It is stated that a child’s fate is fixed at birth, this means that if a child is born into a family that is well off the child will most likely succeed in life, and if a child is born into a family that is in poverty the child will most likely fail in life and continue the cycle of poverty. Children who are born into a poor family do not have the same chance at succeeding like the other kids do; this is not fair for the child since he/she has no say in what type of a family they are born into. Children who grow up in impoverished less opportunities to attend a good school due to their location. A conflict theorist would say that social order is maintained by domination and power, we need both people who are well off and people who are in poverty to keep a balance in society. Conflict theorist see social life as a competition and the people who are on the bottom will become motivated by the people on top to succeed as well. This article caught my eye, I was curious to see the differences between children who grow up in a poor home versus a children who grow up in a home that is well off. I think that it is amazing that Monica Juandoo improved the life of her children because she did not want them to grow up the same way that she did. My solution to this problem is that even if a child is born into a poor home they should have the same opportunities as other kids, especially when it comes to education, because with an education the child can brighten their future even though their past has been hard for them. There should be financial help to those who cannot afford school, and maybe public transportation for them to attend a better school.
Yangil Yun I think Juandoo's story is the exaggerated example of personal effort. Poverty is not so much a problem of personal traits as a socially structured problem. If it’s a problem of parental strength, then how we can explain only 4.125% of the researched 800 children could overcome the low income shackles. Is it true that the rest about 95% people never tried to get out of the pit? We should focus on fair economic system, institutional improvement, and equal redistribution of national wealth. White privilege, which is an extorted image of racial discrimination, should be regulated by law such as Title IX and Affirmative action. I propose that more funding for urban public schools should be established by federal budget plan which allows federal government to give more budget to those schools plus the property tax revenue. Also, single-parent family, or household can be provided with the same welfare benefits and medical care as double income family can benefit.
Yangil Yun continued... **and the paragraph above should be the last one.
I. According to this article, a child’s fate is determined by family’s financial status—money—and family’s strength of desire to get him to succeed—supportive environment. Data researched by Johns Hopkins University show that the better a kid start, the better the chance of his success. So, it seems natural that the poor get poorer while the wealthy get wealthier because their socioeconomic status and family norms are different. The researcher suggests that in order to get out the pit of poverty and failure, “play by the rules, work hard, apply yourself and do well in school, and that will open doors for you.” He believes that individual or parental efforts can make a difference. Although this research found very crucial factors which can make a great effect on individuals’ success, especially those who come from low income family, they tend to ascribe it to the personality and family, not to the social structural factors such as economy, education, and culture. This viewpoint can cause misunderstanding of the origin of poverty and its solutions. For example, “White privilege” also prevails in somewhat racially divided society, although the society has been striving to achieve integrated and harmonious one, and most affluent white families grab the privilege to maintain their positions. The research shows that “at age 22, 89 percent of white high school dropouts were working, compared with 40 percent of black dropouts.” They said that only 33 children out of 800 (about 4.125%) could achieve upward mobility from the low income to the high income bracket. Sociologists insist that if poverty is persistent in a family or neighborhood, or a group of racial/ethnic category, the poverty tends to repeatedly reproduce itself and worsen the depth of depravity of any chance for them to become middle class family. According to interactionist perspective, “Culture of poverty” circulates along with the socio-economic veins of a society, and it reflects its meaning on a family level. For example, if you are living in the low-income family and miserable circumstances without parents who take care of you, although it’s not of your fault, but you have to be a poor member of a society and blame your family on your failure. “Labeling theory” also explains how poor people can be stigmatized as lazy, incompetent, and lacking drive to want to succeed in life. Interactionists argue that this labeling and culture of poverty may prevent the poor family from building positive norms, beliefs, and attitude. In this article, Juandoo's story is that case. Personal efforts to cope with adverse circumstances and strong mind-set to get out of poverty may help them to earn more education and get better paid job.
