Week 8: Poverty and Schooling in the U.S. and Internationally

          Poverty manifests itself in varied and diverse ways; how do we detect it, and what are its effects? This last week’s material truly connected the dots between youth experiences of poverty and education. Overwhelmingly, it seems that according to the two films and research article, poverty interacts with education and opportunities to impact youth experience. Here, I will discuss the films Born with a Wooden Spoon: Welcome to Poverty U.S.A. and Through a Child's Eyes: Views of Global Poverty, and the article “Orphans in Africa” in order to sketch out a full picture of child poverty.

           

First and foremost, one of the largest themes discussed in both films was the idea that there exists a kind of ‘generational poverty’—where a cycle of poverty is perpetuated and passed on from parent to child (Born with a Wooden Spoon: Welcome to Poverty U.S.A. 2006). As Guinness also expresses in his film on poverty in the international realm, evidence for generational poverty extended across borders (Through a Child’s Eyes: Views of Global Poverty 2006). Closely tied to the idea of generational poverty is a concept coined by Oscar Lewis—the culture of poverty. According the film Born with a Wooden Spoon, a culture of poverty is characterized as “people who live in poverty conditions learn from one another… learn a new set of cultural norms and the new set of cultural norms are outside of the mainstream. Those norms include non-work…not putting a heavy emphasis on education for children” (2006).

Similarly, it seemed that an included aspect of this culture of poverty was the idea that the families in poverty had a lot of children. As I watched Martin Guinness’ film on poverty around the globe, most of the children interviewed were part of large families, not having less than four children. On this point however, I want to bring up the stories of Sangeeta and Shadi. In their respective interviews, both children expressed a desire to only have one or two children—perhaps rejecting the ‘culture of poverty’ instilled in them by their parent and by other members of their community.

Aside from ‘non-work’, lack of social capital, a tendency for teen girls to become pregnant early and to have many children, one of the largest contributors to poverty is a lack of education. According to Guinness’ documentary, most of the children interviewed were lacking in education. In Pune, India Sangeeta only goes to school for four hours a day; in Bucharest, Romania Florin is denied an education almost entirely, as it is only available to some. In her interview with Guinness, Justine touches on the real and simple relationship between poverty, access to schooling and youth experience of crime and violence: “You shouldn’t smoke, ‘cause that’s bad. You shouldn’t drink, ‘cause that’s bad. You should skip those things and go on with your life…Going to school is fun ‘cause you learn stuff and you get smarter. You go to—you get better grades.. and if you don’t go to school, you live in the streets… and that’s not good” (Through a Child’s Eyes: Views of Global Poverty 2006). In many ways, poverty and access to school retain a cyclical relationship—where each affects one another. In a study conducted by Case et. all, it was found that poverty had a significant effect on whether or not children attended school generally. Interestingly however, with specific regard to orphans in ten African countries, poverty was not the paramount contributor—rather, there was a special disadvantage orphans faced when it came to their living arrangements, specifically the hypothesis that orphans were shown discriminatory behavior by their caretakers or extended family when it came to education opportunities when compared with non-orphan children in the same household (2004).

In considering the information provided by the films and article, it would seem that the connection between poverty and schooling is overwhelming. Not only does a child in poverty have limited access to schooling and the resources it takes to retain an education: books, supplies, uniforms, etc. –but also children who are denied access to schooling are impacted later in life and are more likely to commit themselves to a culture of poverty, exemplified in Florin’s case—where, in Romania the poor are almost completely denied access to education, and where subsequently thirty percent of the population lives in poverty (Through a Child’s Eyes: Views of Global Poverty 2006). Through Guinness’ film, we also see how children in poverty are made aware of the connection between crime, violence and poverty—as in the cases of Justine, and also of Tamires. In each of these cases, we can see the connection between poverty and access to schooling. But in regard to the content of the article, where it is hypothesized that the status of being an orphan should be weighed much more heavily as opposed to a child being impoverished, especially where such information may be used by organizations in their focus on creating access to schooling, I think the results are inconclusive. To me, it would still seem that poverty is the bigger factor when it comes to access to school.

Works Cited

Case, A., Paxson, C., & Ableidinger, J. (2004). Orphans in africa: Parental death, poverty, and  

school enrollment. Demography, 41(3), 483-508.

Guiness, Martin."Through a Child's Eyes: Views of Global Poverty" 2006. Online video clip.

Arizona Universities Library Consortium. FMG Video On Demand. Accessed on March 21 2011. http://digital.films.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/play/3K645E

Films Media Group. Born with a Wooden Spoon: Welcome to Poverty U.S.A.. 2006. Films On

Demand. Accessed on March  21 2011. <http://digital.films.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=1850&xtid=36501>.

Week 7: Histories of Schooling in the U.S.

            This week’s blog topic concerning schooling in the U.S. touched on myriad concerns, including controversy on how American schooling has been transformed since the late 1800s, how it should continue to evolve, and questions of how America’s program of public education has impacted students socially. In this writing, I hope to address two films, As American as Public School: 1900-1950 and Student Threats of Violence, and the piece “Social Capital and Adolescent Violent Behavior: Correlates of Fighting and Weapon Use among Secondary School Students” by Darlene R.Wright and Kevin M. Fitzpatrick.

