Paper 501: Is there a Correlation 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 an early age. At an 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 individuals’ educational attainment.
Findings
In the United 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. The poverty rate is not evenly spread but is more surrounded by some factors within the country. It is highest among single mothers, where one out of every three lives at the 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 a 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 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 topmost developed countries globally, it has one of the highest childhood poverty rates. 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, the 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 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 than the percentage in 2005 (Jackson & Addison, 2018). Poverty has been linked to several negative consequences for 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 in 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 on the cognitive development of a child, mostly in the years that precede their entry into school. There is a lower likelihood of the occurrence of consistent cognitive stimulation and engagement, which are very crucial aspects of early childhood development. It could mostly 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 than low-income parents. At the age of five, 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 a low-income family is beginning school, he is at a cognitive disadvantage due to 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 homes reach elementary schools. According to MRS data, poverty upsets development in various brain areas. Children who grow in poverty produce less brain tissue that is crucial for 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 the poverty line, despite brains being identical at birth. Jeff Pollard of longitudinal brain study says the absence of enriching interactions and activities attributed to the developmental differences between children from diverse socioeconomic 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 peers 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 pinpointing the differences in 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. Socioeconomic status encompasses income and 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 not specifically a single factor but is characterized by multiple physical and psychosocial stressors. Socioeconomic status may further predict many outcomes across a 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 that relate to poverty affects all human functioning, including mental and physical health. Lower socioeconomic status correlates to lower educational achievement and poverty. The inequalities in resource distribution and health distribution are ever-increasing in the United States. Society only benefits from an increased focus on the foundations of socioeconomic 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 socioeconomic communities, schools are often under-resourced and negatively affect students’ academic progress and outcomes. Inadequate educational and increased drop-out rates affect the children’s academic achievement, which perpetuates the community’s low socioeconomic status.
Graduation and Dropout rates
Generally, poverty raised children to 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% compared to 44% in all other states. Among the states with the highest poverty rates, the percentage of 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 than 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 with a 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 correlated to negative behavior. There are differences in the behavioral outcomes between boys and girls, and the gap keeps growing over the last two decades. Presently, low-income students are at a higher risk of experiencing behavioral problems than their counterparts (Lacour & Tissington, 2011).
Summary
Poverty is mostly linked to low levels of student educational achievement and an increased propensity for behavioral problems. However, a variety of external terminologies are related to poverty. These include weak relationships with 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 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 to their counterparts from rich families. According to this paper, the gap in educational achievement exists in children 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 behavior? (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.