Least of the Brethren is a local food pantry in Pinckneyville, the organization I choose to plunge for my assignment. I am choosing this culture because of the high number of low socioeconomic students who attend schools in our district. I believe it is important to understand the needs in my area in order to connect with future students and their families. There is a need for support in my area to assist these families in feeding their families. I was able to substantiate my assumptions regarding the low income in my school district’s incomes while serving with the Parent Teacher Organization, employed as a substitute teacher, and from the website http://www.isbe.state.il.us/research/htmls/fall_housing.htm which reported data analysis of Perry County 2015-16 fall enrollment. The referenced website reported a total of 2,681 K-12 students enrolled and 1,299 with reported low income: 48 percent. In order for the Illinois State Board of Education to report the students as “low income,” there is a cross reference that the family is receiving government assistance such as Medicaid, SNAP, and/or WIC. Plunging into this culture, I hope to gain a better understanding of why food pantries are still needed and how I can become more active in addressing the needs locally. I hope to help future students and their families that might need extra support with the knowledge I hope to gain after this plunge. I also hope to inspire students to look for ways to help in their local
Social class has been always been in our society since its establishment. Back then, white,
America is a complex and diverse web of individuals marked by social stratification, a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy (Macionis, 2011, p.204). The film People Like Us: Social Class in America discusses the class system, social stratification based on both birth and individual achievement, which the American people use to define others (Macionis, 2011, p.206). It explores the many variables that contribute to the determination of a person’s class; such as, ancestry, education, and money. Ancestry will be a main focus because it has such a strong influence on the class system of today. The film provided an informative and entertaining
Michigan’s students perform near the bottom in national rankings and are on a downward trajectory (Higgins). This is partially a result of curricula throughout the state of Michigan failing to put students in a position to succeed. Many school districts and teachers struggle with developing curricula and lesson plans given time and budget constraints; this is especially prevalent in low-income and minority school districts where teachers are younger and less experienced (French). A prime example of curricula hurting student achievement is a story told at a Michigan ISD assessment and improvement representative meeting of schools “teaching” by having students copy words out of the dictionary as the teacher did not have the skills/capacity/time to create a better lesson. Alarmingly, this type of experience is common as “there’s no support, you’re woefully unprepared, and you’re totally isolated. You’re trying to put these lesson plans together at 10 o’clock at night, and you have to be up at 5 getting prepped. You’re making this curriculum up as you’re going it alone.” (French). All of this in the face of ever changing state standards forcing teachers to constantly change their curricula.
Considering the following statistics, it is clear why Hunger Free Colorado’s work is so important: Nearly 1 in 7 Coloradans struggled with hunger in 2013, facing times when there was not enough money to buy food for their families or themselves (Colman-Jenson, Gregory, & Singh, 2013). More than 1 in 5 Colorado households with children (22%) reported food hardship, facing financial challenges to put food on the table (Food Research and Action Center, 2013). More than 1 in 8 Coloradans lived in poverty, including 1 in 6 kids, during 2013 (Bishaw & Fontenot, 2014).
For many individuals in our Vietnamese community whom grew up in Vietnam, they know what it is like to go hungry for several days due to being unable to buy food. In order to find a better lifestyle for their families, they immigrated to the United States. However, for many families in America, the feeling of hunger is becoming a common occurrence due to being food-insecure. The definition of food insecurity according to the American Institute of Nutrition is “the state of being unable to get reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food”. The holidays are supposed to be a time to celebrate, and to share a meal with others. But for a number of families, they’re met with a familiar feeling of hunger. This may cause them to suffer emotionally from being unable to feast at the holidays. Those that are not living on the edge of poverty will not understand how much financial pressure is put on vulnerable families as they relied on schools to provide free meals to their children. The Food & Nutrition Service (FNS) runs a program that covers a portion of low-income children with meals over their summer; there isn’t a national program that covers the holiday break. This puts additional stress on low-income families, as they have to find ways to provide food, along with getting their children cared for. Food insecurity
Social class refers to the system of stratification of the different groups of people in a society. These different forms of classification are, in most instances, based on gender ethnicity and age. Social class makes everyone’s lives extremely different. For example: How long one can expect to live. In a wide range of ways, from success, to one’s health class, social class influences people’s lives (Grusky,2003).
