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EDD614AssignmentCase2Qualitative.docxEDD614ASSIGNMENTCASE2
Trident International University
James Newton
EDD 614
Assignment Case 2
Dr. James Hodges
February 10, 2020
“Impact of Poverty on the Education Success of Children”
Background
Education is one of the most fundamental rights across the world. However, access to education continues to vary cross different communities, cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Numerous studies have attempted to explore the causes of variations in access and successful educational outcomes across different groups of people. Riedi, Dawn and Kim (2017) state that learners with the capacity to deliver high academic performance exist in all income levels across the United States. Nonetheless, the success rates of learners from low-income backgrounds continue to be lower than their wealthy counterparts. While the dropout rates have reduced phenomenally from low-income neighborhoods, children from wealthy families still register the lowest dropout rates. Level of income coupled with gender factors may also play a role in school dropout rates or low academic performance for children from poor backgrounds. A longitudinal qualitative study undertaken by Ramanaik et al. (2018) found that for many poor families, girls’ domestic tasks came at the cost of schooling with greater concerns regarding the need to safeguard their sexual purity. Furthermore, with the rising desire of the girls’ educational and career goals, parents often encourage girls’ agencies to communicate openly both at home and in school. Children from poor households are also less motivated to work harder in school compared to their contemporaries from wealthy backgrounds. Friels (2016) observes that scholars have tried to make efforts towards exploring the influence of poverty on student success. According to Friels (2016), a combination of factors such as poverty, race and ethnicity have been the defining indicators of student academic attainment. For instance, African American children from low-income neighborhoods continue to face challenges such as low classroom attendance and dropout rates compared to their peers from financial stable backgrounds. In light of the above, this qualitative study will investigate the effects of poverty on educational success in children.
Research Problem
The indicators of academic achievements are often widely recognized across different sides of the scholarly divide. They include hard work, student competence and abilities, school culture, as well as teachers’ competencies. While these factors have been expansively identified and explored by scholars, one major area of research has often been overlooked: the extent to which poverty or level of income impacts educational outcomes for children. Renth, Buckley and Pucher (2015) observe that even though studies exist on this problematic area of knowledge, there have been minimal qualitative explorations on the influence of poverty on children’s educational outcomes. For instance, major qualitative issues such as perceived parental involvement and capacity, access tor sources and the role of schools, can be important pointers of academic performance and success for low income learners.
For more than a decade, poverty continues to remain the leading causes of unsuccessful educational outcomes for able students. According to Ferguson, Boivard and Mueller (2007), children from poor backgrounds normally begin school already behind or late compared to their peers from wealthy familial backgrounds as pointed out through metrics of school readiness. In particular, incidences, degree, length of time, as well as timing of poverty all play a role in a child’s educational outcomes, coupled with the nature of their communities and social networks. Nonetheless, both American and global efforts to reverse such trends have generated minimal outcomes. Furthermore, an expansive body of literature indicates that numerous factors interplay in varying ways, cultures and situations to generate levels of disparities, which ultimately adversely affect students’ academic accomplishments (Renth et al., 2015). Poor performance coupled with school dropout rates, often affect students’ success in their adult periods. For instance, children who drop out of school are less likely to secure well-paying professional jobs during their adulthoods. Therefore, this study will provide valuable insights into the influence of poverty and educational attainment with a keen focus on how such problems can be addressed.
Purpose
The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the effects of poverty on education for children. The qualitative research will particularly use themes such as parents, teachers and students’ perceptions regarding the influence of poverty on students’ academic outcomes. The main research method that will be used to complete this study will be the interview method. There are various reasons why the interview method has been selected for the study. For instance, the qualitative research interview aims at identifying and describing the meanings of key themes in the life world of the subject. The major tasks that are related to interviewing is often to understand the meanings of what the interviewees often state. Furthermore, the qualitative interview will attempt to uncover both the denotative and connotative meanings of responses that will be provided by the respondents. This will be attained by examining nonverbal cues and their interrelationships with the verbal contents that will be provided by the respondents.
Theoretical Framework
The study will be guided by concepts from the human capital theory. For a long time, the human capital theory has been the overriding paradigm for socioeconomic progress that is placed on education progressively as a major sector to promote growth. According to the human capital theory, education plays an integral role in promoting socioeconomic growth and poverty reduction (Bonal, 2016). By improving children’s skills and capabilities, education becomes the privileged investment that can provide private and social returns. Therefore, increasing access to education for children from low-income families is a means for attaining economic growth in future and poverty reduction.
