A Dooming Shadow The Baltimore Beginning School Study Youth Panel (BSSYP, or Youth Panel) was a twenty five year long longitudinal study conducted by several researchers including Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle, Linda Olson, and many more individuals. These researchers surveyed and interviewed almost eight hundred youth, who went to city public schools in Baltimore, their parents, and their teachers. The children in the study mostly came from the quintessential “hood” or “inner city” areas that were low in socioeconomic standing. Neighborhoods were run down with gangs, violence, and drugs. The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood takes all the data from the study along with interviews and breaks down the intricate and elaborate relationship between socioeconomic origins and the …show more content…
For instance the authors write, “What ultimately determines well-being in adulthood is how young people negotiate the transition to adulthood, which is rooted in resources present all the way back to first grade” (187). What the authors argue is that what determines if a child will be prosperous and flourish when they are adults is the resources their families possess. The authors go on to explain that, “... children of the Baltimore Youth Panel grow up with parents who have less than a high school education, their school careers tend to be foreshortened. A few do move up by way of college, but just a few. For the rest, their SES (socioeconomic status) as adults reflects theirs as children” (188). The authors here allege that a child will most likely only flourish as accomplished adults if their parents are successful; children will emulate their guardian’s level of well-being which can seem like a dark cloud hanging over
The first chapter in the book At The Dark End of the Street is titled “They’d Kill Me If I Told.” Rosa Park’s dad James McCauley was a expert stonemason and barrel-chested builder. Louisa McCauley was Rosa Park’s grandmother, she was homestead and her husband and oldest son built homes throughout Alabama’s Black Belt. In 1912 James McCauley went to go hear his brother-in-law preach. While there, he noticed a beautiful light named Leona Edwards. She was the daughter of Rose Percival and Sylvester Edwards. Sylvester was a mistreated slave who learned to hate white people. Leona and James McCauley got married a couple months after meeting and Rosa was conceived about nine months after the wedding. In 1915, James decided to move North with all
“The state of Maryland had one of the highest graduation rates in the nation. Seventy-six percent of high school students who began high school in Maryland completed. In Baltimore County, the number was as high as 85 percent in some years. But in Baltimore City, where Northern High School was located, it was a dismal 38 percent” (Moore 108). In other words, on average, people who live in Baltimore City have a much lower education level than people who live in other cities. With these low high school graduation rates, people who live there have no motivation to succeed. This is how the author describes the education level of his neighborhood in the book The Other Wes Moore. The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore, is a book about two boys who have
To understand this approach, he maps the ways that the justice system stigmatized and killed these Latino and African American youth future dreams. Children, these young kids that could be future doctors, scientists, and engineers are forced by this punishment that could lead them to prison or even killed in the streets with no hope or opportunity to prosper. The author described a Fifteen-year –old Latino kid born and raised in Oakland by name of Slick.
... For one, being disadvantage was measured on being expelled from school, having an absent father, and whether they were employed or not. Of course, there are more ways to measure being disadvantage. Also, there was a lack of measures for students’ history of violence. Furthermore, policy implications based on this study’s finding suggest that programs should be geared toward male inner-city youths’. Programs should develop their community and schooling system, as well as displaying a means for other employment opportunities besides drug trafficking. Thus, there will always be room for future studies and continuation of this topic.
Besides race, the scholar also reveals how childhoods are unequal based on social class. Drawing from the American society, there are several social classes. For each class, there are unique pathways of lives followed and these usually influence both the educational and work outcomes. To ...
I feel that I made a connection through the families that were mention in the book because even though I lived in a neighborhood that had access to many resources and suitable for children, I was not able to do things that middle class children that were mention in this book did. What my capture my attention in this book is that middle class children learn “how to set priorities, manage an itinerary, shake hands with strangers, and work on a team. They do so at a cost, however” (pg. 39). As I was growing up my parents did not show me how to shake hands with strangers, how to set priorities, or how to manage an itinerary I had to learn that by myself without anyone telling me or giving me a recompense for doing what I am supposed to do. Lower class and working families usually don’t recompense their children for doing things that they are expected to do because the parents might not have the money to do so and is the children’s responsibility to do what they are supposed to
Sooner or later they will be successful in life and not end up like their parents. The speaker’s father always told them “When there is an opportunity maybe it'll be fire them.” You’ll never know when an action will change your life forever. On the other hand, a kid questions the speaker by asking why he goes to school too much. The speaker answers saying that his dad said there will be an opportunity and don't miss out on it. The dad mentions that it will prepare them, and for going to school everyday, more opportunities for him in the future will come up. They don't even have to worry since the poor are poor they don't have to worry. However the rich do have to worry since they do have something to lose, and will end up poor. No matter how hard you work for it there would be
In her article she points out how social class has become the main gateway to opportunity in America. The widening academic divide means that kids who grow up poor will most likely stay poor and the kids who grow up rich will most likely stay rich. About fifty years ago the main concern about getting a good education relied on your race but now it's about your social class. Researchers are starting to believe that children who come from higher income families tend to do better in school and get higher test scores.
