Students from low income families face some interesting hurdles in the educational process–-and few of these hurdles have anything at all to do with the student’s financial status. Their biggest hurdle? Authority figures that have been trained in and have bought into the “culture of poverty” theory.
What is the “culture of poverty” theory and why is this belief system causing problems for students? The “culture of poverty” theory boils down to an elitist belief that people are poor because they are poor–-they want to be that way–-and an individual who grows up in a culture of poverty is destined for a life of poverty unless something rather dramatic takes place. If, like me, you're slightly more grounded in reality and understand that very few people make a choice--conscious or otherwise--to be poor, read on.
You see, I throw my lot in with with Julius Wilson, a renowned social science researcher from way back. This overly simplistic “explanation” is simply counter-intuitive. It has no basis in reality. People don't just wake up one day and decide, "Hey, I want to be poor. I like having my family struggle to meet basic needs." Puh-leeeze!
Children from poor, urban areas can and do perform just as well as those from other areas--if given proper support and the opportunity to do so. If you tell a child “you can” and you provide them with examples, demonstrate a moral life, give them love, give them the tools they need to accumulate knowledge (i.e. the capacity to reason, read, write and think for themselves), feed their hopes and dreams–-then that which has only been imagined can become reality.
Truthfully, we have too many students holding back because some authority figure somewhere--some elitist individual who had likely never personally experienced any form of poverty, voluntarily sat in on or was instructed by their school or district to take a “culture of poverty” training course so that they would better “understand” what life is like for the urban poor--told them they’d have a very difficult time succeeding or too many hurdles to overcome to ever be successful. This, my friends, is a prime example of structural dysfunction and results in the destruction of human potential.
In my mind, it makes so much more sense to believe children can do something, to create opportunities for them to learn how to do things on their own, to provide them with examples of how their lives can move successfully along the continuum from point A to point B. In essence, instead of demonstrating daily how incapable our children are and how unsuccessful they will be because their social/economic/other background criteria destined them for failure; tell them and show them they can succeed. Surprisingly enough, they will!
Until next time!
Lynn Byrne
Preparing for college admissions? Trying to find direction? Need a little help with the planning? Check out my college planning series:
- College Planning Made Easy--the planning and preparation workbook for the take charge, college-bound student,
- Paying for College Made Easy--a college financing guide designed to assist students and families in preparing and planning for higher education expenses; and
- The Great Scholarship Search--my guide for students and parents researching and applying for scholarship funding.