Research Questions
The research questions will be developed in order to provide guidance on hypothesis formulation and assessment of the variables. In so doing, the research questions will be instrumental in providing guidance to the study in ways that can generate a valid and reliable finding. More importantly, the research questions will be formulated as part of the ongoing phases of the research, including the unfolding lives and points of view of others on the area of knowledge that should be investigated. In light of the above, the list of research questions that will guide this study include:
1. What are the perceived effects of poverty on education success for children?
1. How does poverty influence academic performance for school students?
1. In what ways do students feel that poverty influence their education success?
Research Sub-questions
1. How does level of income increase dropout rates for students?
1. Does poverty increase school absenteeism rates?
1. Does poverty cause low school performance in terms of low grade?
Significance of the Study
This study will play an instrumental role in understanding the problem of poverty and educational performance. In particular, the qualitative study will provide insights into the perceived ways in which poverty deters children from generating their desired academic potentials. The study not only contributes to the understanding to this problematic area of research, but it is also going to be beneficial to educational leadership, students, and policymakers. At the educational leadership levels, the study can guide school administrators on developing interventions that can promote effective performance and success for low income learners. For instance, educational leaders who understand the income dynamics of educational success can use such knowledge to promote parental involvement in order to increase success. Moreover, educational leaders can focus on programs that are geared towards improving equity in school, because the rates of teacher-school collaborations and involvements are significantly among middle and upper class parents than in low-income families.
The results can also be used to by practitioners and educational leaders to explore the ways in which engagement can be increased among low-income learners. According to Jensen (2013), students from low-income families are more likely to struggle with the problem of engaging in class compared to their wealthier counterparts. This problem is especially linked to issues such as poor health and nutrition, low vocabularies, and efforts put in learning. Poor learners are less likely to engage in physical exercise, access healthy diets, and get appropriate and prompt medical focus. Moreover, such learners are less likely to be administered with appropriate medications and interventions. When such problems are compounded, they result in the overall reduction in engagement for learners. Educators and school administrators can address this problem by providing feeding programs in school and health services such as putting up of school dispensaries, clinics, and health facilities to support the health and nutritional needs of students. Addressing such challenges can significantly bridge the nutritional and health gaps that generate a lot of disparities in the performance between rich and poor students.
The proposed qualitative study can also support students to attain their desired learning outcomes in various ways. Williams, Greenlaf and Barnes (2018) note that both children and adolescents from low families mainly come from public schools across the country. As the number of learners form low-income household increases significantly, the achievement gaps between them and their richer peers increase. Understanding students’ perception of poverty and its impacts on their performance and educational success can help educators to design proper interventions to address their learning needs. Williams et al. (2018) state that understanding the major perceptions and themes that are common among students on the issue of poverty can help to improve their learning environment. For instance, most commonly mentioned issues that affect low income students include: establishing a culture of optimism, designing relationship networks, and putting in place meaningful and productive parent to school collaborations (Williams, Greenlaf & Barnes, 2018). Thus, the outcomes of such programs can encourage school instructors and counselors to work with students in serving them to gain positive attitude, optimism, and the spirit of hard work.
Finally, the results of this study will be insightful to policymakers to develop both local and nationwide interventions to improve educational success for low-income learners. For instance, the focus of policymakers can be on strategies that can be employed to reduce poverty. Anti-poverty policies can go a long way in reducing neighboring poverty. Examples of such policies may include reducing disadvantages stemming from income and racial segregation, extending employment opportunities to low-income earners, and tackling problems such as exclusionary zoning (Quillian, 2017). These policies can significantly improve quality of life of students and their performance and productivity.
References
Bonal, X. (2016). Education, poverty, and the “missing link”: The limits of human capital theory
as a paradigm for poverty reduction. The handbook of global education policy, 97-110.
Cross, J. R., Frazier, A. D., Kim, M., & Cross, T. L. (2018). A comparison of perceptions of
barriers to academic success among high-ability students from high-and low-income
groups: Exposing poverty of a different kind. Gifted Child Quarterly, 62(1), 111-129.
Ferguson, H. B., Bovaird, S., & Mueller, M. P. (2007). The impact of poverty on educational
outcomes for children. Paediatrics & child health, 12(8), 701-706.
Friels, A. C. (2016). Motivation Towards Success: A Qualitative Comparative Case Study
Illustrating The Differences In Motivating Factors In Achievement Between Low Ses
High Achieving and Low Achieving African American High School Females.
Jensen, E. (2013). How poverty affects classroom engagement. Educational Leadership, 70(8),
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Quillian, L. (2017). Poverty, neighborhood, and school setting. Focus, 33(2), 22-28.
Ramanaik, S., Collumbien, M., Prakash, R., Howard-Merrill, L., Thalinja, R., Javalkar, P., ... &
Moses, S. (2018). Education, poverty and" purity" in the context of adolescent girls'
secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study from Karnataka, southern
India. PloS one, 13(9).
Renth, B. A., Buckley, P., & Puchner, L. (2015). Academic Performance Gaps and Family
Income in a Rural Elementary School: Perceptions of Low-Income Parents. Education
Leadership Review of Doctoral Research, 2(1), 70-84.
Rideout, V., & Katz, V. S. (2016). Opportunity for All? Technology and Learning in Lower-
Income Families. In Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. Joan Ganz Cooney
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