ANALYSIS of the WIDENING GAP
of Income INEQUALITY-BASED
EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT IN CHILDREN
“Further education should be about the ability to learn, not the ability to pay - everyone who
is able should have the opportunity, regardless of their family background. I don’t want to see
students struggling with huge debts or frightened off even going to university in the first place.”
- Charles Kennedy
By Nupur Srivastava, Ph.D.
What does poverty mean for children? How
does the relative lack of parental income influ-
ence children’s day-to-day lives? Is it through in-
adequate nutrition; fewer learning experiences;
instability of residence; lower quality of schools;
exposure to environmental toxins, family vio-
lence, and homelessness; dangerous streets; or
less access to friends, services, and, for adoles-
cents, jobs? (Brooks-Gunn and Duncan, 1997).
This article reviews few researches to examine
the relationship between income
58
SPRING 2017
poverty and child outcomes in several domains.
The focus on income in the relationship be-
tween poverty and educational achievement
has been challenged in recent years (Field, 2010;
Goodman and Greg, 2010). It is argued that in-
come is only one aspect in accounting for the
experiences of children in the school system
(Ward, 2013).
The relationship between family’s socioeco-
nomic characteristics and student achievement
Analysis of the Widening Gap...
is one of the most robust patterns in educa-
tional scholarship, yet the causes and mecha-
nisms of this relationship have been the sub-
ject of considerable disagreement and debate
(Bowles and Gintis, 1976, 2002; Brooks-Gunn
and Duncan, 1997; Duncan, Brooks Gunn, and
Klebanov, 1994; Herrnstein and Murray, 1994;
Jacoby and Glauberman, 1995; Lareau, 1989,
2003). However, the impact of low-income on
c hildren’s cognitive development is well docu-
mented. Evidence shows that low income chil-
dren lag in cognitive development and lie one
year behind in vocabulary when they enter
school, with long-term consequences: “such
early gaps may affect low-income children’s at-
titudes towards school and their aspirations for
school attainment” (Waldfogel and Washbrook,
2010; Lauder et al., 2006).
cive to good educational outcomes
(Blanden and Gregg, 2004).
Child Poverty Insights initiated by The Joseph
Rowntree Foundation, more specifically seeks
to answer if raising household income itself
makes a difference to children’s outcomes, or
if it would be better to focus on investing in
schools or improving parenting skills (Cooper
and Stewart, 2013).
Does money really affect children’s out-
comes?
The answer was, yes. In short, they found very
strong evidence in 34 studies conducted by
them that money matters: children from low-
er-income households have worse outcomes in
part because they are poorer, not just because
In addition, there is evidence that poverty, in poverty is correlated with other household and
terms of family resources, has a powerful influ- parental characteristics.
ence on children’s ability to respond to educa-
tional opportunities (Eden, 2013; Ward, 2013; How can we be sure that it is money making
Blanden and Gregg, 2004) in
the difference, rather than other related fac-
several ways: (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ tors such as parental interest in children’s
EJ1055201.pdf)
education?
• the absence of learning habits and experi-
ences at home;
Studies that find an association between
• a lack of access to computers;
household financial resources and children’s
• a lack of a sense of self-esteem through ap- outcomes cannot be certain that there isn’t an-
propriate interactions with parents;
other hidden factor driving the apparent link.
• poor housing;
To avoid reaching false conclusions of this kind,
• an unhealthy diet;
they set very strict limits on the type of study.
• possible mental health issues within the fam- They included 34 studies and followed a num-
ily;
ber of different research approaches. A very
• domestic violence;
few studies were set up deliberately as random-
• the stress associated with low pay or unem- ized controlled experiments, where individuals
ployment. (Eden, 2013)
were allocated to receive different benefit lev-
els at random. In several other cases, an experi-
These all make it potentially difficult for chil- mental situation occurred naturally. In one such
dren to see themselves as positive learners example, a casino opened on a Cherokee reser-
(Gottfried and Gottfried, 1989). Low income is vation in the United States and distributed prof-
likely to affect a parent’s sense of being able its only to households with an adult tribal mem-
to provide their children with the same advan- ber. Researchers tracked outcomes over time
tages as those in the more affluent households. among families in the area, and found that in
The parents who are stressed about money and households that received the additional money
employment, working unsocial hours in more there were increases in educational attainment
than one job, are likely to have less time to pro- and reductions in crime, and mother-child rela-
vide their children with an environment condu- tions also improved.
SPRING 2017 59