            First, through the documentary film, As American as Public School: 1900-1950, we see a framing of American schooling that has changed dramatically since the early 1900s—somewhat due to the inception of John Dewey’s Progressivism. It was extremely interesting to hear that  schools began to transition from not very conducive to a child’s growth and well-being; but began to offering classes like home economics and wood shop during the time, while also beginning to incorporate ‘amenities’ like swimming pools and zoos—as in the example of Emerson school in Gary, Indiana. And although we can readily admit to the fact that most schools no longer have their own zoos or offer classes like ‘animal husbandry’, it seems that in some ways contemporary public schooling has tried to hold on to the idea that elective classes like music and art enhance a child’s education—or the “work, study, play” approach (As American as Public School: 1900-1950 2000).

Additionally, the film highlighted the ever-present fact that there continues to be a tug of war between progressive education and traditionalist programs of education. Retrospectively, it was a positive thing that schools had taken on a Progressive curriculum to do “everything the parents were not doing”, especially in light of the fact that most families were poor and could not offer their children some of the things they could only get at school like a bath and meals (As American as Public School: 1900-1950 2000). But to an extent, Progressive education had evolved to touch every aspect of a student’s life—which included socializing them and their parents in certain ways. Is this a bad thing, though? In some ways, it might be seen as a negative thing. For instance, American schooling had played up the idea of patriotism, while deemphasizing and sometimes even reprimanding children for speaking a language other than English. In this way, schools way in on the political debate about immigration, and seemingly influence their students to take sides (I am reminded, in the film, of the group of children seen destroying their German textbooks).  Similarly, because of the volume of immigrant students, schools started to adopt a program that rewarded the students who demonstrated their gifted abilities through standardized testing, while seemingly dismissing other students to career paths such as carpenters and homemakers. In many ways, these aforementioned points are still heavily debated today, should American schools remain English only? Is standardized testing really the best means of appreciating a child’s level of intelligence?

My next point has to do with another controversial subject pertaining to public schooling: school violence—which is something the second film, Student Threats of Violence, and Wright’s and Fitzpatrick’s “Social Capital and Adolescent Violent Behavior: Correlates of Fighting and Weapon Use among Secondary School Students” address. One of the overarching questions of each of the films and writings was this: how does school create an impact on youth and socialization? And more specifically for the latterly mentioned, what correlations exist between school and youth violence? In Student Threats of Violence, Dr. Dewey Cornell expressly mentions that school violence is misperceived in the U.S.: it remains much lower than most Americans believe it to be; Cornell nonetheless attempts to offer a model of dealing with school violence that remedies the problem—which he believes is not widespread school violence, but a program of ‘zero tolerance’. In the article, Wright and Fitzpatrick are under the view that youth violence is a very pressing issue; and they come at their research on the basis of socialization and building social capital. Social capital according to Wright and Fitzpatrick is “resources embedded in social relationships and ties that can be used for expressive purposes such as the maintenance of physical health”, in other words, social capital is the mode by which meaningful relationships provide for many aspects of a person’s well-being (Wright& Fitzpatrick 2006). For example, social capital may manifest itself in schools through attaching feelings of pride to academic achievement, closeness with peers and teachers, etc. In their paper Wright and Fitzpatrick offer an argument which expresses that socialization and the building of social capital among child-parent familial relationships, as well as neighborhood-community relationships, school affiliation, and religious affiliation all impacted children positively when it came to lower incidents of violence.

To continue our discussion of Wright and Fitzpatrick, I found it interesting to read that, on their results, low income did not have either a negative or a positive correlation with incidences of violence among youth—it seems that this finding almost goes directly against Dr. Cornell’s findings on economic status, where he reasons that parents who make more money in their primary job don’t have to seek out two and three jobs—affectively allowing them to spend more time with their children after they get home from school. I seem to agree with Dr. Cornell on this one, and believe that economic status might have some bearing on a child’s access to social capital. The only stipulation here though is how much the factor of low income is attached to how many jobs the parent holds—and more importantly, something that Wright and Fitzpatrick do not fully explore, what is the connection between low income and child-parent relationships? Should there be one, as Dr. Cornell explains it? Overall, I agree with Wright and Fitzpatrick’s hypotheses pertaining to socialization and social capital, but I believe that further research might make the argument more lucid. 

Works Cited

Films for the Humanities and Sciences."As American as Public School: 1900-1950"
2000. Online video clip. Arizona Universities Library Consortium. FMG Video On
Demand. Retrieved March 7, 2011. http://digital.films.com/play/P7J4SF.

ResearchChannel (Producer) (2008, February 21). Student Threats of Violence.
[Youtube video]. Retrieved March 7, 2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXiK0A43Xk4

Wright, & Fitzpatrick (2006). Social capital and adolescent violent behavior:
Correlates of fighting and weapon use among secondary school students. Social Forces, 84(3), 1435-1453.