficult homes in which they can’t put their own futures first they must, in some cases, take care of their guardian’s futures first or others around them. Again, this adds into the inequality that many face when it comes to being able to climb up the ladder and become successful regardless of where one
As the contrasts and similarities of these two authors are examined, the biggest differences between them are their economic and cultural backgrounds which would later play a part in their future hopes and aspirations. Alexie describes growing up in Washington State where poverty was the norm on the reservation he grew up on. He says “We were poor by most standards, but one of my parents usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another, which made us middle-class by reservation standards….We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus food” (45). On the other hand, Mason relates how she grew up in Kentucky on her f...
The Dust Bowl was a treacherous storm, which occurred in the 1930's, that affected the midwestern people, for example the farmers, and which taught us new technologies and methods of farming. As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." The early thirties opened with prosperity and growth. At the time the Midwest was full of agricultural growth. The Panhandle of the Oklahoma and Texas region was marked contrast to the long soup lines of the Eastern United States.
Bound by Southern ideals, growing up in the 1940s and 1950s was a battle of change and resistance. As outside social influences began to meander into the lives of those living in the South, children were veering off the path of what a normal, obedient Southern child should act like. As observed in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and The Princess and the Frog, defying Southern norms was difficult. These stories had significant relational themes whether is was the unsaid battle of acceptance between Brick and Big Daddy, the internal conflicting allegiance Bailey felt for his mother, or the stereotypical Southern life Eudora had envisioned for Tiana.
In the 1920’s, the American economy was on the rise with no sign of stopping. Nicknamed the “Roaring ‘20’s,” this era brought about good times for most everyone except farmers. Farmers were buying expensive, new farm equipment with hopes of large returns, but their increased efficiency saturated the market. Their crop production increased too rapidly, and, to sustain themselves, farmers feverishly began to plant as many crops as possible to make up for falling prices. This over farming ruined the soil of it’s grasses. With no rooting to hold the topsoil, the prevailing winds of the 1930’s swept the soil all over the Midwest and destroyed any chances of farming for a profit. After it all, the need to pay off the debt they acquired while buying that expensive, new farm equipment forced the farmers to move away and get city jobs. This event was known as the Dust Bowl. In the 2010’s, America faces a similar threat. Teenagers are going to expensive colleges with hopes of large returns, but the abundance of college graduates is saturating the market. This lack of good jobs leads to over-qualified people being under-employed. The non-college graduates in this situation cannot get a decent job and feel that the only way to get employed is to go to college, leading to even more graduates. After it all, the need to pay off the debt acquired while going to expensive colleges forces the college graduates to scrounge for money in sub-par employments. I would call it the College Bowl, but that would sound a little too much like some sort of Football event. Maybe the Graduate Bowl would be a better substitute for the Dust Bowl, since being a college graduate these days just feels like being dust in the wind. Education is no longer the way to get...
Bell hooks knows about the challenges of race and class, and why some people have a harder time than others in achieving the American Dream. It is normal to feel uncomfortable and awkward arriving at a new school for the first time, but this was something completely different. For bell hooks, walking through the halls with eyes staring at her as if she was an alien, she realized that schooling for her would never be the same. She describes her feelings of inequality a...
There are eleven thousand children in public schools in Detroit. Out of those eleven thousand children, only twenty-six of them are white. Third graders wrote a paper to Kozel on what they think about their school day in and day out. The children wrote back how they have nothing. They don’t have a clean school or a clean place to study.
Testament to his resilience and determination in the face of angry segregationists, Ernest assumed the role of head of his family at the age of sixteen, after his father’s death in 1953. Ernest’s mother, an elementary school teacher, and his younger brother Scott both respected this new allotment Ernest assumed at such a young age. His mother knew it was useless attempting to persuade the headstrong Ernest to reconsider attendance at Little Rock Central High School after he had been selected as one of the nine Negro children to attend. Students were selected based ...
A world of class and economic distinction emerged on a class of students from Harlem one day while on a trip with their teacher to FAO Schwartz Toy Store. Miss Moore intentionally targets expensive toys that are unobtainable for the children due to financial reasons; she does this in order to expose the children to what life is like for those who do not live in an oppressed community as them. This method of instruction has an impact so far on the children as they begin to contemplate the prices of extravagant items and the lifestyle of those who can afford these items: “Who are
I am one of the many people who was in the dust bowl during the
This short story differs from the other works of O. Henry because of the intricacy of the plot and the sense of ambiguity that it creates. O. Henry makes use of a complex plot structure and plenty of foreshadowing to create suspense and arouse curiosity in the mind of the reader. The plot is set in Nashville, Tennesse which is reflected in the short descriptions about the city that frequently hamper the flow of the story. It is evident by the modes of transportation used, the description of the city and buildings, the behaviour and attitude of the characters and the mention of the discrimination and domestic violence that the short story is set in the early 1900s.The author is extremely successful in describing the views of class, culture and education as they were in the twentieth century.