Influence of Poverty on the Quality of Education - Case Study Example

Go To School Jay MacLeod looked at several theories to write his book and he talked about how poverty is a determining factor as to who learns and how they learn. The theories that he used are included here: Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis They are listed as Marxists and they are under the category of Schooled by Social Class. Both men said that schools in the U.S. are "subordinated and reflective" of what they and Marx called "the production process" (12). Their premise is that school produces a reserve of skilled labors (army) which translates into school training. The wealthy are the ones that get trained to go to the top of the economy and the school system conditions the poor to accept lower status jobs. School also makes sure that employers get successful candidates based on the attitudes and values that the "capitalistic" society wants for their workers. Pierre Bourdieu -- Cultural Capital and Habitas Bourdieu relied on the French structuralist movements. According to the book, his most important contribution was about what is called "cultural capital". He defines this as "the general cultural background, knowledge, disposition and skills that are passed from one generation to the next" (13). In his theory the upper-class kids inherit substantially different cultural capital than working class kids. Schools reward the dominant classes and "systematically" devalue the lower classes. There are 4 main points in this theory: 1. Distinctive cultural capital is transmitted by each social class. 2. The school systematically valorizes upper class cultural capital and depreciates the cultural capital of the lower class. 3. Differential academic achievement is retranslated back into economic wealth --the job market remunerates the superior academic credentials earned mainly by the upper classes. 4. the school legitimates the process 'by making social hierarchies and the reproduction of the hierarchies appear to be based upon the hierarchy of 'gifts', merits or skills established and ratified by its sanctions'by converting social hierarchies into academic hierarchies (14). Basil Bernstein and Shirley Brice Heath: Linguistic Cultural Capital These two looked at linguistic patterns and continued past the work of Bordieu. Bernstein says that class membership is generated by distinctive forms of speech patterns and it happens through family socialization (16). He says working class children use elaborate codes and talk to their parents more often (17). The codes are built on family roles and relationship within the family structure. Brice Heath looked at linguistic patterns and race. She said that white children had more interaction with their parents and were taught to do things like label and name objects as children; while black children had less interaction (this was in a specific population and school setting). White children are allowed to ask more questions of their parents and black children don't usually get questioned by their parents so there is no interaction of this type. The result is that black working class children aren't socialized to cope with the language patterns that most schools use and therefore fall behind academically. White working class children develop many cognitive and linguistic patterns required for school but they don't develop integrated skills that are necessary to continue to be successful throughout their school life. Paul Willis--The Lads and the Ear'oles Willis also looked at the linguistic patterns of children but he later saw that there was a direct correlation between the class background, geographical location, job market and level of education that the boys achieved and the jobs that they eventually chose. He said that these choices come from the dominant cultures challenges to these boys' culture. He noticed that the majority of students in the school he chose were "ear'oles or those who conformed to the rules and the norms of the schools. There was a counter school culture of lads who that rejected the school's need for academic success and thwarted authority. They spent time mocking the ear'oles, disrupting classes and looked for opportunities to "have a laff" at those around them (19). His conclusion was that the cultural attitudes and practices of the working class were not necessarily about "the structural determinations or dominant ideologies (20). He felt that the only way one could understand this was to observe the culture. Henry Giroux -- Student Resistance to School Giroux studied student resistance to school by looking at ethnographic studies. He felt that the only way that you could really study what students felt was to watch them in real spaces and interview them. He noted that resistance is a response to the system of education and it isn't always a negative process. He says resistance is "rooted in immoral and political indignation [and it's not] a psychological dysfunction" (21). When a student is resistant to the school environment it may or may not be a negative situation. The way the student perceives the system will be the determining factor. Resistance theory also looks at the ongoing activities of the individual students while they are in school. Giroux says that the working class students aren't necessarily in a subordinate position because of economics. Instead, their opposition to education may be due to their non-dominant culture, which makes "class domination neither static nor final." (22). This seems to imply that there is a way for these students to come out of their situation with a little creativity on their part. MacLeod's Findings It is difficult to understand exactly what MacLeod found because the information was not straight forward in the text. This section will attempt to give an understanding to what seems to be his findings. In chapter 8, MacLeod comments that "this book's basic finding--that two substantially different paths are followed within the general framework of social reproduction" (135) seems to be the basis for his research and the findings that he was looking for originally. Most of the theories he listed in the book aren't adequate to give him the details he was looking for originally. He says that his information was a "major challenge to the determinist theories" (135) and he goes on to explain his rationale. He keeps going back to the Giroux's theory and he seems to think that the idea of sociological ethnographic research is the best way to study this topic. He also finds that structuralist theories have some basis for him because they can show why outcomes are the way they are but these theories also ignore some things like human agency (148). Another finding was with the Hallway Hangers and he felt his findings that these boys rejected the "official ideology" and that the poorest members of the black community did the same thing as the Hallway hangers did to him made sense (149). He makes the point that they reject the achievement concept because they can't really see how it would benefit them. His idea that class puts limits on the mobility of various people which insures social reproduction fits within the ethnographic studies. He seems to value Giroux's work more highly than the other in explaining the differences between the working class and the poorer aspects of society. He felt the other theories are limiting because they don't take into consideration the capacity that people have for reflective thought and action. He makes a good point that "individuals are not passive receivers of structural forces; rather they interpret and respond to those forces in creative ways." (150). This seems to be a major theme in the book. Discussion