Paper 501: Is there a corellation Between Poverty and Educational attainment?
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation
Title: Is there a correlation Between Poverty and Educational attainment?
Research Questions
- How does the correlation of poverty with education attainment vary with age?
- Is Poverty the sole determinant of educational Attainment?
Hypothesis
This paper will establish that the impact on educational attainment is felt at all ages. However, the impact is most significant at early ages. At early age, children are more affected by poverty than in later years. Additionally, it is most likely that poverty works in coordination with other factors to determine the educational attainment of individuals.
Findings
In the Unites States, the poverty rate is nearly 15%. Out of every six Americans, at least one lives at or below the poverty level. The poverty rates are more pronounced among the children where one out of every 5 children lives in poverty. Poverty rate is not evenly spread but is more surrounded by some factors within the country. For instance, it is highest among single mothers where one out of every three lives at poverty line or below. Research indicates that 30% of children raised in poverty do not finish high school education. In most cases, those who do not manage to acquire a high school diploma by ae twenty are seven times more likely coming from poor families than rich families. Also, in the US children who grow up impoverished tend to complete education after few years and end up settling for lower incomes. As they acquire education, they are at a higher risk of poor health, which affects their educational life. On the other hand, children from rich families have better health on average than the poor ones. Unlike the poor kids, rich families ensure regular health checkups for their children. Also, whenever they get sick, they are attended at a faster rate therefore eliminating inconveniences in their educational life.
Effects of poverty on Education.
Although the US is among the top most developed countries globally, it has one of the highest rates of childhood poverty. The children born and raised in poverty conditions face many challenges, which are most evident in education. One effect of poverty is that it reduces the child’s readiness for school as it results in poor physical health besides diminishing the child’s ability to concentrate and memorize information. The child has poor motivation towards reading, becomes less attentive and less curious. In the US severe, effect of poverty is the entry of poor children to school with a readiness gap that widens as they grow. The children feel alienated from society and suffer insecurities as a result of their socioeconomic status. They also live in fear of the consequences of poverty, endure feelings of powerlessness and often get angry at the society’s inability to assist them from their sufferings. The same children from poor families score lower than their rich mates. Whenever you hear of a case of dropping out from school, higher chances are that the child comes from a poor family. Poor students completing high school are lesser likely to join university and college when compared to those from rich families. Generally, the effects of poverty on education present unique challenges and lower the chances of leading productive and rewarding lives.
Poverty and academic performance.
According to statistics, in 2014, 23% of children in the United States lived at or below the poverty line, which was 4% higher to the percentage at 2005 (Jackson & Addison, 2018).The poverty has been linked to several negative consequences for the school children including low test scores and delayed cognitive development. Children from low-income families are more likely to be exposed to stressors than their affluent counterparts. Also, income inequality has adverse effects on school performance as a whole. In those schools where poverty rates are high, students are by 10% more likely to experience poverty when they get to adulthood. In high poverty schools, the teacher attrition is higher than in low poverty schools. Adverse teaching conditions significantly contribute to the disadvantages experienced at low-income schools. In impoverished schools, 35% of teachers are known to instruct outside their areas of expertise and only 14% of teachers hold relevant master’s degrees (Goodman & Gregg, 2010).
Poverty has adverse effects in the cognitive development of a child, mostly in the years that precede their entry into school. There is lower likelihood of the occurrence of consistent cognitive stimulation and engagement, which are very crucial aspects of early childhood development. Mostly, it could range from reduced parent child interaction to minimized extracurricular activities like sports participation and supplement/tuition learning. According to studies, higher income parents spend nearly half hour per day engaged in face to face time with their children tan low income parents. At the age of five years, the children from poor families are 30 million words behind their rich peers. In young children, cognitive development predominantly relies on exposure to a variety of stimulating activities like the face to face interaction between parents and their children. With this information, by the time a child from low-income family is beginning school, he is at a cognitive disadvantage as a result of limited developmental opportunities which are poverty related (Jackson & Addison, 2018).
Additionally, poverty affects cognitive development biologically, where it brings difficulties in overcoming learning differentials by the time children from impoverished home reach elementary schools. According to MRS data, poverty upsets development in various brain areas, and children who grow in poverty produce less brain tissue that is crucial processing information and the execution of action (US Census Bureau, 2020). Children of middle and high-income families on the contrary produce more of the brain tissue than those living under 200% of poverty line, despite brains beings identical at birth. Jeff Pollard of longitudinal brain study says the absence of enriching interactions and activities attribute to the developmental differences between children from diverse socio economic backgrounds (McKenzie, 2019).
Educational achievement by students.