II. However, whatever efforts a poor person makes, there are limits that one can change current situation or future because society is a structure made of combination of every social institution, and society always directly or indirectlry impacts on family negatively or positively. Therefore, functionalists would say that social programs such as affordable welfare, health care system, fair and just opportunity for public education, and public housing system, should be provided for them to improve the current dysfunctions. Furthermore, conflict theorists argue that disparity of economic status can only be balanced through the fundamental change of social structures. As for conflict perspective, in order to reduce the wealth and opportunity gap between the poor and the affluent, political, economic, and cultural power relationship should be changed into more equalized sharing of power between them. For example, they argue that levying more income tax on 1% and equal redistribution of wealth to the 99%. Also, they suggest that public affairs such as public services, education, health care, and housing should not be privatized by for-profit corporations. They believe concentration of wealth on few super elite causes social issues such as poverty, lack of academic attainment, unemployment, and incarceration.
Ofelya Isayan This article would like us to believe that a child’s fate is determined at birth. If a child is born in a financial stable and strong family, they will continue that trait of their family and get a good education, job, income, etc. For those born in an unstable environment, a weak supporting family, and with a low income, they will not be able to have the opportunities as other kids do to succeed. This means that if a child is born in a wealthy family, they will be wealthy in the future. I have a problem with this because it does not help the poverty issue. First of all a child has no control, no choice over what kind of family they’re born into. This just leads to an endless cycle of poverty. The report showed that just 33 children from nearly 800 moved from the low-income bracket to the high-income bracket. This is a structural problem within the society. Low-income families need to be receiving support from the government or other methods to ensure a good future for their children, which will continue that cycle and more groups will move into the higher-income bracket. Education is the social institution through which society provides its members with important knowledge, including basic facts, job skills, and cultural norms and values. Discrimination can occur both individually and institutionally. In high-income nations, education depends largely on schooling, formal instruction under the direction of specially trained teachers. Institutional discrimination is built into the structure itself. Schooling in the United States also tries to promote equal opportunity. National surveys show that most people think schooling is crucial to personal success and majority believe that everyone has the chance to get an education consistent with personal ability and talent. Inequality in Education may have many causes: The student to teacher ratio among minorities tends to be higher than the student to teacher ratio among whites leading to poor quality of education. Second cause might be the pursuit of quality education is harder for minorities because of the lack of academic guidance into universities. Example of this is our case. Consequences: Children of wealthier families tend to attend suburban white dominant schools which have better school supplies and their class count is smaller it means one and one conversations between teachers and students. Why is it a Social Problem? Because of Economic issues like in our case. A child who belongs in a poor family will most probably go to public school where there is less resources, rather than going to private school where there is much more to learn.
Ofelya Isayan continued Functionalists would say not everyone has the ability to attend colleges /universities and not everyone can have high paying jobs, each ethnic group is divided into separate parts that branch out to having different jobs from minimum wage to high paying. They see education as a beneficial contribution to an ordered society and conflict see the educational system as perpetuating the status que by dulling the lower classes into being obedient workers. A Conflict Theorist would argue that families in poverty are essential to keep the structure of the society stable. They also say that it motivates low-income groups to work harder, achieve more all of which will only be helping the society. It affects the level of education the students are receiving. They also would say that society needs educational reform that will give equality to all kinds of students. Internationalists would say class-based explanations is not powerful enough to explain all differences in school experience and performance and it is also linked with positions of privilege or marginalization.
Ofelya Isayan When school officials define some students as "gifted," for example we can expect teachers to treat them differentially and expect the students themselves to behave differently as a result of having been labeled in this way. In my opinion, institutions have great power to reward and penalize. They provide material goods, opportunities, resources, services and psychological satisfactions. While these benefits are never distributed perfectly equitably, it has been declared contrary to public policy for them to be allocated on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin. Since most institutions have been structured to separate in the past, the change in policy won't lead to change in results unless there is also a change in the institutions.
