How Does Low Socioeconomic Status Affect the Development and Academic Performance of Children?

Teachers should advocate for all students’ backgrounds and cultures to better their students’ learning. To accomplish this, teachers should be informed about their students’ home lives, be conscious of how and what they should be taught, and ultimately make their education a priority. Students from poverty in a multicultural classroom need the correct tools and teaching approaches from their teachers.

Unfortunately, these children cannot complete their education because they have to travel with their family and learn to manage at a young age a life of hard labor. This however does not diminish their dreams of completing high school and some day attending a university so that they will not have to live the life of struggle their parents did to sustain the household. In cities like Detroit, MI there is a large population of low income Hispanic and African American families. The public school system unfortunately cannot potentially promote a high-quality education. The majority of these students do not receive an entrance level education simply because of living standards. Income plays an important role in education opportunities regarding the quality education each student can pertain. Since the minorities in that area are low-income they cannot afford to attend a private high school that can better prepare them for college. According to a research done at the University of Texas-Pan American, “certain racial or ethnicity factors should play a role in the admissions decision.” (Marklein)

In my last paper, I discussed the achievement gaps within the low-income African American community at Steele School in Galesburg, IL. Now that I have looked into the history of low-income African American students, I am now going to research even more by exploring trends, issues, evidence-based remediation practices, the preferred learning styles and the identified achievement gap of low-income African American students. Through the chart I am going to display, this will show various ways that low-income African American students are struggling at Steele School. However, I am hoping with the information below I can use this to display to others how certain multicultural education, learning styles, and culturally responsive teaching can enhance learning environments for all underachieving students.

A school setting provides opportunities where issues of social justice, oppression, and discrimination can be addressed. According to Bemak and Chung (2009), students of color and economically disadvantaged students are likely to have low academic achievement, in comparison to their White middle class counterparts. These disparities in academic

Fifty years after the declaration of war on poverty, an increasing number of children still grow up in poverty in this country. Poverty is now more determinative than race as a predictor of student educational success (Reardon, 2013). The achievement gap between the poor and the more economically advantaged child has actually widened over the last three decades (Reardon, 2013). If we are to provide all children with equal and excellent educational opportunities, it is imperative that we utilize the most effective strategies and enhancements to overcome the educational disadvantages that poor children experience.

Children living in poverty or low-income neighborhoods are known to have lifelong struggles because of their education. The link between poverty and poor education is a known fact because children living in poverty will rather provide for their families than their own education. As a community, we need to come together to help low-income families and their children obtain a better future in their education. The effects of children living in poverty or low-income neighborhoods is a known issue worldwide and is only affecting our children’s future and ours.

Children from low-income households are more likely to encounter an increased number of risk factors that encumber their academic successes; these factors are inclusive of (a) low levels of maternal education; (b) high levels of maternal depression; (c) inconsistent and harsh disciplinary practices; (d) and exposure to drug abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse. (p. 11)

For more than two decades, school psychology has known about the necessity for, and importance of, developing multicultural competence (Fouad & Arrendondo, 2007). From research, ethics, and practice standards, school psychologists and other school personnel have been aware that an effective school professional is multiculturally competent and able to make sense of students’ sociocultural, socioracial, and sociopolitical backgrounds that present themselves within a classroom setting. Multiculturally competent professionals are informed as to which environmental, academic, and community factors combine to support all students’ learning and development across ages and abilities. Twenty-first century American schools are changing in dramatic ways partly because of shifting demographics in rural and urban communities and in public and private educational institutions, as well as among students who are homeschooled. These changes have produced a new generation of multilingual, multiracial children with racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic differences; multiple learning styles; native language learning; and changing family constellations. Some of today’s learners also come from families with multiple and/or generational family traumas and dysfunctions. These challenges and the shifts in student enrollment demographics are creating new demands on schools’ teaching and learning services.

