EDUCATION

How Poverty Affects Children

October 2, 2012

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The problem of the childrens poverty in the world is widespread and concerns not only very small unprotected social groups. The financial position influences not only the selfrespect at adult people, but also the intellectual development and health of their children. Communication in this logic chain is the physiological stress which undermines a weak childs organism. The destiny is almost a scientific concept. The various factors and genes, which are inherited by children from parents, predetermine their future development. The important role is played by welfare and a social status which promote the development of a child. If parents have good money, children have excellent education, health and social status. Poverty, on the contrary, causes a continuous physiological stress, fall of working memory, bad progress and behavior in a kindergarten and school. The criteria of definition and measurement of poverty composed the subjects of debate within the previous century. There are the distinctions between an absolute and relative poverty, between the insufficient income or other forms of financial deprivations and wider forms of adverse conditions, including insolvency. Proceeding from the nature of the processes of childrens development, it is extremely important to consider the numerous aspects of poverty as the deprivations in one sphere (for example, malnutrition) can affect the others (such as health or abilities to study). Poverty is the interrelation of the financial and social deprivations, but not only a lack of the means for living. It is also used as the subjective assessment of well-being, taking its roots in the qualitative analysis, as well as the statistical measurements of the different aspects of poverty. Childhood poverty is one if the kinds of poverty, occupying a definite period of time of a person, while the term child poverty singles out poverty as a special form of poverty. Child poverty is inseparable from an adult poverty, from the poverty of families and communities. The causes of a special attention to the problem of child poverty include the

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fact that poverty has long-term consequences: short periods of poverty in childhood can influence the future both of a separate person and the whole generations. The given research paper focuses on the poverty, experienced in childhood, when children are deprived of the possibilities to satisfy their vital needs and opportunities for selfdevelopment. Income poverty has a strong association with a low level of preschool ability, which is associated with low test scores later in childhood as well as grade failure, school disengagement, and dropping out of school, even when controls for family characteristics such as maternal schooling, household structure, and welfare receipt are included (Duncan: 1998). Such deprivations can grow out of various economic, geographical, transitional, welfare and structural factors and are connected mainly with the distribution of resources and possibilities both at the national and international levels, and at the level of families and communities. There is the term chronic poverty, which is defined as a poverty of an individual for five and more years. Children, who experienced at least five years of poverty, remain poor for the whole life. Thus, a special attention should be paid to the factors responsible for the potential transition of a family from the level of a casual poverty to the level of a constant poverty and vice versa. Due to the potentially cruel consequences of the influence of the period of poverty in the childhood on a childs development, it is extremely important to have a better understanding of the reasons why some families become chronically poor. It is also important how poverty influences the level of a mutual aid of families and communities in children protection, and also on the changes in the attitude to children. The families in the conditions of poverty are compelled to make the decisions necessary for a

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physical survival, which certainly undermines the wellbeing of children. It is insufficiently known how the strategy of a family survival affects children, and also what types of help can prevent the negative consequences. In most cases the fact. how a child experiences poverty, depends on the situation in a family. The access of a family to the financial and social resources (including, the help of relatives) is substantially reflected in the wellbeing of a child. The impact of a familys access to the financial resources considerably varies depending on the structure of a family, power and work distribution in a family, the accepted norms of care for a child, the attitude to children and to the degree of priority of their education, and also on the general values which give the basis for the construction of the processes of socialization. Their influence can differ depending on a sex, abilities, personal qualities and talents of a child, and also on the opinion of parents or tutors of separately taken child. Children in families with incomes closer to but still below the poverty line also did worse than children in the higher income reference group; the differences were smaller, although usually, but not always, statistically significant (Dunkan: 1998). A lot of scientists established a cause and effect interrelation between a bad progress and financial position. A working memory, in which a human brain places all new facts for processing, acts as a suffering link. This value became the defining for training. There is the data about the difference between the extent of a working memory at teenagers and children from the poor families and the families with an average income. However, the existence of this correlation does not prove completely the presence of the investigatory causal relationship. It can be explained by a bad heredity. Poverty, in this case, will show that parents have no necessary intelligence to earn the necessary quantity of money.

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It is also possible to assume that a working memory decreases because of poverty. In this case the mechanism of communication, which includes a bad atmosphere at home, nonbalanced food, poor-quality medical care, characteristic environment at school and kindergarten, becomes unclear. A physiological chronic stress can be a potential link of communication. The scientists measured some indicators which characterize the load of a human body at rest: adrenaline, cortisol level, blood pressure, etc. The total index appeared higher at children who lived below the poverty line. The scientists believe that all these factors influence a working memory because the fluctuation of hormones, arterial pressure does not absolutely favorably affect the development of a nervous system. However, there are no hereditary factors. Therefore, poverty is not a defect, and it is possible to change the destiny if to make necessary efforts. Poverty is something bigger, than simply a lack of financial means. It was found out that the beliefs, values and steady models of behavior which, in their turn, promote poverty in the following generations, are developed in the conditions of a constant need. In the process of development and fixing of the market relations in the modern world the level of financial support of a family starts to make considerable impact on children. The majority of researches show that the teenagers, making plans for the future, are inclined to consider the financial help which the family can render to them. Thus, the higher the financial position of parents is, the more help they expect to receive from their parents, and, respectively, the higher the level of their claims is. At the same time the education of mother still plays a very important role in the socialization of children. Two main types of initiatives can help to reduce the childrens poverty. The national strategy of poverty reduction emphasizes that the macroeconomic growth should be the main means of struggle against poverty and improvement of the position of children through the

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increase of a standard of living of their families. Thus, it is necessary to be convinced that the economic growth is really directed at the improvement of provision of poor segments of the population - meaning that the measures directed at the regional development, creation of workplaces, development of medium and small business, and also support of small farms should be among the priorities. It is necessary to increase the financing of the key social services (health care, education, social protection) which depend on the obligations of the international communities and the state government. The second row of initiatives is concentrated to the separately taken children, frequently from certain social groups, such as street children or risk families. These initiatives use the methods of a social work. They provide financial, practical, and also social and emotional support for such children and families and, as a rule, such actions have small scales. It is the main approach of NGO, and also the state social workers. Despite the fact that similar work has a huge practical value for the families in poverty, it should be considered only as a part of the developed system of the actions necessary for the struggle against childrens poverty. However, if a social work becomes the main tool of this struggle, the vision of childrens poverty as problems of separately taken families having difficulties (risk families) prevails, and, consequently, the public attention will be abstract from the need of economic and social capital investments. To accomplish the institutional change needed by children in poverty requires greater social forces than poverty programs themselves generate. The educational problems of compensatory education are political problems. Their long-term solution involves social alliances whose outlines are still, at best, emerging. Yet work on education can be one of the ways these very alliances are created (Connell: 1994).

EDUCATION References

Connell, R.W. (1994). Poverty and Education. Harvard Educational Review 64.2: 125. Available at: http://shiftfiles.com/files/190668E_Source_1.txt Dunkan, G., Yeung, W, Brooks-Gunn, J, Smith, J. (1998). How Much Does Childhood Poverty Affect the Life Chances of Children? American Sociological Association, Vol.63, 3, p. 406-423. Available at:

http://shiftfiles.com/files/190667E_source_2.pdf