In response to Sarina V, 1.) I would most likely agree with Sarina that a child’s fate is fixed at birth, meaning that it is guaranteed that if a child is born into a wealthy family, the child will grow up to be successful like his/her parents, but that is if the parents push the child further to succeed in life because as the article mentioned about a study that was done by Alexander, there are many wealthy white men that reported the highest frequency of drug abuse and binge drinking. That being said, drug abuse and constant drinking can also affect their future. Although I wouldn’t agree with Sarina that if a child is born into a poor family, the child is most likely to fail in life and continue the cycle of poverty. Children, being young, have many opportunities in life. That is if they’re having the love and support from their parents. The Hopkins research showed that parents having a healthy marriage and working got a better start. Not in all cases children who grow up in a poor family continue the cycle of being poor. Many parents give the opportunities they never had to their children, like Monica Jaundoo and John Houser. Jaundoo's and Houser’s stories tell it all in the article that during their childhood, they struggled being in poverty, not being able to attend college, and having their parents deal with drug issues. As they got older had children, they are more confident that their children's lifestyles will be completely different and better than their owns. I chose to comment on Sarina’s entry because I would agree with her on certain points that a child’s fate is fixed at birth and it determines the child’s future. This topic is a social problem because it affects people worldwide and it targets people at any social class rather than a specific group. In my opinion, i would say that education aside from homelessness is the second economic issue that every family deals with because even though education is handed out to every child when they attend schools K-12, it does not really predict their future that they will grow up to be successful after they graduate from high school because every one has the chance to attend schools K-12, but not every one gets the opportunity to transfer to a college/ university. 2.) Looking at this social problem from a functionalist perspective, theorists would argue that not everyone can receive the same opportunity and not everyone can be lawyers or doctors. There needs to be diversity in order for our society to function. That being said, our society is in need of high paid doctors, businessmen, teachers, or janitors. We can't all be studying one major and have the same payed jobs because then social classes wouldn't be made and problems would arise where people would be fighting for the same jobs and there wouldn't be any competitions. 3.) I agree with Sarina’s proposed solution and it is possible because there are many opportunities that a family can receive regarding their child and education, but the only problem is that not many family have that resource. Even though President Bush established NCLB, solutions to overcome this problem can take time and be difficult. In my opinion, instead of colleges/universities having to look at the families or individuals income in order to determine what their financial aid covers/ or does not cover, the college/ universities can look at which student works hard and who doesn't and whoever that works hard and cares more about their education will be given better opportunities and open many gates to good school rather than someone who lacks off and is wealthy enough to afford school, but shows no hard work. Like this, I believe everyone would be given the opportunity to accomplish what they wanted and wouldn't have to worry about if they're rich or poor. After all, education is a priority and should not have anything to do with social class.
Celine A. I agree with Sarina because in most cases the class you're born into is what you stay in. A family who is living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford to send their children to a good private school for the child to get better educated. This is a problem because there are many intelligent students who can get far in life but don't have the financial stability to pay for it. I think every child should be able to get the same amount of education. A functionalist would say that there needs to be inequality in order for a community to function. If it was up to me I would pay more attention to the country's youth and give children equal opportunities. Like Sarina said, I would hope for some sort of charity that can improve schools that need to be improved and make sure to keep it equal throughout.
Karine A. Responding to Sarina V. Family does have a major impact on the psychological development of a child but the brain is a flexible organ and it can slowly adjust itself if the person disciplines himself properly. Our destiny is in our own hands and the circumstances that shaped us up when we were younger is not much of an excuse. We all choose to be who we are. One can use their own mind and abilities and build themselves to overcome poverty and there are many in this world who have achieved that. And also there are people who are born with unlimited opportunities and abuse those privileges such as many kids here in America. And also it's not about the school you go to or the type of teachers you have. If someone wants to learn they'll learn.
Anonymous said, Laleh K. In respons to Sarina V. I can partly agree with Sarina in regards to when born into a poor family your future and destiny is almost set due to you ascribed from your family and birth however I would like to look at this subject from an Interactionalist point of view, which is we become who we are also through our interactions with other people so even the rich kid can slide and fall behind if socialised by group of other kids and drop out of school. Sometimes the ascribed status that you get can be a cause of your failure thru life due to too much freedom of opportunities where this will be their fall down not only to their parents but to the society as well. I chose to comment on this subject due to the fact that I personally know a few young people who were born into wealth but given their status and opportunities thru their family they even failed higher, I believe that people in lower class will often try their hardest to reach out of their poverty and misery cause no one would like to intentionally become a citizen of no respect due to their background. Families with hardship often pressure their children to do better for themselves and make their parents proud of dreams what they didn't achieve. If there were more funding spent on education and health instead of funding for war, I think the US society would benefit from it in an amazing way that can not be dreamed of today however most dreams are possible if all parties involved in society have the best interest in heart as far as their citizens concern.