The correlation between low-income families and education has been overlooked by many including political leaders. They often believe that with better education, comes the less likelihood of poverty. The problem is that some children are already a part of a low-income family and have to work through all the conditions that it comes with. It’s highly more visible living in New Mexico than in our higher income counter states. As an educator and someone who is friends with other educators, it’s a problem we see all too often. A friend of mine works at an elementary that is predominantly low income and is constantly plagued with the difficulty it brings. Both behavioral issues and lower testing scores are apparent in

Is the rising poverty rate of America negatively affecting the education of high school students across the nation? Unemployment, parents’ level of education and a profound list that continues has shown to impact a child’s education. In 2013, “a majority of of children attending our K-12 public schools [came] from low-income families” (Suitts 35). Poverty-stricken students are more likely to receive poor grades than those living above the poverty line. What seems to be affecting the grades of these impoverished students? The constant need to support their family financially, physically, and emotionally. Teachers may be unaware that some students face these hardships throughout their daily lives. They need to understand that students of lower socioeconomic statuses may not prioritize homework over taking care of their family during a time of need. Teachers should be more aware to better serve and understand their students. There is crucial evidence that supports that socioeconomic status does affect the education of those living under the poverty line, but some researchers believe that it has no effect on students’ education at all. Teachers should be more aware how socioeconomic status affects the grades of high school students.

The development of children can depend on many factors, one of the important ones being socioeconomic status (SES). SES can be defined as a multidimensional construct, including measures of social factors such as power, prestige and hierarchical social status, and economic resources (Hackman and Farah, 2009). Child development can be studied from multiple dimensions such as physical, mental, social, and emotional development among others. For the purposes of this study, I will be focusing on how socioeconomic status affects child cognitive development.

While the educational difficulties of African American students from low-income households are well documented and widely discussed in a wide range of educational literature, far less attention has been paid to African-American student successes in school despite significant challenges such as poverty, housing instability, and food insecurity. A review of the literature and campus CIP and TAPR can help identify the protective factors and processes that facilitate academic success among African American (K-12) students placed at-risk of school failure. Educational adaptability, or the ability

The Sunnyside neighborhood in the northwest side of Denver is populated by more than 10,000 residents, and according to the Denver Metro Area data, 51% of African Americans, 47% of Native Americans, and 37% of Latinos in the Sunnyside neighborhood are living in poverty every day. Poverty is one of the major factors that largely affects a person’s educational skills. A person’s social class is also a major factor in determining what limits or barriers are present throughout a child’s education. A child’s education can also be further impacted by the amount of funding a school receives in connection to the amount of achievement that can be accomplished by a school in a low funded area.

It was noted that most minority students come from families with low socioeconomic statuses (Kim & Sunderman, 2005). Because of this, the children tend to have lower academic success rather than a high-SES child. The effects of SES can start as early as preschool and progress from there. In most cases, by the time a lower-SES child enters school, they already have a lower math and reading ability, which makes it harder to catch up with the rest of the class. Students in lower-SES families often miss out on a variety of educational experiences such as owning books, going to the library or a museum, and traveling. It also doesn’t help that children who are underprivileged are less likely to have high-quality teachers. I too saw this have a huge affect on students while visiting a local high school. It was obvious that the stress of

Teaching children of poverty can be very challenging. These children are more likely than their peers to experience poor nutrition, parents with low educational attainment and underemployment, broken families, child abuse and neglect, drug abuse, teen-age pregnancies and high rates of dropping out (Holt & Garcia, 2016). It has been my experience that these students are a little rough around the edges which may cause an educator the inability to see beyond the exterior of the child thus treating them more harshly than their peers. Being employed in a Title 1 school, I have had the pleasure of working with students and families whose major source of income is welfare. They often came from a single-parent household and arrived at school improperly dressed and usually hungry. I found that meeting the child’s basic needs helped them focus on school and took some of the stress off of their parents as they knew their child was in a safe, caring place. One thing that was vital in our classroom was firmness and consistency. Unfortunately, many teachers and schools do not possess the knowledge and experience required for success in these more challenging schools. Impoverished students often do not care about their education nor did their parents seem to care how their children perform in school (Holt & Garcia, 2016). I feel this can be attributed to distraction from just trying to survive. In order to have greater success in the classroom of impoverished students, teachers need to