The book shows the effects poverty can have on young, specifically Black, men in America. This inequity in Baltimore can be seen in data from outside sources: “How parents shape socioeconomic diversity within early childhood programs” by Rachel Demma shows how poverty affects children at an early age; Ludmila Wikkeling-Scott’s “The effects of COVID-19 on African American communities in Baltimore's health enterprise zones: a mixed-methods examination.” tells how the COVID-19 pandemic revealed disparities in
The American Dream, the national promise of equal opportunity and the endless possibilities of economic mobility, has and is still deeply inculcated in American culture. However, there is less economic mobility in the United States than originally thought as proven by many studies of economists, and therefore refutes the basic ideas of the American Dream. Class, one of the major causes to the decrease in economic mobility, remains a sensitive subject in America. This sensitivity stems from popular culture ideals of not debating or discussing class as well as the many myths Americans and foreigners are trapped into believing. Variations in the American life-styles, a component of the ideas of class presented by Mantsios, is another factor to the reduction of economic mobility. This variation is mainly a result of the diversity in the United States and its heterogeneous society. Race, a social construct, is also a major source to economic mobility. Through the help of the media, society has shaped Americans into associating success and wealth with Caucasians, and failure and poverty with minorities. Another major cause to the decline in economic mobility is parental influence, the idea of a child following or straying away from their parent or guardian’s footsteps. Education, America’s token to success, also determines an individual’s economic mobility. In American culture, it is believed that by furthering or completing education automatically guarantees individuals endless opportunities to a job, increased income and upward mobility. In conclusion, class, race, parental influence and education are all interrelated factors to economic mobility.
Children are stating this because they believe that to be successful now and days is a greater challenge than it was years ago. With poverty being so great in America, children believe that they will never be able to be more successful than their parents because their parents won’t be able to afford the funds in order to get a proper college education. Furthermore, according to Dr. Amy K Glasmeier Penn State 's “Poverty in America”(October 15, 2006)We are a more diverse population and a more dispersed population; we are older and remain divided by race, income, and location.” In other words, economic inequality is another issue that the impoverished face. Another idea, by Gary Reber in the article “The other America 2012”(2012, April/May) is that poverty and inequality are the two center issues in America once again. About 47 million Americans of all colors, ethnicities and backgrounds are living at or below the poverty line. With this being said Poverty is not only happening within one race or culture, but it is happening all over America. This issue is a state issue that is affecting everyone. It affects families for different reasons. It affects the children 's mindset because they see their parents struggling just to get by and by seeing that it discourages children to want to better themselves and get a better education
In American society today, childhood is considered a time for learning, exploration, and a chance for a child to make his or her mark on the world. Leading up to the Great Depression, however, childhood for working class children was seen in a different light. Working class children felt pressure to provide for their family, which inhibited them from getting an education and branching out on their own, while middle class children had a greater prospect for education because of the difference in wealth. The Great Depression brought hard times for all Americans and expanded the working class while shrinking the middle class. Because the working class children held close ties and responsibilities to their families and faced more poverty than the middle class, they had a lesser chance to move out of the working class as they had a commitment to work to support their families, or children without families had to support themselves, and had dimmer opportunities for education.
Currently, relatively few urban poor students go past the ninth grade. The graduation rates in large comprehensive inner-city schools are abysmally low. In fourteen such New York City Schools, for example, only 10 percent to 20 percent of ninth graders in 1996 graduated four years later. Despite the fact that low-income individuals desperately need a college degree to find decent employment, only 7 percent obtain a bachelors degree by age twenty-six. So, in relation to ...
Children who are young and are attending preschool have “lower rates of school completion” than adolescents “who experience poverty in later years” (Gunn & Duncan, 1997). Additionally, children are not receiving the help they need which causes them to behind in school. Along the lines of becoming violent, children are joining gangs and teenage females are getting
The Apostle Paul tells his young disciple and servant of the Lord, Timothy, that Christians should rightly handle the Word of truth in 2 Timothy 2:15, stressing the importance of accurate interpretations of the Scriptures and appropriate applications in the lives of believers. Paul shared this with Timothy because many false teachers, gods, and beliefs were present during that time. Much like the days of Paul and Timothy, believers today must be aware of what the Scripture teaches and be on guard against those spreading false doctrine. Christians can achieve the goal of rightly handling the word of truth be learning and applying biblical hermeneutics when studying the Scriptures.