Why Does Socioeconomic Status Exist

The book, Meaningful Differences by Betty Hart and Todd Risley, focused on research surrounding children’s vocabulary growth. They began this research during their time at the Turner House, a community center and school which serviced impoverished children in Juniper Gardens, Kansas. They wanted to supply these children with vocabulary and oral language strategies to help them improve academically. However, as they started to intervene, they began to question their methods and wanted to look further into what types of interventions they should be using with these children. They began to compare the language of the Turner House children to the Professor’s children at the Laboratory Preschool at The University of Kansas. After initial research,

In this study, there was quite a bit more talking in middle-class homes than in working-class and poor homes, leading to the development of greater verbal agility, larger vocabularies, more comfort with authority figures, and more familiarity with

In the New York Times article from 2013 titled Public Policy, Made to Fit People, Richard H. Thaler addresses the issues surrounding education and the vocabulary gap between children of middle-class and above families, versus that of poor families. In this article, Thaler claims that at the early age of three years old, children who come from middle class families have roughly double the vocabulary span of their poor counterparts.

We believe that everything in our life is usually fine with no problems but that are times that we tend to realize the difference in our life, “But, I do think that the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant families which are more insular, plays a large role in shaping the language of the child” (Tan P.199). The family plays a major language modeling role onto the child. The author contradicts sociologists and linguists on the influenced by peers of developing language skills. She believes it is through family that affects how the child interprets language. In addition, the quality of speech is at home. Steele’s quote conveys to readers that life observations are based on a particular person’s perspective. Tan provides ample evidence on sociologists and linguists research on developing language skills, their research points out that children’s language skills are influenced by classmates. Yet Tan’s belief is that immigrant families have greater impact on the child due to their grasp of the english language. Ultimately, it is Tan’s personal experience that lead to her idea on with developing language skills compare to the sociologist and linguist whether than by family. Tan indicates that her life experiences with language developing skills are influenced by

According to the American Psychological Association, in a study of American kindergarten children, 36 percent of lower class parents read to their children on a daily basis, compared to the 62 percent of parents from higher incomes. Children’s initial reading skills are correlated with their home environment, and number of books owned and read to them on a daily basis. As a result, socioeconomic status (SES) affects our society as a whole; its relevancy to all realms of behavioral and social science includes education and advocacy. The inequities in wealth distribution and resource distribution is increasing in the United States which is directly correlated to the inequality seen in our education system nationwide. According to APA, children from low-SES communities develop academic skills more slowly compared to children from higher SES backgrounds. Consequently, Initial academic skills are correlated with the home environment; therefore, low literacy environments and stress negatively affect a child’s academic skills. The school systems in low-SES communities are often under resourced, negatively affecting students’ academic

In Reiser, Tessmer, and Phelp’s study (1984) it was determined that children learn more when they have an adult ask the children questions and provide them with feedback. However, the questions that were utilized in the study for child/adult interactions were specifically tailored to the program. They were not reflective of the organic conversation that might naturally occur when children and parents watch the program together. The pretest-post-test method was implemented for two reasons. The Language Development Survey (LDS) was given to the parents of the children to complete. The purpose of the LDS was to determine whether or not the children were developing at a normal rate. If the children were developing at a slower or more progressive

Two particular aspects of this topic I saw play out was their economic status, and linguistic background. The learning cite where I participated was aimed at helping children who came from a low income household, and also those who had English as their secondary language. Due to the fact that their families struggled financially I noticed many of these children where behind in school, and primarily in their English development. This could be a direct effect of low economic status because perhaps they lacked resources which could aid their learning, or their parents where not as involved because they were constantly at work. Therefore, they had very limited schedules and their involvement in their child’s education was short. Their linguistic background played a significant role in how they performed at school, because their practice was strictly limited to the time they spent at school they showed detriments in how well they acquired other languages such as English. They came from homes where they only spoke Spanish or otherwise and therefore they were taught to not practice it at home and leave everything they learnt or acquired at school, restricting them from further developing skills, which would develop their English. The environmental context in which children are brought up has a very significant role in children’s development; in my experience, I particularly saw the effect it had within their cognitive

Why poor children are more likely to become poor readers: the early years by Jennifer Buckingham*, Robyn Beaman and Kevin Wheldall. In this literature, they discuss low socio-economic disadvantage and poor early literacy. “Children from disadvantaged families are less likely to have experiences that encourage the development of fundamental skills for reading acquisition, specifically phonological awareness, vocabulary and oral language.” “The relationship between socio-economic disadvantage and poor reading ability is one of the most enduring problems in education. Socio-economic disadvantage is a relative concept referring to low socio-economic status, which is usually defined by income, occupation, education, or any combination of these. (Beaman, Buckingham, and Wheldall 428). This analytical proves and evaluates elements in this journal such as its claim, empirical data and its mention of opposing sides to state its effectiveness in relaying the message.