1. In response to Yangil Yun. I decided to respond to him because a lot of what he talked about was talked about in class. I agree with everything he wrote. I do think that the family's socioeconomic status plays a big role in a child's education and how far they go in life. It has to do with a culture of poverty. When the family does not have a good income and they are living in poverty, their ways get passed on to their children and the culture of poverty continues. Very rarely do you see someone like the woman mentioned in the article who stopped the cycle of poverty and turned her life around. She now also expects more of her own children and gives them encouragement and a good enough life to continue going to school and getting an education. What stood out to me is that he mentioned white privilege. White people usually have more opportunities for education because they tend to have a better income and different lives at home than the poor. People with ethnic backgrounds sometimes come from poor neighborhoods with parents who are not educated and do not push their children to continue on with their own education. This is a social problem because with this pattern continuing, there will always be a growing amount of poor people. If more and more people decide to not continue on with their education, poverty will never come to an end. 2. A conflict theorist would say that white people and the upper class will continue to keep the poor in poverty for their own advantage. They would say that the rich will help their children continue to stay rich and the poor will not have help and a push to go to school and become wealthy. After all, school costs money and some people just don't have the money or motivation to further their education and build a good future. Also, the white will continue to have white privilege by keeping people in ethnic groups at the bottom. People with ethnic backgrounds tend to have less resources because they might not understand the language and find it hard to have an education whereas white people don't have that problem. 3. I agree with his proposed solution to the problem. Laws will definitely help solve the problem. Also, funding for urban schools should be a must. Neighborhoods that don't have too much money should have equally efficient schools with equal resources and equally trained teachers. Public schools should not be segregated based on the area the child happened to be born and raised in. If all schools are equal, there will be no reason why all children will not grow with the same education and have the motivation to take their education further and better their lives.
12 comments:
Sarina V
It is stated that a child’s fate is fixed at birth, this means that if a child is born into a family that is well off the child will most likely succeed in life, and if a child is born into a family that is in poverty the child will most likely fail in life and continue the cycle of poverty. Children who are born into a poor family do not have the same chance at succeeding like the other kids do; this is not fair for the child since he/she has no say in what type of a family they are born into. Children who grow up in impoverished less opportunities to attend a good school due to their location.
A conflict theorist would say that social order is maintained by domination and power, we need both people who are well off and people who are in poverty to keep a balance in society. Conflict theorist see social life as a competition and the people who are on the bottom will become motivated by the people on top to succeed as well.
This article caught my eye, I was curious to see the differences between children who grow up in a poor home versus a children who grow up in a home that is well off. I think that it is amazing that Monica Juandoo improved the life of her children because she did not want them to grow up the same way that she did. My solution to this problem is that even if a child is born into a poor home they should have the same opportunities as other kids, especially when it comes to education, because with an education the child can brighten their future even though their past has been hard for them. There should be financial help to those who cannot afford school, and maybe public transportation for them to attend a better school.
Yangil Yun
I think Juandoo's story is the exaggerated example of personal effort. Poverty is not so much a problem of personal traits as a socially structured problem. If it’s a problem of parental strength, then how we can explain only 4.125% of the researched 800 children could overcome the low income shackles. Is it true that the rest about 95% people never tried to get out of the pit? We should focus on fair economic system, institutional improvement, and equal redistribution of national wealth. White privilege, which is an extorted image of racial discrimination, should be regulated by law such as Title IX and Affirmative action. I propose that more funding for urban public schools should be established by federal budget plan which allows federal government to give more budget to those schools plus the property tax revenue. Also, single-parent family, or household can be provided with the same welfare benefits and medical care as double income family can benefit.
Yangil Yun
continued... **and the paragraph above should be the last one.
