PowerPoint Presentation youthpoverty

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Welcome
Please sit toward the front!
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This Week Self, Identity, Risk, and Resilience
Monday Poverty and related developmental risk
factors Read E. Anderson and J. Brooks-Gunn et
al. Tuesday Stage-environment fit and
resilience/protection Read Eccles et al., and
reading to be sent Wednesday Identity
development Read Lapsley in course
packet Goodman Lesnick, chpt. 9 Thursday
Life-span development E. Erikson Film Friday
Developmental Assess Positive Youth
Devel. Read Benson et al. And Narvaez et al in
crs. Pkt.
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First a Brief Test Directions Do not read
the instructions until told to do so Do you
own work
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Youth, Poverty, and Development ACE
Developmental Courses Summer 2003 Jay W.
Brandenberger, Ph.D.
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Telling Statistics A Quiz

• 1.
• 2.
• 3.

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1. What percentage of children in America live
in families below the official poverty line?

• 18-20 (every fifth child)
• Peaked in late 1990s
• May be increasing currently
• Higher of children under 6

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2. Percentage of African-American and Hispanic
children living in families below the official
poverty line?

• 41 and 37, respectively

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3. Among 18 Western industrialized nations, the
country having the highest rate of child poverty

• United States

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4. Percentage of youth in U.S. who drop out of
school before age 18

• 14-18

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5. Percentage (estimate) of all U.S. children
born this year who will spend at least part of
their childhood in a single parent family

• 60

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6. On the average, every four hours, how many
American children will drop out of school?
In the next 4 hours . . .

• 1200

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7. How many children will be reported abused or
neglected in four hours

• 1100

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8. How many youth will be arrested for a drug
offense every four hours?

• 25

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9. How many children are murdered every 4 hours
in theU.S.

• 2
• (Every two days, a classroom of 24 disappears)

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10. Most likely to be shotBlack male in a
U.S. city orSoldier during the Vietnam War

• Black male

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11. The approximate number of murders the
average American youth has witnessed on
television by the eighth grade

• 18,000

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• The United States
• Has a higher infant mortality rate than 19
  other nations.
• Has a higher infant mortality rate for black
  infants than the overall rate of 31 other nations
  including Cuba, Bulgaria, and Kuwait.
• Has a death rate among preschool children worse
  than 19 other nations.

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The United States

• Has a worse low-birthweight rate than 30 other
  nations.
•  Has a low-birthweight rate among Blacks worse
  than the overall rates of 73 other countries,
  including many Third World and former Communist
  eastern bloc countries.
• Has the record of being one of only seven
  countries carrying out the capital punishment of
  juvenile offenders within the past decade. At
  least 145 nations ban such executions. We have
  executed more juvenile offenders than any nation
  except Iran Iraq.

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The United States Is not one of 150 nations in
the world to sign or ratify the United nations
Conventions on the Rights of the Child, putting
us in the company of Cambodia, Iran, Iraq, Libya,
and South Africa. Is not one of the 70 nations
worldwide that provide medical care and financial
assistance to all pregnant women. Source
Childrens Defense Fund
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UNICEF (1999) reports that at least 17 million
children die from preventable causes every
year35,000 each day. (quoted in Chafel,
in press)
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The mark of a truly educated person is to be
moved deeply by statistics

• G. B. Shaw

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Poverty ltgt Violence

• The deadliest form of violence is poverty.
  Ghandi

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Structural Violence

•   operates continuously, rather than
  sporadically, whereas murders, suicides, and
  other forms of behavioral violence occur one at a
  time
• is normally invisible, because it may appear
  to have had other (natural or violent) causes
  J. Gilligan, p. 192

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ViolenceStructural ?? Behavioral

• Acts in which one individual injures another
  (e.g. homicide)

• Increased rates of death and disability suffered
  by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society
• Structures result from human choices,
  organizations, value decisions about economic
  resources

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Research on Stuctural Violence

• Brenner (1970s) every one percent rise in
  unemployment increases the mortality rate in this
  country by two percent, homicides and
  imprisonments by six percent, and the infant
  mortality rate by five percent p. 194 in
  Gilligan
• College of Physicians, Columbia death rates
  between the ages of five and sixty-five were
  higher in Harlem than in Bangladesh

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Indicators of Structural Violence
Every one percent rise in unemployment increases
the mortality rate in this country by two
percent, homicides and imprisonments by six
percent, and the infant mortality rate by five
percent. Data from Gilligan, p. 194 Blacks
sustain about 280 more deaths per 100,000 than
whites. Compare to National homicide rate
10 per 100,000 p. 194 Every fifteen
years, on the average, as many people die because
of relative poverty as would be killed in a
nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths. p.
196 Note All stats showing decreased
health and longevity of low-income indivdiduals
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• Structural Violence
• Do most citizens consider structural violence (or
  structural issues) when reflecting on social
  problems? Why or why not.
• How can such structural causes be identified and
  incorporated into planning and planning?

