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Poverty, Class, and Education

(Module 3)

Sources

Next Steps

  • Gorski, P.C. (2018). Reaching and teaching students in poverty: Strategies for erasing the opportunity gap (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
  • Jackson, T.A. (2014). The great equalizer?: Poverty, reproduction, and how school structures inequality. In P. Gorski & J. Landsman (Eds.), The poverty and education reader: A call for equity in many voices (pp. 117-130). Sterling, VA: Stylus.
  • Jones, S., & Vagle, M.D. (2013). Living contradictions and working for change: Toward a theory of social-class sensitive pedagogy. Educational Researcher, 42(3), 129-141.
  • Read Imagining an Equity Pedagogy for Students in Poverty, Poverty and Class Bias in Schools, and one of the choice articles
  • Complete Double Entry Journal #3 (due March 2nd)
  • Complete Online Assignment #3 (due March 2nd)

What can teachers do to support students in poverty?

  • Teach students about economic injustice and poverty:
  • Read books about these topics
  • Study current and historical labor laws
  • Study historical figures who advocated for the poor (e.g., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
  • Locate and share books that display poor and working class lives in respectful ways

What causes poverty?

People with a deficit view of poverty believe that personal deficiencies cause people to be poor. They think that poor people don't work hard enough or have failed to take advantage of free public education. This is a misguided and unfair view that blames the poor for being poor.

What can teachers do to support students in poverty?

Objectives

What can teachers do to support students in poverty?

Poverty is seen as "a symptom of ethical, dispositional, and even spiritual deficiencies in the individuals and communities experiencing it" (Gorski, 2018, p. 59).

  • Teach critical literacy:
  • Show students how to critique the stereotypes and assumptions about poverty and other injustices depicted in books and media
  • Ask your students to rewrite these narratives about poverty from their own perspectives to reflect their own realities

What causes poverty?

Students will know:

  • the factors that create and sustain poverty and wealth inequality.
  • ways that schools contribute to class-based inequalities.
  • strategies that teachers can implement to support children experiencing poverty.

Students will understand that:

  • poverty is the result of many inequalities and injustices, many outside of an individual's control.

Students will be able to:

  • identify the factors that create and sustain poverty and wealth inequality.
  • explain ways that teachers can be responsive to children experiencing poverty.
  • Advocate for the elimination of school activities that require families to spend money (remember that public education is supposed to be free)
  • Remember that some students may not have experiences with the arts or physical activity:
  • Incorporate the arts and physical movement in your teaching
  • Advocate for arts programs at your school

People with a structural view of poverty recognize the social, political, and economic factors contributing to poverty. For example, the lack of jobs with livable wages, the scarcity of affordable housing, and the high cost of quality medical care contribute to poverty. This is a more accurate explanation for the existence of poverty.

Poverty Awareness Quiz

How is wealth distributed in the United States?

  • How much do you already know about poverty in the United States?
  • Take this quick quiz and test your knowledge: https://www.povertyusa.org/poverty-quiz

How do poverty and class impact education?

What can teachers do to support students in poverty?

How is wealth distributed across the world?

What can teachers do to support students in poverty?

  • Set high expectations for your students, and incorporate many opportunities for higher order thinking in your lessons
  • Incorporate cooperative learning opportunities in your teaching (e.g., partner work or small group work)

Note to students: This quiz was created by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Inclusion of the quiz in this module does not constitute an endorsement of the CCHD.

  • Design lessons and curriculum so they are relevant to your students' lives and experiences
  • Invite all parents into your classroom to share their expertise with students (not only parents with prestigious jobs like engineers, doctors, etc.)
  • Some districts are poorly funded because they do not receive much revenue through property taxes. Poorly funded schools tend to have fewer resources than affluent schools.
  • People with wealth can afford homes in affluent school districts. People without wealth may not have the advantage of living in a well-funded school district, meaning their opportunities for a quality education can be narrower than they are for the wealthy.

How do poverty and class impact education?

What can teachers do to support children in poverty?

What can teachers do to support students in poverty?

What can teachers do to support children in poverty?

How do poverty and class impact education?

  • "Ability"-based groups in elementary school are sometimes based on educators' perceptions of poor children, not on actual ability
  • Poor children are more likely to be perceived as striving learners
  • Think about it: How many children experiencing poverty do you know who are in gifted programs at your school?
  • Encourage students to be excited about reading (e.g., regularly model your own enthusiasm for books)
  • Reading more will help students develop their reading proficiency
  • Giving equal opportunities to all students would require us to "dismantle structural barriers" (Jackson, 2014, p. 129) that keep people in poverty.
  • A single teacher may not be able to eliminate these barriers for his/her students, but all teachers can be sensitive and responsive to children experiencing poverty.
  • The following possibilities are a synthesis of strategies recommended by Gorski (2018) and Jones and Vagle (2013).
  • Collect and analyze assessment data to identify students' areas of need
  • Develop instruction to help students meet these needs
  • Reconsider tracking and ability grouping
  • If students must be grouped, group them flexibly and for short time periods according to specific academic needs
  • Do not group students permanently based on perceptions of their overall academic ability
  • During middle school, students in poor districts may not have access to the courses that are prerequisites for college track classes in high school (e.g., algebra) because they are not well-staffed
  • Many women in poverty do not have access to quality health care and healthy foods during pregnancy.
  • This leads to poorer health for babies born to women in poverty.
  • As you've learned in other courses, poor nutrition and lack of health care in infancy and early childhood can lead to learning difficulties at school.
  • Some children have access to a high quality preschool education, and others do not
  • Chidren who do not attend preschool may be perceived as "behind" children who did attend

"Gifted programs are not the enemy, but the muddled definition of what constitutes 'giftedness' is, and it overwhelmingly excludes poor and minority children" (Jackson, 2014, p. 123)

Image by goodtextures: http://fav.me/d2he3r8

How do poverty and class impact education?

  • Prestigious colleges can be more likely to admit students with family connections to the school (i.e., legacy admission); this is not an advantage that most students from poor families have
  • Students from poor families may not be able to afford opportunities like study abroad, or they may have to work while in school, which limits their participation in extracurricular activities
  • College loan debt can prohibit students from purchasing a home and saving money
  • During high school, children from poor families may not have the knowledge or support to navigate the college admissions process or the financial aid application process
  • Children from poor families may not be able to afford expensive test prep programs that would give them an advantage on the SAT or ACT
  • Students may have to work jobs instead of engaging in service or extracurricular activities that could support their college applications
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