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3 The Effect of Poverty on Education
Poverty narrows and constrains life chances and opportunities and access to resources, which determines the parameters of a person's life conditions. Ropers says, "Being poor not only means economic insecurity, it also wreaks havoc on one's mental and physical health" (Ropers, 1991, p. 24). Even though the overall quality of life of people has increased dramatically due to the technological and medical development, poverty has continued to assume a generational dimension. Indeed, researchers have found that there is a strong correlation between the parents' income and child and adult achievements. They have also found that, "Completed schooling and non-marital childbearing are related to parental income during early and middle childhood, as well as during adolescence" (Duncan, Yeung, Brooks-Gunn and Smith, 1998, p. 406). The implication here is that poverty has a direct bearing on completion of education and, thus, on an individual's life chances.
Poverty does not simply influence completion of education but has a direct bearing on the quality of schooling which individuals have access to. In his analysis of the correlation between poverty and education, on the one hand, and the phenomenon of generational poverty, on the other, Corcoran (1995) contends that the children raised in poor families and poor neighbourhoods are not afforded the opportunity for quality education or access to quality schools. In other words, besides the immediate correlation between poverty and education, as earlier discussed, poverty adversely impacts quality of education and, accordingly, contributes to generational poverty. While not negating the fact that there are many factors that play a part in the level of achievement shown by students, poverty has been identified by researchers as a seminal factor in educational achievement (Corcoran, 1995; Thompson, 2002; Phillips and Chin, 2003). Poverty affects achievement directly for individual students, but it also affects achievement indirectly. An example of this is how poverty affects the schools that children attend, and the neighbourhoods where those schools are situated.
The neighbourhoods where schools are situated play a role in student achievement.
Thompson (2002) studied the effects of neighbourhood on student achievement. He used achievement scores at the school level, along with 1990 Census data, to determine that neighbourhood type was a predictor of student achievement at the sixth grade level. His study reaffirmed other research findings that poverty and its related social problems were strong predictors of academic achievement. The contribution of neighbourhood type was minimal by itself, but contributed to a snowball effect when combined with other social stressors. These socioeconomic, environmental, and neighbourhood stressors were seen as clearly detrimental to student achievement when taken in combination (Thompson, 2002). The implication here is that students from poor neighbourhoods do not have the opportunities for academic achievement which students from middle class or affluent neighbourhoods do. Hence, as a direct consequence of their parents' socio-economic status, poor students may not have the educational opportunities required for escape from poverty.
The relationship between quality of schooling and neighbourhood type is further affirmed by figures which point towards a poverty segregation trend. In other words, schools which are situated in poor neighbourhoods are most likely to have a student body which is primarily comprised of economically challenged students, while schools which are situated in affluent neighbourhoods have a primarily affluent student body (Phillips and Chin, 2003). In their study on this particular issue, Phillips and Chin (2003) noted that socioeconomic status is typically indicated by the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch. During the 2000-2001 school year, the typical poor student attended a school that had enrolment of 58% poor students. Non-poor students attended schools where only 25% of the student body fell into that classification (Phillips and Chin, 2003). This finding is very important insofar as generational poverty is concerned. As Phillips and Chin (2003) explain, politicians and policy makers sometimes judge school quality solely by performance on tests. Parents and students may add school climate or atmosphere to that criterion. It may be that new, high quality equipment and furnishings, and high quality instructional materials are not essential for learning. It may also be that sound, clean buildings without peeling paint and water spots on the ceiling are not the main contributors to academic success. However, the most highly qualified teachers and the most ambitious students and their parents are likely to seek out schools with these amenities. This would tend to exacerbate the segregation and isolation of low socioeconomic status schools and disadvantaged students (Phillips & Chin, 2003). Accordingly, because they are situated in neighbourhoods which have a primarily economically disadvantaged student body, poor neighbourhood schools rarely receive the resources required for quality education, chief amongst which is quality teachers. Therefore, given the quality of these schools, middle class and affluent families tend to keep their children away from them, while poor parents have no other option. The outcome is poverty segregation in the school system.
The key schooling factors which can contribute to the termination of generational poverty are availability of instructional resources, progressive instruction, advanced course offerings, highly qualified teachers, safe and orderly school climate, and collective support (Lee and McIntire, 1999; Thompson, 2002; Phillips and Chin, 2003). These key factors are rarely found in schools located in poor neighbourhoods and whose student body is primarily composed of children from poor families. As Lee and McIntire (1996) found, poor students are educationally disadvantaged due to the absence of the resources required for effective schooling in their neighbourhood schools. The implications of this are quite serious as they point towards the challenges which poor children confront in their bid to improve their socio-economic status. Quite simply stated, if education is the key to socio-economic mobility and the rupture of the poverty cycle, children from poor families do not have access to the quality of education which would achieve this.
