The Effect of Poverty on Child Development - Article Example

p Poverty Name of the Student: Name of the Instructor: Name of the course: Code of the course: Submission date: Poverty Poverty has been cited as having both direct as well as indirect impacts on the educational outcomes of children in early childhood programs around the globe. This has tended to influence the formulation and implementation of policies in diverse countries in the efforts to address extensive impediments posed by poverty on education in different countries. This has also informed the development and adoption of diverse objectives at the global level, all envisioning the minimization or total eradication of the detrimental impacts of poverty on education. The above fact is best epitomized in the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) whereby when the United Nations Millennium Summit adopted the MGDs in 2000 to be attained by 2015, the first two primary objectives were geared towards the extermination of extreme poverty and hunger aimed at achieving universal primary education in the course of this timeframe (Engle & Black, 2008). This point to the fundamental need for social justice aimed at addressing the challenges posed by poverty on early childhood education around the globe. It is imperative to be cognizant of the fact that this can only be achieved through a synergy of efforts from diverse governments, international agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations among other agencies in order to achieve this goal. This paper is a profound attempt to explore the aspect of poverty in the educational context, primarily in early childhood education. Three fundamental aspects of performance or educational outcome, accessibility and education quality will be extensively analyzed in this discourse. Relationship between play and development in EC It has been extensively pointed out that play is central to the wellbeing of children instigating in the early childhood in the emotional, physical and cognitive dimensions (Milteer, Kenneth &Ginsburg, et al., 2011). Widespread research has documented the fundamental importance of play on diverse realms of the development process of a child in terms of physical and socio-emotional development as well as competency in academics. This fact is supported by Wood (cited in French, 2007) determined that through playing, children are endowed with an ideal opportunity to achieve enhanced verbal communication, creativity and imagination while using the play materials, elevated levels of interaction and social skills as well as problem-solving and decision-making capacities. Nonetheless, despite the integral role of play in the different tenets of children development, it has been noted that children who are continuously exposed to poverty and confronted by socio-economic impediments which inhibit their inherent right to playtime have extensive challenges on their socio-emotional development. Against this background, this section will chiefly focus on the work The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bond: Focus on Children in Poverty by Milteer, Kenneth & Ginsburg et. al.(2011) in generating a robust review on the correlation between play and early childhood development vis á vis poverty which has been a source of increased demand for social justice. It is worth noting that even prior to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights recognized play as a right to every child based on it being core to children development, early psychologists and philosophers, for instance Piaget and Plato had determined the central role of play towards healthy development among children (Milteer, Kenneth & Ginsburg, et. al 2011). It is also imperative to be cognizant of the fact that there has been an extensive trend in different countries in the recent decades of minimizing play time as a vital part of the school day. This trend has mostly been prominent among schools which have a high number of children from more disadvantages socio-economic backgrounds. Ramstetter, Murray and Garner (2010) cited a report by the National Center for Education Statistics which diverged that children who are admitted into schools with heightened poverty rates and high minority in the urban areas have a higher probability of minimized recess time when juxtaposed with their colleagues in more wealthy suburban areas. This fact is also supported by Milteer, Kenneth & Ginsburget. al.(2011) who inferred that 28% of the schools which have extreme rates of poverty have absolutely in recess time. This trend has been attributed to the fact that there is an increased urgency to efforts to minimize the academic disparities in terms of play time between the children from poor background with their peers from more affluent families. This is founded on the fact that majority of the poor children instigate their educational process at an averaged 2 years later than their peers in the middle and upper –classes who are from affluent families (Milteer, Kenneth & Ginsburg, et. al. 2011). Milteer, Kenneth & Ginsburget. al. (2011) cited that this can be partially attributed to their heightened vulnerability to social stressors, for instance, lack of financial capital by their parents (mostly single mothers) to book them in time for early childhood education, reduced access to early childhood education in their residential places which are often characterized by insecurity. In addition, upon instigating their academic programs, they are admitted into learning institutions and surrounding communities which are characterized by inadequate resources to improve their educational process. Consequently, these schools are confronted by heightened pressure