preview

How Does A Child's Socioeconomic Status Affect Elementary Education

Decent Essays

Revolutionist and Philanthropist Nelson Mandela, once said “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. (Forbes Magazine) Indeed! Education is one of the most important qualities a person can have. However, not everyone has access to the resources for a good education. Here in America, where education is free up until college, why does a child’s socioeconomic status affects their elementary education? One of the main factor for low SES is Poverty. Which ultimately determines their life’s chances. However, with improvement in family, and community, and health and safety issues, and improving the school system for equal educational opportunities, the dynamics of low socioeconomics will start to change. First, …show more content…

A caregiver whom may also have a low IQ, will use simple and short sentences, henceforth a child’s vocabulary is affected by the caregiver’s speech.
A six year study by Hart and Risley (1995) that followed the outcome of children from high and low SES backgrounds prove that a child from high SES were adding words to their vocabularies, twice the rate of a low SES child, overall a low SES child receive less cognitive stimulation than a high SES child. Reading is essential for a developing brain, however, reading skills must be taught and this requires attention and motivation from the mother, but with limited resources the child is usually neglected, and when the brain is not being stimulated it is not growing. Therefore, when reading materials are available in the home, student scores increased “by more than four points, schooling increased by more than one third of a year, wages, increased by 4%, and labor market experience for women increased by 0.2 years” (Peters and Mullis, …show more content…

Low SES children are at risk for academic failure for a lot of different reasons, one such reason can be the relationship between student and teacher. A Teacher who is able to identify and understand a struggling child, should be warm, caring and supportive.
When it comes to health and safety issues, children in low socioeconomics, experience more incidences of accidents and nutrient related diseases more the high socioeconomics children. Health and achievement work well together and a developing child’s body and brain needs a healthy environment to function. Therefore, a child raised in poverty, lack concentration to learn. According, Robert Sapolsky (2005) who is a Stanford neuroscientist and stress expert, found that the lower a child’s socioeconomic status is, the lower is their overall

Get Access