The effects of poverty cannot be separated from the correlated externalities such as neighborhood influences and parenting styles when studying relationships between incomes and student achievement. However, research reveals students from higher income families to outperform their peer from lower income families in the areas of math, reading and writing. Income and achievement in students have a monotonic relationship. In this relationship, there is an increased school readiness outcomes with increased family resources. According to researchers, an increase in the family income by $1000 raises the math and reading test scores by 6% of standard deviation (Lacour & Tissington, 2011). The influence is on both the readiness and the performance, which quantifies the achievement disparities amongst learners. School reading is a key indicator in pin pointing the differences outcomes among high income and low-income students.
The correlation between poverty and educational attainment may also be understood by focusing on the influence of socioeconomic statuses on education. Social economic status encompasses not only income but also educational attainment, subjective perceptions of social status, financial security and social security. Also , it includes the quality of life attributes and the opportunities and privileges afforded to the people within the society. Poverty is a no specifically a single factor but is characterized by multiple physical and psychosocial stressors. Social economic status may further predict a large array of outcomes across lifetime including psychological and physical health. Therefore, socioeconomic status is relevant to the realms of all behavioral and social science, research, practice, advocacy and education (Denavas, 2017).
Socioeconomic statuses which relates poverty affects all human functioning including mental and physical health. Lower socioeconomic status correlates to lower education al achievement and poverty. The inequalities in resource distribution and health distribution are ever increasing in the United States. The society only benefits from increased focus on the foundations of socio economic inequalities and the attempts to lower the gaps in the socioeconomic statuses. According to research, children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds develop academic skills slower than those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds (US Census Bureau, 2020). Low socioeconomic statuses in childhood are related to poor cognitive development, socioemotional processing and poor income and health in adulthood. In low socio economic communities, schools are often under resourced and thus negatively affects student’s academic progress and outcomes. Inadequate educational and increased drop out rates affects the children’s academic achievement, which perpetuates the low socioeconomic status in the community.
Graduation and Dropout rates
Generally, poverty raised children have lower high school graduation rates than their rich counterparts. The average graduation gap between the poor and the rich is 15.4 percent points. In a study conducted in the US, only four states low-income students matched the national graduation rate of 80% as compared to the 44% in all other states. Among the states with the highest poverty rates, the percentage students who did not graduate on time ranged from 22% in Arkansas to 32% in Mississippi. Long-term dropouts’ data also suggested that students from poor backgrounds experience higher levels of high school attrition rates as compared to their counterparts. The National Centre for Education Statistics reported in 2014 that the national dropout rate was 6.7%. The dropout rates consistently rose with decreasing family incomes (McKenzie, 2019.
Poverty and students Behavior
Children growing in impoverished backgrounds are faced by variety of challenges that influence behavioral outcomes. The majority of these behaviors are developed due to unfavorable socioeconomic backgrounds that undermine good performance and affect general attitudes towards schooling. Studies from Bristol University reveal that the socioeconomic status is is correlated to negative behavior. There are differences in the behavioral outcomes between boys and girls and they gap keeps growing over the last two decades. Presently, low-income students are on the higher risk of experiencing behavioral problems as compared to their counterparts (Lacour & Tissington, 2011).
Summary
Mostly, poverty is linked to low levels in student educational achievement and an increased propensity for behavioral problems. However, a variety of external terminalities are related to poverty. These include weak relationship wit adults, reduced parental insights and chronic stress, which are the main causes of socioemotional and behavioral problems at learning institutions.
Early childhood education is important for the low-income students. Traditionally, low income parents spend lesser time in home based enrichment as compared to their rich counterparts. The outcome is that their children begin school at a disadvantage that may persist in the consequent years. Students from impoverished homes experience disproportionate advantages when they attend full day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten.
Conclusion.
There is a strong correlation between poverty and educational achievement. Students from low-income backgrounds on average perform poorly when compared from their counterpart from rich families. According to this paper, the gap in educational achievement exists in children an age as early as three years. The gap then widens as the students continue to grow. The trend of the compared educational attainment between the rich and poor students varies the same from primary level, secondary level and college level. Poverty does not solely determine the educational attainment of students but works in collaboration with other factors such as neighborhood influences and parenting styles.
References
Bureau, U. (2020). Educational Attainment. The United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 16 November 2020, from https://www.census.gov/topics/education/educational-attainment.html.
DeNavas-Walt C, Proctor BD. Income and poverty in the United States 2015. U.S. Census Bureau. Available from: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-256.pdf. Accessed December 28, 2017
Goodman, A., & Gregg, P. (Eds.). (2010). Poorer children’s educational attainment: How important are attitudes and behaviour? (pp. 76-92). York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Jackson, C., & Addison, K. L. (2018). Understanding the Relationships between Poverty, School Factors and Student Achievement. Montgomery County Public Schools.
Lacour, M., & Tissington, L. D. (2011). The effects of poverty on academic achievement. Educational Research and Reviews, 6(7), 522-527.
McKenzie, K. (2019). The Effects of Poverty on Academic Achievement. BU Journal of Graduate Studies in Education, 11(2), 21-26.