to not only minimize the educational disparities between these children from poor socio-economic set-up, elevate their academic performance but also maximize the time for direct education aimed at attaining the above objectives. This is mostly through tutorial and after-school tutorial programs (Milteer, Kenneth & Ginsburg, et. al., 2011). In the developing countries, the lack of play time in EC is more severe based on the fact that the poverty levels are more intense when compared to other regions. This fact is supported by Grantham-McGregor et al (2007) who determined that approximately 61% of the children from Sub-Saharan Africa are faced by diverse challenges and end up failing to meet their development capacity as a result of poverty. In addition, these children spend most of their time out of school assisting their parents in supporting families in environments which are not conducive for playing purposes. Consequently, the lack of playing time among these children inhibits their socio-emotional as well as physical development. Thus, it is apparent that interplay between diverse factors which culminate in minimal playtime in EC among low-income as well as poor children which results in inadequate development. This has resulted in the necessity for social action to ensure that as there is support for increased academic learning among these children, social and emotional learning ought to be robustly supported through input from different stakeholders (Milteer, Kenneth & Ginsburg, et. al., 2011). Nonetheless, it is imperative to be cognizant of the fact that the unique phenomena among the poor children from different backgrounds ought to be put into consideration in the efforts aimed at promoting adequate playing time, for instance, need for secure playing environment. Poverty and performance in EC The evident impact of poverty on early childhood education has been a major propeller of the call for social justice in many countries around the world. This has also been the foundation of major scholarly discourses in different realms of academia. It has been pointed out that poverty has extensive impacts on the performance of children in early childhood program. Engle and Black (2008) noted that the connection between poverty, the development of children and academic performance has been explicitly documented, which has been perceived to begin as early as the second year in life and continuing through elementary and high school. On the other hand, McLoyd and Wilson (1990) cited that in majority of the countries, poverty has been perceived to present severe stress to families and children which pose detrimental impacts through interfering with positive adjustment to developmental tasks which even encompass achievement in school. This section will primarily focus on the work The Effect of Poverty on Child Development and Educational Outcomesby Engle and Black (2008) among other literature which correlates the level of academic outcome in EC to poverty. Engle and Black (2008) cited evidence from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network which revealed that children who come from families which are confronted by extreme poverty are more inclined towards poor academic achievement and more problems in their behaviors when compared to children from well-up families. This has been in part attributed to the experiences at home as well as inadequate inspiring behavior among poor families. The above fact is supported by the FPG Child Development Institute (2007) which determined that there is a close association between poverty at childhood with retention of grades, drop-out from school and overall academic failure, illegal substance abuse as well as teen parenthood. Some of these reasons are analyzed in the subsequent section. It is an apparent fact that there as a direct correlation between high rate of school-drop among children in early childhood programs as a result of poverty in the families from where they come from. This is whereby majority of the parents in these families are financially incapable of sustaining their children through these early childhood programs which eventually result in them dropping out of school and eventual non-graduation from these programs. In relation to above, lack of financial resources also culminates in frequent absenteeism of children from low-income countries in school which usually poses detrimental effects on their academic performance. The effect of poverty in families on the academic performance in EC has also been linked to the resultant lack of motivational environment to stimulate the children towards higher levels of academic excellence. This fact is revealed by Coleman (1990) who cited that there is extensive evidence which points to the fact that majority of the families which are characterized by low income or extreme poverty often have minimal education and thus, this limits their potential and ability to offer a stimulating environment in response to their academic endeavors and goals. This is founded on the fact that apart from providing the basic necessities like food, shelter and clothing, families also act as fundamental transmitting agents of both cultural and educational values to children which assist them in the process of adaptation to opportunities and demands in the society (Engle and Black, 2008). On the other hand, Soto and Swadener (2002) forwarded a paradigm shift by suggesting the effects of the poverty of the early child teachers and the eventual performance of the children under their care. This is whereby they revealed that majority of the childcare teachers and other EC teachers employed in under resourced schools and poor neighborhoods often earn wages which are below