It is known that weakness in languages and poor social/educational backgrounds of parents are directly correlated to reduced educational performance (Ammermüller 2007; Casey and Dustmann 2008),

Early childhood poverty can also lead to language development deficits. In one study, children with LI (language impairment) had younger mothers with both lower levels of education and income—factors that influenced the growth rate of vocabulary throughout childhood. In fact, for every gain of $5,000 in annual income, vocabulary scores were raised by almost two points. This effect appears to be internationally constant. In one Chinese study, SES explains five percent of variance in child vocabulary, a large effect that has important implications for long-term learning, education and potential for learning. A longitudinal study of children with SI (speech impairment) and LI identified in early childhood found that LI was related to the worst outcomes later in life, including academic achievement. In this study, children with LI and/or SI had significantly lower SES and intelligence quotient (IQ), which contributed a unique difference to specific aspects of achievement. This is also proof that LI is vital in child development. To add to this, preterm infants showed delays in general cognition and both receptive and expressive language. In one study, preterm infants had delays in both receptive and expressive language at 26

Due to their economic status, parents or the parent of the child, can not risk unemployment, with that in mind, it is not unusual that “some parents may have no option but to leave children in less reliable forms of supervision or forgo necessary care for their children (e.g., doctor appointments),” (Ha et al, 21.) There are numerous cases of children missing out on health care and other important services due to conflicts with parent’s schedules. In addition, when Pre-k children were compared with center-based children, they found that “public school-based pre-K outperformed children in center-based care on 8 of the 11 subscales, which included measures of math, literacy, social skills, motor skills, and health,” (Ansari et al, 75.) This shows that even if a child from a lower/working-class family is able to attend a center-based care facility, they still are not receiving the adequate educational, social, and language development skills that they need in order to not fall behind other children in the same grade. A prime example of this, if we take a another look at Harold, we can see how lower/working-class children begin to mimic the way the people around them speak, which can been seen when Harold says, “Them girl colors,” (Lareau 148.) He uses African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and since his mother, siblings, cousins, and the other working/lower-class children he socializes with on a daily basis, use this form of English, they do not correct him and or try to get him to elaborate on his thoughts. Thus, he and other lower/working-class children do not change their speech and therefore do not grasp what is referred to as “Good

A seminal study by Hart and Risely (1995) documented a significant relationship between selected aspects of maternal linguistic input and child linguistic outcomes at 36 months of age. Their study, which was composed of 42 families, included 17 African American (AFA) families and 25 Euro-American (EA) families. Socio-economic status (SES) was divided into 3 occupational classes: professional, working-class, and welfare recipient. There were significant differences noted in each occupational class’s maternal input to their child. At 36 months, the maternal input differences were mirrored. The professional group spoke more frequently, consisted of larger vocabularies, and produced longer and more syntactical utterances than children in the other two SES groups. This study showed the significant maternal ethnic/culture input differences documented on all maternal input predictors identified in the studies of professional, working-class, and welfare recipient (Kelly, McKelvey, & Andrews,

The study conducted chose the objective testing to examine the difference of a child’s understanding of vocabulary, depending on their condition. The study used 72 infants that varied from 12 to 18 months of age, urban and small city demographics, and majority of them were white and came from middle-class families. The study did not take place at a laboratory, but rather in the child’s own home. A best-selling DVD was utilized for a

Both Bloom (1964) and Hunt (1961) argued that low SES children are not exposed to enough cognitively stimulating material thus limiting their cognitive growth, and future ability at school. However this is still a current concern as Bradley et al, (2003) found parents of a low SES were less able to purchase reading or learning materials for their children or take them to cultural or educational trips. Moreover Sirin (2005) concluded that children from low SES families have limited access to stimulating materials and resources, which was then supported by Milne & Plourde (2006) who found children living in poor neighbourhoods usually have no school library, public library or bookstore within a practical distance from their homes or schools. Low SES children were found to live in over-crowded environments with many siblings, which resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of time the parents could spend with each child teaching them the fundamentals for school (Milne & Plourde 2006) which puts them at an even further disadvantage. However in comparison high SES parents engage in more conversations with their children, read to their children more and provide more learning experiences for their children (Shonkoff & Philips, 2000). Furthermore according to Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn (2000) it is

To begin with, socioeconomic status is categorized an individual’s or family’s social status regarding income and occupation. I believe children from a low socioeconomic status have a disadvantage in learning language as opposed to a higher socioeconomic status. Language acquisition is the process that humans can perceive, dissect, and understand language. Much research has been conducted on infants and children to support this. According to Spencer, Clegg, and Stackhouse (2012), many young children in that are from areas of social disadvantage learn words at a different pace than their peers that are more advantaged. Many studies have been published to support this. However, one