I. According to this article, a child’s fate is determined by family’s financial status—money—and family’s strength of desire to get him to succeed—supportive environment. Data researched by Johns Hopkins University show that the better a kid start, the better the chance of his success. So, it seems natural that the poor get poorer while the wealthy get wealthier because their socioeconomic status and family norms are different. The researcher suggests that in order to get out the pit of poverty and failure, “play by the rules, work hard, apply yourself and do well in school, and that will open doors for you.” He believes that individual or parental efforts can make a difference.
Although this research found very crucial factors which can make a great effect on individuals’ success, especially those who come from low income family, they tend to ascribe it to the personality and family, not to the social structural factors such as economy, education, and culture. This viewpoint can cause misunderstanding of the origin of poverty and its solutions. For example, “White privilege” also prevails in somewhat racially divided society, although the society has been striving to achieve integrated and harmonious one, and most affluent white families grab the privilege to maintain their positions. The research shows that “at age 22, 89 percent of white high school dropouts were working, compared with 40 percent of black dropouts.” They said that only 33 children out of 800 (about 4.125%) could achieve upward mobility from the low income to the high income bracket.
Sociologists insist that if poverty is persistent in a family or neighborhood, or a group of racial/ethnic category, the poverty tends to repeatedly reproduce itself and worsen the depth of depravity of any chance for them to become middle class family. According to interactionist perspective, “Culture of poverty” circulates along with the socio-economic veins of a society, and it reflects its meaning on a family level. For example, if you are living in the low-income family and miserable circumstances without parents who take care of you, although it’s not of your fault, but you have to be a poor member of a society and blame your family on your failure. “Labeling theory” also explains how poor people can be stigmatized as lazy, incompetent, and lacking drive to want to succeed in life. Interactionists argue that this labeling and culture of poverty may prevent the poor family from building positive norms, beliefs, and attitude. In this article, Juandoo's story is that case. Personal efforts to cope with adverse circumstances and strong mind-set to get out of poverty may help them to earn more education and get better paid job.
Yangil Yun
continued...
II. However, whatever efforts a poor person makes, there are limits that one can change current situation or future because society is a structure made of combination of every social institution, and society always directly or indirectlry impacts on family negatively or positively. Therefore, functionalists would say that social programs such as affordable welfare, health care system, fair and just opportunity for public education, and public housing system, should be provided for them to improve the current dysfunctions. Furthermore, conflict theorists argue that disparity of economic status can only be balanced through the fundamental change of social structures. As for conflict perspective, in order to reduce the wealth and opportunity gap between the poor and the affluent, political, economic, and cultural power relationship should be changed into more equalized sharing of power between them. For example, they argue that levying more income tax on 1% and equal redistribution of wealth to the 99%. Also, they suggest that public affairs such as public services, education, health care, and housing should not be privatized by for-profit corporations. They believe concentration of wealth on few super elite causes social issues such as poverty, lack of academic attainment, unemployment, and incarceration.
Ofelya Isayan
This article would like us to believe that a child’s fate is determined at birth. If a child is born in a financial stable and strong family, they will continue that trait of their family and get a good education, job, income, etc. For those born in an unstable environment, a weak supporting family, and with a low income, they will not be able to have the opportunities as other kids do to succeed. This means that if a child is born in a wealthy family, they will be wealthy in the future. I have a problem with this because it does not help the poverty issue. First of all a child has no control, no choice over what kind of family they’re born into. This just leads to an endless cycle of poverty. The report showed that just 33 children from nearly 800 moved from the low-income bracket to the high-income bracket. This is a structural problem within the society. Low-income families need to be receiving support from the government or other methods to ensure a good future for their children, which will continue that cycle and more groups will move into the higher-income bracket. Education is the social institution through which society provides its members with important knowledge, including basic facts, job skills, and cultural norms and values. Discrimination can occur both individually and institutionally. In high-income nations, education depends largely on schooling, formal instruction under the direction of specially trained teachers. Institutional discrimination is built into the structure itself. Schooling in the United States also tries to promote equal opportunity. National surveys show that most people think schooling is crucial to personal success and majority believe that everyone has the chance to get an education consistent with personal ability and talent.
Inequality in Education may have many causes: The student to teacher ratio among minorities tends to be higher than the student to teacher ratio among whites leading to poor quality of education. Second cause might be the pursuit of quality education is harder for minorities because of the lack of academic guidance into universities. Example of this is our case.