poverty levels, not forgetting the lack of some basic necessities like medical coverage. In this regard, majority of these EC teachers lack the motivation and the zeal towards enhancing the academic performance of the poor children under their care. They often end up turning in for the job because it is their sole source of income but not because of the motivation to help children in the EC program towards attaining better academic performance. When this factor is couple with the lack of academic motivation from the parents back at home, this results in poor academic outcomes in school by these children. Nonetheless, despite the above evidence pointing to the correlation between poverty and poor academic performance in early childhood, Engle and Black (2008) also pointed to the fact that there are also many children who come from poor and low-income families who have succeeded in attaining high level of academic performance. This was supported by two studies which revealed that there exists variability between individuals in terms of adaptation. This variability is also evident among children who are brought up in a similar context. This reveals that apart from the diabolical impacts posed by poverty on academic performance of children from poor family backgrounds, there are instances whereby some children exhibit high performance than others despite the similarities in their genetic make-up (same family) or similar poor environments (Engle and Black, 2008). This can be attributed to the variance of individual will among children to overcome the their impoverished backgrounds, to match the performance of their peers who have better academic resources or to emulate the performance history of their role models who in most cases are the teachers mandated with the role of EC education. Engle and Black (2008) epitomized this phenomena by citing studies among children in Romania who were brought up in institutional care in their early lives (first two years) and eventually adopted into families with a middle income set-up in Britain. These studies revealed that majority of these children achieved strong academic performance and social score which had consistency with the norms in the United Kingdom. This revealed the existence of individual variations among the children themselves even though they came from similar backgrounds which were characterized by poverty. Nonetheless, it is paramount to be cognizant of the fact that these cases are unique to certain children in EC and not reflective of all the children from families or backgrounds characterized by poverty. In actual sense, majority of these children from poor families exhibit poor academic performance which has intensified the demands for social justice to inhibit these disparities in academic performance in early childhood education which has been attributed to poverty. Poverty and inclusion: An EC approach The concept of inclusion has been extensively used in diverse contexts. However, the need for inclusive education has to a great extent been driven both in a normative sense (as a matter of rudimentary civil and human rights) as well as in terms of the progressive effects on social participation, learning, development and wellbeing (Baron, Janson and Mufel, 2009). This section will primarily center on the document First Steps: Stories of Inclusion in Early Childhood Education developed by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1997. The issue of need for inclusion in education in EC has risen to prominence in the recent past, mostly with special attention segregated children, for instance the disabled from poor families. This is based on the fact that there aremore children with learning difficulties from the poor families when compared with affluent families. This is best epitomized by Baron, Janson and Mufel (2009) who cited the increasingly developed country of Chile whereby assessments on infants and development among children in the national level revealed that there was an extremely elevated level of young children who portrayed developmental delay among the impoverished families. In addition, studies by UNICEF in Russia also revealed that majority of the children who were living with disabilities from this particular region came from families that were poor (UNICEF, 2005, cited in Baron, Janson and Mufel, 2009). It is also worth to note that the costs which are associated with bringing up, caring and educating a disabled child is often high and thus becomes a major burden to the people who are categorized under middle and low income levels, and to the greatest extent, those people living in poverty. This has mostly been related to the sophisticated association between poverty and disability where the mothers of these children are over-burdened with multiple tasks to meet the daily needs of the family as well as meeting the special needs of the disabled child (UNESCO, 1997). Against the background of the interrelation between disability and poverty formed a robust foundation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children, to which Australia is a core signatory. In the Article 23 of this convention, there is a provision on the basic rights of the children living with disability which guarantees that there is extensive consideration of their rights in governmental policies and in the efforts towards resource allocation to services targeting children and EC education which is key in fostering and cultivating their eventual inclusion in the mainstream delivery of services (UNESCO, 1997). Nonetheless, despite these extensive efforts aimed at fostering inclusion of special needs children in the mainstream EC educational system, these provisions had received minimal