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How does poverty affect academic performance
Effects of poverty on students
Effects Of Socio-Economic Status Of Parents On Academic Performance Of Students
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The populations of those living in low socioeconomic conditions predominantly belong to minority groups. Most research found focuses in on African-American groups, especially within schools. Students in school who are black, are more likely to come from non-traditional family homes than their white counterparts, and they receive less of an education (Ainsworth-Darnell, Roscigno, 1999). Non-traditional family homes are typically ones missing a parent, and are considered to be categorized as being low socioeconomic. Although students who belong to low socioeconomic classes belong to minority groups, they are also overrepresented within data, especially among black students. (Reyes, Stanic, 1988). Students who live in these conditions are disadvantaged in life. Black people tend to rate their overall …show more content…
I felt that this research provided a lot of information on how to measure, and accurately study socioeconomic status among various groups. I noticed a lot of the data was gathered through studies, or across long periods of time. I learned through this paper that socioeconomic status measurements a larger number of things than people attribute to it. Socioeconomic status determines just how far you can go in life. Occupation, income, educational obtainment, and even health risks are all determined or associated by what socioeconomic status you fall under. I felt all the hypothesis formed at the beginning of this process were all proven in one way, or another. I predicted that people who belong to minority groups would be more likely to belong within a low socioeconomic class, and this was proven through the research. However, the most shocking of things I predicted was that people who belong to a low socioeconomic are typically less educated. I had a small feeling that this would be proven, but the numbers shown in the research are eye
Parenting alone is not to blame for poor school performance of African American children. The size of a school affects their student’s dropout rate. When school size increases the quality of education decreases. As stated by Velma Zahirovic-Herbert and Geoffrey
In her book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau argues out that the influences of social class, as well as, race result in unequal childhoods (Lareau 1). However, one could query the inequality of childhood. To understand this, it is necessary to infer from the book and assess the manner in which race and social class tend to shape the life of a family. As the scholar demonstrates, each race and social class usually has its own unique way of child upbringing based on circumstances. To affirm this, the different examples that the scholar presents in the book could be used. Foremost, citing the case of both the White and the African American families, the scholar advances that the broader economics of racial inequality has continued to hamper the educational advancement and blocks access to high-paying jobs with regard to the Blacks as opposed to the Whites. Other researchers have affirmed this where they indicate that the rate of unemployment among the African Americans is twice that of the White Americans. Research further advances that, in contrast to the Whites, for those African Americans who are employed, there is usually a greater chance that they have been underemployed, receive lower wages, as well as, inconsistent employment. This is how the case of unequal childhood based on race comes about; children from the Black families will continue residing in poverty as opposed to those from the white families.
Although there is much more current evidence about socioeconomic segregation today, the information presented in this study is relevant for a number of reasons including the history and patterns of the dilemma. As a member of a predominantly Hispanic culture, the assessments provided to students seem to be geared towards students living in Northern America. It may be a perception that I have but knowing what goes on in the classrooms at my school district (previously employed), students in this culture struggle with many of the examples that are provided in the assessment, or the STAAR, because our children do not experience the same opportunities including those of weather, seasonal, activities, etc. The fact that the parents work to make ends meet because they have little or no education also makes it difficult for the students to be successful; thus, socioeconomic segregation. “The results suggest that schools serving mostly lower-income students tend to be organized and operated differently than those serving more-affluent students, transcending other school-level differences such as public or private, large or small” (Rumberger & Palardy, 2005, p. 1999). This is completely unacceptable and should be a wake up call to the global system of education. Where a child, no matter the age, goes to school, the quality, rigor, balance, and opportunity to be of equal importance for all.
Low income students are generally found in low income communities which have fewer resources to devote to their schools. With inadequate funds and resources, these kids are not getting the equal opportunity in education as kids in high income communities. Kids...
As cliché as it sounds, it is true that many African American students come from very harsh and poverty stricken environments. They tend to go to under resourced schools as well that do not provide the proper knowledge for them to further their education. And even worse, these schools tend to be segregated since they are usually in the harsher parts of a neighborhood. Sadly, it’s the segregated schools are one of the main reasons why black students decide not to go on to pursue a higher education. According to "The Way Out of the Black Poverty Cycle", a black student that attends an integrated suburban school is six times more likely to graduate compared to a segregated under resourced school. An African Americans family structure and the opinions of family members affects if their decision to further their education as well. Many African American children grow up un...
Poverty has stricken the country with thousands of inner city families facing dilemmas that contribute to their inability to reach a higher economic social status. Each year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issues updates for the U.S. Federal Poverty Measure. These updates report thresholds that determine eligibility for particular federal programs, and also is used to set an income measure which allows the National Census Bureau to estimate the percentage of the population who are indeed suffering from poverty (The 200 HHS Poverty Guidelines). These poverty-stricken homes have very few ways to escape the economic trap that they are in. Forty-two percent of all poor live in metropolitan areas of 300,000 or more (Harris 12). By examining the factors that affect the poverty within America's inner cities, one can easily see the economic damage that each can cause. Three major factors that affect poverty in the inner cities are the lack of educational and occupational opportunities to those who live in the communities, racial and economic segregation, and governmental ignorance and abandonment of the urban communities. Over twenty percent of all children under age eighteen are now living in poverty (12). Impoverished students tend to have much lower test scores, higher dropout rates, fewer students in demanding classes, less well-prepared teachers, and a low percentage of college-bound students (Orfield 56). "More parental involvement in active learning (including programs that teach parents how to help and teach their children) should be fundamental in improving the system" (Dreir 114).