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Reasons for increases in poverty (noted in
Duncan) Income inequality (not lower water for
all boats) Family structure Labor market
conditions Reductions in transfers, assistance
to poor
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http//www.census.gov/hhes/www/povty97.html
In 1997 the poverty threshold for a family of
four was 16,400 Currently approx. 18,000
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http//www.childrensdefense.
org/data.php Basic Facts on Poverty (from
CDF) The U.S. Census Bureau considered a
three-person family poor in the year 2000 if its
annual income was less than 13,738. For a family
of four, the poverty threshold was 17,603.
11.6 million American children younger than 18
lived below the poverty line in 2000. Although
the number of poor children has fallen for the
last seven years due to the strong economy, more
children live in poverty today than were poor 20
or 30 years ago.
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The Study of Youth and Poverty
U. Bronfenbrenner The Ecological Model
see Two Worlds of Childhood The Ecology of
Human Development G. Duncan and J. Brook-Gunn
The Consequences of Growing Up Poor See also
the work of Robert Coles Children of Crisis,
Uprooted Children,
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• Brooks-Gunn et al
•  How and when does income matter?
• What interrelated factors influence development?
• Income allows parents to
• provide safer, more stimulating home
  environments
• to live in communities with better schools,
  parks, and libraries and more
  challenging peers
• to afford higher education
• to purchase better health care Brooks-Gunn et
  al, 1997, p. 14

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Also, low-income families Brooks-Gunn
et al, 1997, p. 14 Are less likely to contain
the childs biological parents Are less
likely to include adults holding college degrees
or high-status occupations  Are more likely
to live in poor neighborhoods Are more likely
to contain adults with mental and physical
problems
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Perspectives of Study/Conexts
Child-Center Perspective ltgt Socio-Economic
Perspective (See Huston,
1991) Lead to differing understandings of
problems, different criteria for solutions, etc.
Importantgt Child Centered and
Developmental Perspective Often policy makers,
etc. will claim that a particular action will
lead to better human actions,behavior, responses,
but such claims may be attributions to a
philosophy they hold psychology can shed light
on accuracy of such
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The Interaction of Risk Factors See Within our
Reach, Lisbeth Schorr No single experience or
risk is likely to cause rotten
outcome Interaction overtime is key Five
Experiences per Day H. Gardner 5 positive,
5 negative by age five disparity of 20,600
experiences
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Poverty and Identity
Search for respect is central in poverty
contexts Violent death may be preferable to
being dissed by another E.
Anderson, The Code of the Streets The role of
shame and guilt
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J. Gilligan Work with inmates

• Consistent pattern among violent criminals
• early experience of shame
• (including sense of incompetence,
• inadequacy, and fear of ridicule)

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Note the power of languageThe lower class

• May experience
• Relative deprivation
• Discrimination
• Shame

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The hidden injury of economic class, then,
is shame. Gilligan, p. 201

• Shame can be a powerful emotion, one that can
  lead under certain conditions to violence

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POVERTY AND EDUCATION
D. Narvaez, 2003
WHAT HAS CHANGED ABOUT POVERTY 1. Environment
Less mix of classes. Concentration of poverty.
Middle class has moved out. Few role models of
success. Loss of critical mass of stable
achievement oriented families that supported
churches and other basic community
institutions. 2. The way out hard work at
unskilled job in the past could move you out.
Few of those jobs left. (Who has borne the brunt
of the unskilled job loss? Black men--steel,
auto, rubber, textile industries) 3. Jobs If
they exist are lower wage jobs and are far away
from where the poor live What is normal now is
unstable families, no steady employment,
proliferation of hard drug usage, lack of hope
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CONSEQUENCES
There are consequences to the pattern of economic
and social change in the larger society--the
consequences are an increase in the likelihood of
emotional and behavioral problems. CHILDREN IN
POVERTY are more likely to experience 1. low
birthweight 2. malnutrition 3. mental and
physical impairment 4. poor health 5. isolated
or impaired mother 6. no father 7. poor
housing 8. abuse or neglect 9. lack of access
to social services 10. family instability or
chaos
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AT RISK FACTORS FOR SCHOOL FAILURE (additive or
exponential) 1. Mother's low education 2.
Mother's addiction to drugs or alcohol 3. Family
instability 4. Chronic Poverty/ low SES
(Socio-Economic Status) 5. Low birth weight 6.
Moderate to severe perinatal stress DEFINITIONS
OF RESILIENCE 1. Good outcomes despite high-risk
status 2. Sustained competence under threat 3.
Recovery from trauma
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PROTECTIVE FACTORS (just one can lead to
resilience) 1. Child is engaging to other
people 2. Good health 3. High I.Q./ Childhood
Coping/ Good learners 4. Caring parent who
values responsible behavior in child 5. Good,
stable care from someone 6. Have an area of
competence 7. Community support 8. (guess!)
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Further Learning  Fordham Index of Social
Health UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and UNICEF US Census Bureau
Childrens Defense Fund The State of
Children in Americas Union 2002
http//www.census.gov/hhes/www/povty97.html
http//www.childrensdefense.org/
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http//www.nccp.org/