Consequences: Children of wealthier families tend to attend suburban white dominant schools which have better school supplies and their class count is smaller it means one and one conversations between teachers and students.
Why is it a Social Problem? Because of Economic issues like in our case. A child who belongs in a poor family will most probably go to public school where there is less resources, rather than going to private school where there is much more to learn.
Ofelya Isayan
continued
Functionalists would say not everyone has the ability to attend colleges /universities and not everyone can have high paying jobs, each ethnic group is divided into separate parts that branch out to having different jobs from minimum wage to high paying. They see education as a beneficial contribution to an ordered society and conflict see the educational system as perpetuating the status que by dulling the lower classes into being obedient workers.
A Conflict Theorist would argue that families in poverty are essential to keep the structure of the society stable. They also say that it motivates low-income groups to work harder, achieve more all of which will only be helping the society. It affects the level of education the students are receiving. They also would say that society needs educational reform that will give equality to all kinds of students.
Internationalists would say class-based explanations is not powerful enough to explain all differences in school experience and performance and it is also linked with positions of privilege or marginalization.
Ofelya Isayan
When school officials define some students as "gifted," for example we can expect teachers to treat them differentially and expect the students themselves to behave differently as a result of having been labeled in this way. In my opinion, institutions have great power to reward and penalize. They provide material goods, opportunities, resources, services and psychological satisfactions. While these benefits are never distributed perfectly equitably, it has been declared contrary to public policy for them to be allocated on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin. Since most institutions have been structured to separate in the past, the change in policy won't lead to change in results unless there is also a change in the institutions.
Anahit Ghukasyan.
In response to Sarina V,
1.) I would most likely agree with Sarina that a child’s fate is fixed at birth, meaning that it is guaranteed that if a child is born into a wealthy family, the child will grow up to be successful like his/her parents, but that is if the parents push the child further to succeed in life because as the article mentioned about a study that was done by Alexander, there are many wealthy white men that reported the highest frequency of drug abuse and binge drinking. That being said, drug abuse and constant drinking can also affect their future. Although I wouldn’t agree with Sarina that if a child is born into a poor family, the child is most likely to fail in life and continue the cycle of poverty. Children, being young, have many opportunities in life. That is if they’re having the love and support from their parents. The Hopkins research showed that parents having a healthy marriage and working got a better start. Not in all cases children who grow up in a poor family continue the cycle of being poor. Many parents give the opportunities they never had to their children, like Monica Jaundoo and John Houser. Jaundoo's and Houser’s stories tell it all in the article that during their childhood, they struggled being in poverty, not being able to attend college, and having their parents deal with drug issues. As they got older had children, they are more confident that their children's lifestyles will be completely different and better than their owns. I chose to comment on Sarina’s entry because I would agree with her on certain points that a child’s fate is fixed at birth and it determines the child’s future. This topic is a social problem because it affects people worldwide and it targets people at any social class rather than a specific group. In my opinion, i would say that education aside from homelessness is the second economic issue that every family deals with because even though education is handed out to every child when they attend schools K-12, it does not really predict their future that they will grow up to be successful after they graduate from high school because every one has the chance to attend schools K-12, but not every one gets the opportunity to transfer to a college/ university.
2.) Looking at this social problem from a functionalist perspective, theorists would argue that not everyone can receive the same opportunity and not everyone can be lawyers or doctors. There needs to be diversity in order for our society to function. That being said, our society is in need of high paid doctors, businessmen, teachers, or janitors. We can't all be studying one major and have the same payed jobs because then social classes wouldn't be made and problems would arise where people would be fighting for the same jobs and there wouldn't be any competitions.
3.) I agree with Sarina’s proposed solution and it is possible because there are many opportunities that a family can receive regarding their child and education, but the only problem is that not many family have that resource. Even though President Bush established NCLB, solutions to overcome this problem can take time and be difficult. In my opinion, instead of colleges/universities having to look at the families or individuals income in order to determine what their financial aid covers/ or does not cover, the college/ universities can look at which student works hard and who doesn't and whoever that works hard and cares more about their education will be given better opportunities and open many gates to good school rather than someone who lacks off and is wealthy enough to afford school, but shows no hard work. Like this, I believe everyone would be given the opportunity to accomplish what they wanted and wouldn't have to worry about if they're rich or poor. After all, education is a priority and should not have anything to do with social class.