One of the concerns regarding social justice in education is that there are marginalised groups within society do not having equal access to the learning and life opportunities that they deserve. The concept of social justice stresses that every individual within society is entitled to have equal rights and opportunities. This means that an individual from a lower class background deserves the same opportunities as a person from a wealthier background. It is about becoming aware and recognising that there are certain situations where the application of the same rules to unequal groups can sometimes lead to imbalanced results. It is therefore crucial that the government create a curriculum that can empower every student regardless of their
The idea of social inequality dates back since the time of our founding fathers. The mistreatment and unlawful equality and opportunity that these foreigners received became embedded into our history—this endless list includes, just to name a few, the Irish, Chinese, Jews, and most notably the African Americans (Blacks), who became slaves to the American people. Here in the United States, the current social class system is known as the class system, where families are distributed and placed into three different existing class—the upper class (wealthy), middle class (working), and lower class (poor). Since then, improvisations have been worked on into the class system, establishing now roughly six social classes: upper class, new money, middle class, working class, working poor, and poverty level. Social stratification is a widely common topic of debate because there have since been many arguments and debates on this controversial situation of social inequality and how it relates to social class and social mobility. According to Economist Robert Reich, he states that "The probability that a poor child in America will become a poor adult is higher now than it was 30 years ago..." (Reich, par. 5), meaning the given amount of equality, opportunity, and support that these struggle families obtain have gone mainly unnoticed by the government that it has gotten worst. The constant uproar of social inequality and injustice that these middle and lower working class families stem
Everyone knows about the various stereotypes and social stigmas that come with socioeconomic status whether they will choose to admit it or not. Society has come to assume that a child who comes from a family of low socioeconomic status, that they will not do as well as a child who comes from a family of a greater socioeconomic status. Unfortunately these assumptions are so ingrained in our brains that we start to follow the self-fulfilling prophecy. When a child from a noticeably low socioeconomic status walks into a classroom, it is not uncommon for the teacher to automatically assume that the child will not perform well in class, and in turn either grades the child more harshly or does not give the child as much attention as the
Our society has many ethical implications of socioeconomic inequalities. It is a social fact honestly, when people think about social inequality, they generally put social inequality in the terms of socioeconomic class. The United States has the largest gap in wealth. This gap causes people to start arguing about lower,middle, and upper class. Depression played a major role in the gap as well. People who have wealth and money have the top social standings in the society and enjoy the greatest privileges as brought on by their money and their social status. On the other hand, people who end up poor or have very little or no access to these high privileges and are usually marginalized in the terms of education and social services.
Universal basic income, (UBI), has become one our leading topics for a solution towards socioeconomic inequality. Billionaires such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, have advanced the idea of going through with UBI (Kaza, 2018). UBI tackles many diversity challenges our society seriously needs solutions too. However, due to the enormity of UBI, it’s important to evaluate our decision to go forward; not only finically but ethically. For governments to implement a UBI, it would take a major overhaul of their welfare and tax systems. For example, the United States would need to spend over 3 trillion dollars a year just to provide a yearly distribution of $12,000 for each person over 18. This does not include illegal immigrants or the cost of running the program. I will evaluate the potential effects and ethics of UBI on minority groups in three areas: gender inequality, social conflict and the effects of automation on the work force.
1. How may a student's social class origin and related factors impact on her/his learning outcomes and how can teachers intervene to effectively address any resulting disadvantages and injustices for students?
In today’s world people need to compete globally for jobs and one of the most important factors in getting a good paying job is education. However, even the best schools cannot overcome some of the obstacles placed in front of the students that walk through their doors. Poverty, chaotic home environments, discrepancies in exposure to technology, and lack of funding for schools all negatively impact the effort to educate children.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is one of the most widely studied constructs in the social sciences. Several ways of measuring SES have been proposed, but most include some quantification of family income, parental education, and occupational status. Research shows that SES is associated with a wide variety of health, cognitive, and socioemotional outcomes in children, with effects beginning prior to birth and continuing into adulthood. A variety of mechanisms linking SES to child well-being have been proposed, with most involving differences in access to material and social resources. For children, SES impacts well-being at multiple levels.
Poverty and inequality exist in every developed culture and often are only patched in order for society to continue upwardly. Poverty and inequality in the United States exists for many reasons; reasons that very from the prospective lens. Interpretive theories in particular ask us to question our reality and its constructs. Interpretive theories require us to looks at the world as a social realm, one that we created and constantly change. Interpretive theories study the relationship between power and the construction of social roles as well as the invisible collection of patterns and habits that make up domination, (Delgado & Stefanic, 2001). Susan Kemp argues that the view of the world is dominated by the experiences of white western