and Analysis The challenge to any work like this one is that someone goes out into a specific environment and decides upon what they saw in that specific environment, over time, that this is how everyone in that particular environment will act or react. Although this may seem true on the surface this may be a more complicated issue. There are many things that a student who lives in poverty will not experience but this is may be based on lack of motivation rather than because society has done something wrong. Poverty and education is talked about in the literature and there are elements of truth in what MacLeod and the other theorist say but it doesn't give a total picture. It is true that people who live in poverty have a very different way of life. I don't think it is fair however to assume that society is to blame for this situation. The reason I don't see this as fair is that poverty in the United States is governed by the Federal Government. They decide who is poor and decide what benefits people get depending on their incomes. Because they are involved most situations in education are dependent on government subsidies either through school lunch programs in the early grades or equipment and teaching methods on the other end. With state and local governments involved it is difficult to help students in poverty especially when they go to schools tat have inadequate opportunities. They schools in poverty areas are in a Catch-22 in some respects. On the one hadn't they may want to help students do better but on the other hand they have no money or support from the state, local or federal governments to do much about it. Also, with most schools focused on testing students it is difficult for teachers to pay specific attention to what is happening. By the time a student gets to high school, it is very difficult for them to attend to what school is about and how it is attempting to teach them. Most schools don't teach to individual learning styles and they don't answer a critical question for a student which is "Why'" When students don't see a relevance to education they are not motivated to achieve. It is this writer's opinion that there are a couple of things to change in our society before students would care about achievement. Both changes are structural shifts in our society. The first change would be in the perception of poverty. We believe that poor people are different than the mainstream and therefore should be treated differently. There are a variety of ideas on this theory. As an example, Lawrence M. Mead says that impoverished populations have lost the sense of work obligation. He says that people on welfare and other who are in poverty are there because they are unwilling to work (qtd. in Jennings, 1994, 86). Many people seem to think this is true and it may be a viable answer to one of the reasons why students are unwilling to work in the classroom. Another reason for poverty comes from Macarov (2003) that also makes sense: The way society and the economy operate; people are made poor or kept poor. ' the overwhelming majority of poor people are in that situation because of structural reasons-it is not their fault, nor have they undergone a traumatic experience. (Macarov, 60). My point with the above ideas is that poverty is difficult and when you are sitting in a situation like this education may not be the biggest priority for you. Another shift I think needs to be in the area of motivation. When students are under stress and have other problems in their lives, education becomes a small priority. Abraham Maslow's work in the "Hierarchy of Needs" illustrates one reason why students in education may be lacking a reason to achieve. Maslow in his basic hierarchy believed that a person's motivation was dependent on their needs. According to Maslow the hierarchy looks like this: Motivational Level Description of person at this level Self-transcendence Seeks to further a cause beyond the self and to experience a communion beyond the boundaries of the self through peak experience. Self-actualization Seeks fulfillment of personal potential. Esteem needs Seeks esteem through recognition of achievement. Belongingness and love needs Seeks affiliation with a group. Safety needs Seeks security through order and law. Physiological (survival) needs Seeks to obtain the basic necessities of life. (Note: This is a modified version as qtd. in Koltko-Rivera, 2006, p. 303) According to Maslow, in order to move up the hierarchy from one level to the next, an individual must first satisfy each need in order. Although an individual will move up and down the hierarchy at different times in their life, they will move along this continuum. When we consider the area of education and students who are in poverty, it is assumed that they always have a struggle for basic needs. This would suggest that the survival and safety needs are where they are stuck and it is difficult to move beyond that point. For some who get to the belongingness and love needs, this may be provided by a gang. However according to Maslow, they would need to get through these sections in order to get to a motivation for achievement. This means that students who live in poverty have a two edged sword. They aren't motivated because they have to attend to survival, but education is their "only way" out of poverty. According to Leon Dash, a report for the Washington Post, in order for students to move out of poverty, they need to be taught that they have options (qtd. in Lewis, 1994, 1). As he says, "the school system certainly is not preparing them for any future that seems better," (qtd in Lewis, 2). It is my opinion that once an individual knows there is something more, and they are shown this beyond a shadow of a doubt, they will find the motivation to achieve. After reading all of the information and the text, my conclusion is that there are a variety of things that keep an individual in poverty and at least part of the reason is owing to lack of motivation. If we were to talk with students we would find they have motivation for other things but because of the way they are approached in education, they may lack motivation in this area. At the same time, they must accept education in some fashion in order to remove themselves from poverty eventually. They will have to combat the educational system to do this and make the structural shift I mentioned before. Nesmith (2005) supports this idea when he says "sadly, we're so strongly tuned to the ethos that 'government must provide for the poor because the market will not' that I don't think we'll take any such steps for a long time." I agree with him. Until we are able to get people to start thinking about education from the standpoint of what students need, we will have many schools and students remain in poverty with no hope of getting out. Works Cited Jennings, James. Understanding the Nature of Poverty in Urban America. CT: 1994. Koltko-Rivera, Mark E. "Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Self-Transcendence and Opportunities for Theory, research and Unification." Review of General Psychology 2006: 302-317 PsycINFO ACN: 2006-22547-002. 07 May 2008. Lewis, Anne C. "Education is the Only Way out of Poverty". Phi Delta Kappan. 76:3. 1994. Gale Group: 2002. Macarov, David. What the Market Does to People: Privatization, Globalization, and Poverty. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2003. MacLeod, Jay. Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations & Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood. Boulder: Oxford Press, 1995. Nesmith, Ken. 5 January 2005. "Poverty and Education". The Tech Online Edition. MI: University of Michigan Press. 04 May 2008. . Read More