Celine A.
I agree with Sarina because in most cases the class you're born into is what you stay in. A family who is living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford to send their children to a good private school for the child to get better educated. This is a problem because there are many intelligent students who can get far in life but don't have the financial stability to pay for it. I think every child should be able to get the same amount of education. A functionalist would say that there needs to be inequality in order for a community to function. If it was up to me I would pay more attention to the country's youth and give children equal opportunities. Like Sarina said, I would hope for some sort of charity that can improve schools that need to be improved and make sure to keep it equal throughout.
Karine A.
Responding to Sarina V.
Family does have a major impact on the psychological development of a child but the brain is a flexible organ and it can slowly adjust itself if the person disciplines himself properly. Our destiny is in our own hands and the circumstances that shaped us up when we were younger is not much of an excuse. We all choose to be who we are. One can use their own mind and abilities and build themselves to overcome poverty and there are many in this world who have achieved that. And also there are people who are born with unlimited opportunities and abuse those privileges such as many kids here in America. And also it's not about the school you go to or the type of teachers you have. If someone wants to learn they'll learn.
Anonymous said,
Laleh K.
In respons to Sarina V.
I can partly agree with Sarina in regards to when born into a poor family your future and destiny is almost set due to you ascribed from your family and birth however I would like to look at this subject from an Interactionalist point of view, which is we become who we are also through our interactions with other people so even the rich kid can slide and fall behind if socialised by group of other kids and drop out of school. Sometimes the ascribed status that you get can be a cause of your failure thru life due to too much freedom of opportunities where this will be their fall down not only to their parents but to the society as well.
I chose to comment on this subject due to the fact that I personally know a few young people who were born into wealth but given their status and opportunities thru their family they even failed higher, I believe that people in lower class will often try their hardest to reach out of their poverty and misery cause no one would like to intentionally become a citizen of no respect due to their background. Families with hardship often pressure their children to do better for themselves and make their parents proud of dreams what they didn't achieve. If there were more funding spent on education and health instead of funding for war, I think the US society would benefit from it in an amazing way that can not be dreamed of today however most dreams are possible if all parties involved in society have the best interest in heart as far as their citizens concern.
Tawny B.
1. In response to Yangil Yun. I decided to respond to him because a lot of what he talked about was talked about in class. I agree with everything he wrote. I do think that the family's socioeconomic status plays a big role in a child's education and how far they go in life. It has to do with a culture of poverty. When the family does not have a good income and they are living in poverty, their ways get passed on to their children and the culture of poverty continues. Very rarely do you see someone like the woman mentioned in the article who stopped the cycle of poverty and turned her life around. She now also expects more of her own children and gives them encouragement and a good enough life to continue going to school and getting an education. What stood out to me is that he mentioned white privilege. White people usually have more opportunities for education because they tend to have a better income and different lives at home than the poor. People with ethnic backgrounds sometimes come from poor neighborhoods with parents who are not educated and do not push their children to continue on with their own education. This is a social problem because with this pattern continuing, there will always be a growing amount of poor people. If more and more people decide to not continue on with their education, poverty will never come to an end.
2. A conflict theorist would say that white people and the upper class will continue to keep the poor in poverty for their own advantage. They would say that the rich will help their children continue to stay rich and the poor will not have help and a push to go to school and become wealthy. After all, school costs money and some people just don't have the money or motivation to further their education and build a good future. Also, the white will continue to have white privilege by keeping people in ethnic groups at the bottom. People with ethnic backgrounds tend to have less resources because they might not understand the language and find it hard to have an education whereas white people don't have that problem.
3. I agree with his proposed solution to the problem. Laws will definitely help solve the problem. Also, funding for urban schools should be a must. Neighborhoods that don't have too much money should have equally efficient schools with equal resources and equally trained teachers. Public schools should not be segregated based on the area the child happened to be born and raised in. If all schools are equal, there will be no reason why all children will not grow with the same education and have the motivation to take their education further and better their lives.
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