First, Lareau’s study shows that children from families of lower SES are more likely to exhibit a far higher sense of constraint than those from families of higher SES who are far more likely to exhibit a higher sense of entitlement. “Middle-class children expect institutions to be responsive to them and to accommodate their individual needs. By contrast…[the working class] are being given lessons in frustration and powerlessness” (Lareau, 771). This quote shows clearly how differently these two groups of children are seeing the world due to the class they were born into. Next, if your family has a low SES, chances are high that your parents do not have the types of connections others may. There is no “Jim from college,” who works for CBS; no “my father’s friend, Jane,” who is a partner at a law firm. This can make hurdles especially hard, such as applying to schools or trying to get a first job. Although my family is of a higher class, neither of my parents attended college. When it came time to start looking at schools, I had already begun homeschooling and had no resources outside of my immediate family, and we were flying blind – or at least, we would have been had we not been able to hire a counselor to assist me. We counteracted the disadvantage the resulted from both of my parents coming from lower-class families by utilizing wealth they now possess. If my parents were
Michael Oher was from an all-black neighborhood located in the third poorest zip code in the country. By the time he was a sophomore, he’d been to 11 different schools, he couldn’t read or write, and he had a GPA of 0.6. In his first-grade year alone, he missed 41 days of school and ended up repeating both the first and the second grade; he didn’t even go to the third grade. Oher was one of the thousands of children that have been identified as having four or more of the at-risk factors mentioned by the National Center of Education and Statistics (NCES). According to the NCES, poverty and race are high on the list of things that negatively affect students’ ability to succeed at school. Other risk factors include changing schools multiple times and being held back from one or more grades. Oher’s biography, The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, proves how socioeconomic status impacts a child’s academic success because placed in perspective, education is not as important as the hardships of reality.
A minority student is generally classified as belonging to a lower-income family than the average white American, who is classified by earning a higher income. A student belonging to a low-income family will not have the same opportunities as a student from a high-income background. A student from a high-income family will be able to afford more study aids and supplies. A student from a low-income family, generally a minority, does not have access to these resources. Because they frequently cannot afford the same materials as their white counterparts, they generally do not perform as strongly on standardized tests. Wealthy families are generally very well educated. They have greater knowledge of how to guide their children in the right direction for academic success. Some can afford a private school with better teachers and a more comfortable learning environment. Paying for college is easier, and academics often take greater priority in these well-to-do households. Usually, poorer families have a harder time paying for college and supporting their children. Schools in low-income areas tend to lack funding for good teachers and supplies because of their financial situation. More often than not, the main goal of these families is to have their children get through high school so that they can begin ea...
The fact that students from lower income families fail to perform as well in school holds no dispute. Growing up with less money has been proven to create a significant disadvantage. Those struggling to pay their bills often are forced to cut back the money spent on food, leaving kids with only the option of cheaper food with poor nutritional value, or sometimes skipping meals. This inhibits the brain from functioning at its best and can leave students more worried about their growling stomachs than their schoolwork (Ladd, Fiske). Low income students face other distractions from their schoolwork including home struggles like in the movie Freedom Writers. A teacher starts a job...
Tests measuring students’ achievement demonstrate that particular groups of students score far below students of other groups. Records indicate that the discrepancy in the academic dominance of certain groups over other groups is strongly associated with socio-economic status, with lower achieving students typically hailing from increased poverty-stricken backgrounds. While poverty is exclusive to no one particular ethnicity, it exists in disproportionately high rates among Hispanic and Black communities and their students. The root of this gap in educational achievement has been shown to be multi-faceted, with origins undoubtedly dating back centuries (EdSource, 2003).
“Because such neighborhoods display much higher concentrations of poverty and greater rates of disorder and violence, and because African-American college students are disproportionately connected to people living in such neighborhoods, they are at much greater risk of experiencing stress indirectly through their social networks” (Charles, Dinwiddie, & Massey (2004). Racial segregation undermines academic performance in several ways: by distracting students psychological being from their studies; by undermining their physical and emotional well-being; and by necessitating competing investments of time, money, and energy to attend to family issues. Minority students become ensnared in a web of relationships that undermine their academic performance on campus
Living in poverty exposes children to disadvantages that influence many aspects in their life that are linked to their ability to do well in school. In the United States of America there are an estimated 16.4 million children under the age of 18 living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). “The longer a child lives in poverty, the lower the educational attainment” (Kerbo, 2012). Children who are raised in low-income households are at risk of failing out before graduating high school (Black & Engle, 2008). U.S. children living in poverty face obstacles that interfere with their educational achievement. Recognizing the problems of living in poverty can help people reduce the consequences that prevent children from reaching their educational potential.
In summary, impoverished areas and their population experience a higher rate of high school dropout, thus a lower rate of graduation. The factors involved in a student's withdrawing from school or failing to pass are numerous but a high percentage of these dropouts can be linked to the socioeconomic level of the student;s family, the school district and the community overall. Lack of education equates to lack of opportunity to advance and achieve. Therefore, a below poverty level student in not given the equal opportunities for success overall as a student who is economically and financially superior.
Socioeconomic status can be defined in terms of family wealth and assets as well as educational background. For this reason, many comparisons can be made between socioeconomic status and education. Furthermore, academic achievement and the level of education reached by an individual, is determined by socioeconomic status. Research has shown that environmental circumstances and family issues greatly influence a child's future because the impact of the socioeconomic status depends on the level to which an individual becomes successful in life. Research also shows that family conditions can impact a child’s education and their quality of life. For example, being raised in a high-economic culture increases the chances that a child will attend