3.1 Unequal Opportunity
While education is one of the most important determinants of socio-economic mobility, the education extended to children of poor families contributes to the continuation of the poverty cycle. Despite equal opportunity policies and legislature, Gordon (2001) found that the poor were often overlooked with respect to educational funding, with the consequence being an ever-widening achievement gap. The academic achievement of poor students is significantly lower than the wealthier ones because of unequal access to quality schooling (Gordon, 2001). Darling-Hammond (1998) supports this argument, noting that the top 10% of the wealthiest American school districts spend 10 times as much on schooling as the poorest 10%. The ratios within states are as much as three to one. Furthermore, two-thirds of minority and poverty-stricken students attend mostly urban schools that have mostly minority student bodies. These schools tend to be poorly funded compared to nearby suburban schools (Darling-Hammond, 1998). Poor students have unequal access to quality education.
Unequal access to quality education adversely impacts the academic achievement of poor students. Darling-Hammond (1998) notes that there are four factors that are extremely important to student achievement. These are smaller schools, smaller classes, a challenging curriculum, and highly qualified teachers. Children from poor families are much more likely than children from affluent families to not have any of these. When students have more equal opportunities achievement gaps narrow appreciably. This has been seen in analyses of National Educational Longitudinal Surveys (NELS) and High School and Beyond surveys (Darling and Hammond, 1998). The implication here is that when children from poor families are beneficiaries of quality education, their academic achievement is comparable to that of children from affluent families.
Explanations for achievement gaps often focus on problems and weaknesses in parents and students. The real problem is in inequality of educational opportunity. This finding by Noguera and Akom (2000) echoes Darling-Hammond (1998). Wealthy children tend to be educated in wealthy school systems, and poor children tend to be educated in schools that are inadequate. This is particularly true in economically depressed inner-city schools (Noguera & Akom, 2000). Hence, familial socioeconomic status determines the nature of the education to which children will have access to. More to the point, economically challenged students do not have the educational opportunities awarded to middle class and affluent children and this, in itself, contributes to the passage of poverty from one generation to the other.
3.2 Cultural Factors
Some researchers argue that the social climate of educational institutions is a stumbling block to the advancement of students from poor families. Students moving through academic levels from preschool to high school have been compared to a ball rolling through a pipeline (Gordon, 2001). This analogy is designed to highlight the fact that poor students have to contend with stereotypes regarding their capabilities and questions pertaining to their educatability. In other words, and as Gordon (2001) explains, the cultural climate which prevails in poor neighbourhood schools where the majority of students are economically challenged, is that these children are not interested in being educated and are not committed to their studies. Teacher and school administrators' expectations are low (Gordon, 2001). In other words, because they are poor and because they attend poorly funded schools in poor neighbourhoods, this group of students are discriminated against in the sense that their potential for learning is not fully explored.
The social climate of the educational institutes which are primarily attended by socio-economically challenged students works against the ability of these students to become academic achievers. Poor students are perceived of as less able than middle class and affluent students. They may get a less demanding curriculum, be retained more often, and be ability grouped (Ferguson, 2002; Kao & Thompson, 2003). Instructing teachers about how economically disadvantaged children think and act might help change the climate of low expectations prevalent in some low socioeconomic status schools. Instruction about subcultures might change how teachers relate to poor students (Baker, McGee, Mitchell, & Stiff, 2000). Hence, the attitudes which teachers and school administrators bring with them creates a school culture which further constrains the opportunities which poor children have to learn. To offset this, it is essential that teachers and administrators adopt a more positive, less discriminatory attitude which, in turn, would contribute to a school culture which encourages learning and challenges students.
3.3 Family Factors
Some of the characteristics of poor families may affect their performance in school. Components of family life such as the highest level of educational attainment by the parents and the number of parents available for child rearing are examples. There are other family issues that may not occur to people who are not poor, or closely associated with people who are poor. As Vail (2003) explains, parents from impoverished families change their residence more often than middle class parents. Students who change their residence often may tend to fall behind in their school work. Some causes of high mobility are high rent, substandard housing, evictions, domestic violence, and job problems. These are difficult issues, but some schools and systems are trying to solve them. One effort to curb mobility is called full-service schools. These schools try to provide after school care, adult education programs, preschool services, healthcare, and social services all in one place. Their goal is to improve student achievement by increasing parent involvement, decreasing residence change, improving student health, and creating strong school ties (Vail, 2003).
The need for these kinds of centralized services for disadvantaged parents and children lies in resiliency. According to Taylor (2001), families who lack resources have a higher probability of having children with emotional and behavioural problems. Their children are also more likely to not be high achievers. Furthermore, parents in low socioeconomic status circumstances spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on survival. They may have less energy to devote to organizing and structuring the home and family for optimum academic achievement (Taylor, 2001). Accordingly, the amount of attention that economically challenged parents may be able to devote to the monitoring of their children's academic performance may be less than optimal.
4 Conclusion
Following the establishment of a link between poverty and education, focusing on the extent to which education contributes to poverty alleviation, the research examined the educational opportunities available to poor children. Acknowledging the fact that education, as Page and Simmons (2000) assert, has the potential to disrupt the generational poverty cycle, the research found that this potential is rarely realized. The reason is that children from poor families do not have access to quality education and, indeed, are rarely afforded the educational opportunities which children from middle class or affluent families enjoy. Indeed, as the research argued, numerous poverty-related factors function as challenges to the effective, quality schooling needed for escape from the poverty trap. Thus, even though education can instigate socio-economic mobility and ensure that poverty is not passed from one generation to the next, the deleterious effect of poverty on education ensures the continuation of generational poverty.
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