implementation in many countries which culminated in the demand for social justice in more profound actions to foster the inclusion/integration of these children, most of them who are from poor families. This has in the recent past culminated in the formulation and implementation of different policies in diverse countries around the globe aimed at promoting inclusion of special needs children in the EC programs. This fact is best epitomized in South Africa whereby a robust program was implemented aimed at enhancing inclusion (UNESCO, 1997). This program entails four basic elements which work in harmony in the efforts to produce a holistic approach in the efforts to cultivate the inclusion of children with special educational needs (SEN). According to UNESCO (1997), these components are first, an inclusive participation in the policy formulation and execution around issues related to EC development and SEN at both national and provincial levels. Secondly, the expansion of SEN in the realms of training and thirdly, the overall inclusion of children with SEN in the demonstration institution which is directly attached to CCDC (an NGO located in North London). The last component of this inclusion program is the empowerment of the parents living with children with special educational needs. This is an example of an inclusion program born out of social action aimed at ensuring the inclusion of children with SEN, mostly those from poor families. This social action resulted from the realization that children, mostly from the poor background who have manifold disabilities, acute or mild mental handicap as well as children who are homeless are in most cases gravely affected by extensive exclusion from the educational system in terms of curriculum development, facility access among other tenets (UNESCO, 1997). Thus, the aspect of inclusion in EC has placed much weight on the policy makers to ensure that the education system is conducive for the SEN children. However, Chapman and Hobbel (2010) placed much responsibility on the educators to embrace and accept disability as a form of social needs in the EC care centers as well as teach the necessity to encompass diversity in educational system. However, it is imperative to be cognizant of the fact that for more productive efforts towards inclusion to be achieved, a holistic approach is required from all the stakeholders involved as well as international collaboration in these efforts. This can be through the development and training materials, designing and provision of training programs as well as conducting robust M&E on these programs, both at the national and international level (Baron, Janson Mufel, 2009). This will be key in ensuring that social justice is attained to all through development and implementation of inclusive policies rather than merely designing curriculum content and shallow differentiation techniques (Chapman & West-Burnham, 2010). Conclusion From the above discourse is apparent that diverse challenges are posed by poverty to EC. These include the effect of poverty on play time among poor children which inhibits their socio-emotional and physical development. In addition, poverty also been cited to as a major cause factor of the disparities in terms of academic performance between children from low-income as well as poor families in EC education. Lastly, poverty has been linked to the aspect of inclusion in EC. All of these social justice issues call for more profound efforts by all the stakeholders involved. References Baron, E., Janson U. &Mufel, N. (2009). Early Childhood Intervention, Special Education and Inclusion: Focus on Belarus. Retrieved August 30, 2012 fromhttp://www.unicef.org/ceecis/Belarus_English.pdf. Chapman L. & West-Burnham, J. (2010).Education for Social Justice: Achieving wellbeing for all. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Chapman, T. K. & Hobbel. N. (2010) Social Justice. Pedagogy across the curriculum: The practice of freedom. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. Coleman, J. 1990. The Foundations of Social Theory: 1014. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Engle P. & Black, M. (2008). The Effect of Poverty on Child Development and Educational Outcomes. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1136 (1), 243-256. FPG Child Development Institute (2007). Poverty and Early Childhood Intervention. Retrieved August 30, 2012 from http://projects.fpg.unc.edu/~snapshots/snap42.pdf. French, G. (2007). Children’s early learning and development. Dublin: NCCA. Grantham-McGregor S, Cheung Y, Cueto S, Glewwe P, Richter L,Strupp B., and the International Child Development Steering Group (2007). Developmental potential in the first 5 years for children in developing countries. Lancet 369 (9555), 60–70. McLoyd, V.. & Wilson. L. (1990). Maternal behavior, social support, and economic conditions as predictors of distress in children. New Directions for Child Development,46, 49–69. Milteer, R., Kenneth, R. & Ginsburgand the Council on Communications and Media Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health (2011).The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bond: Focus on Children in Poverty. Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, 129 (1), 203-214. Ramstetter C, Murray R, & Garner A. (2010). The crucial role of recess in schools. Journal of School Health, 80(11), 517–526. Soto, D. L. & Swadener, BB (2002) Toward Liberatory Early Childhood Theory, Research and Praxis: decolonizing a field.Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 3 (1), 38-66. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, (1997). First Steps: Stories of Inclusion in Early Childhood Education. Paris: UNESCO. Read More