Impact of Educational Life Chances on Low Income Groups
Inequalities in social and economic classes are seen to have significant effects on education. The relationship between the social and economic class of a student’s family and how they perform in school have been a topic of interest to a number of researchers. Although there are some students from working-class backgrounds that do well and there are students from middle-and upper-class backgrounds that do not, the overall pattern is very clear.
Parents from low socio-economic groups have always wanted a better education for their children. Although the government is trying to make education available for all, inequalities in education still exist. The inequalities in education that is caused by inequalities in incomes result in inequalities in opportunities and life chances.
The economic conditions of the family affects the education of the children. Having low-income parents means that a student is exposed to challenges that other students that belong to high-income families do not. These challenges that may limit the life chances of students in low-income families are discussed below.
Recent years have witnessed increases in the gap between broad sections of the population, who have differential access to money, resources, qualifications, life chances, and health. Within educational research, issue of social class have been predominantly addressed in relation to the compulsory schooling context, where it has been noted that working-class (low-income) children tend to experience persistently lower rates of attainment and are less likely to follow routes into post-compulsory education. Young people from different social classes do not attend the same types of educational institution, nor they gain similar levels of qualifications and results. At all stages with the educational journey, young working-class people experience poorer conditions, receive fewer resources, study for less prestigious qualifications and follow lower-status paths (Archer et al 2003).
Primary Education
When they enter school, poor children score lower on standardized tests, and this remains true through high school. Poor children are also absent from school more often and have more behavior problems than affluent children. Children from low-income families often lack educational resources, such as computers at home. These children are also found to be not performing well in school. Children in low-income families are significantly less likely to spend time with friends away from school, participate in sport, music or dance away from school. School costs, clothing and shoes and outing are the most difficult costs for parents on low incomes to meet. Being unable to meet these costs limit their children’s participation at school and socially.
Much research on preschool education and children’s skills have been motivated by concerns about income-related disparities in young children’s language and cognitive skills, as well was other measures of their development, including socio-emotional skills. Such disparities become evident in children as young as age three and appear to persist–indeed, may even widen – through the school years. Poor children begin their lives with lower skills than those of more privileged children. The skills of the children are connected with family income.
Low income working families often face barriers to finding jobs and achieving financial success. These barriers prevent them from ensuring that their children get the opportunities they need to help them become successful adults. Improving access to health care, child care and education and training are among the policy interventions that are key to improving the lives and futures of working families. Children of low-income working parents more often face obstacles to accessing the health care they need to survive. Children from low-income families are faced with different challenges. The lack of resources hinders these students from actively participating in school activities. The lack of resources also affects school choice and the quality of education that a student receives.
Secondary Education
In general, young people from higher socio-economic classes tend to have better educational life chances in terms of examination results and full time education. Poor teenagers are more likely than teenagers from affluent families to have a baby, drop out of high school, and get in trouble with the law.
Family income plays an important role in shaping the educational life chances of students. High school students from low-income families are faced with different educational life challenges. Majority students who experience challenges in educational life chances and are at risk to quit high school come from the lowest third of income distribution. Findings from a national longitudinal study of high school students during the first half of the 1990s indicate that, among youth in the lowest quartile of the income distribution only 64 percent manage to graduate from high school compared to 86 percent of youth from families in the middle two quartiles and 92 percent of youth from families in the top quartile. Not only are poor adolescents at higher risk of dropping out, once they do leave school they are much less likely to return and finish their degree than youth from wealthier families. While nearly three quarters of dropouts from families in the highest income quartile returned and finished high school by age 20, only a third of dropouts from families in the lowest income bracket managed to find their way back to high school (Wald and Martinez 2003).
Students who drop out of high school are at risk of experiencing unequal life chances. They often face economic and social challenges. These people are more likely to have difficulty in finding jobs and most of the time land on low-paying jobs. These people are also more likely to engage in criminal activities.
Higher Education
Financial resources is seen as a crucial factor in access to universities. Young adults who were poor as children complete fewer years of schooling, work fewer hours, and earn lower wages than young adults raised in affluent families.
Higher-income parents make enormous efforts to ensure their children’s academic success, while children of poor parents begin the “college education game” later and with fewer resources. Students in poor and minority neighborhoods are less well prepared academically; ill prepared to select colleges, apply for admission, and secure acceptance; and poorly informed about the cost of attending college and the availability of needs-based financial aid. Sharply rising college prices during the 1980s and 1990s, together with the growing inequality of family income, have raised the cost of attending college far more for low-income students than for well-to-do students. Financial aid has risen more slowly, and the share targeted on low-income students has been falling (Haveman and Smeeding 2006).
The disparity between higher education access and college graduation rates between students from lower income families and students from higher- and middle-income families is very obvious. According to Kirst (2005) about 85 percent of eight-grade students in the United States want to go to college. However, in 2001, only 44 percent of high school graduates from the bottom quintile of the income distribution were enrolled to college. There were 80 percent of students from the upper quintile who were enrolled in college in the same year (National Center for Education Statistics 2003). Kane (2004) found that even among students with similar test scores and class ranks and from identical schools, students from higher-income families are significantly more likely than those from lower-income families to attend college, particularly four-year colleges.
The number of students remaining in college until graduation was also studied. It has been found out that among the eight graders surveyed in the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) conducted in 1988 by the Department of Education, 51 percent from the highest socioeconomic quartile reported having a bachelor’s degree twelve years later, as oppose to only 7 percent of those from the lowest quartile. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2002) 59 percent of low-income students who began postsecondary education in 1998 had a degree or were still in school three years later, as oppose to 75 percent of higher-income students.
Economic Status and Education
The National Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988, documented the impact of family background (economic status) on educational attainment. The survey followed more than 20,000 eight graders from 1988 through 1994. The survey has rich information both about the educational experiences of the students and about their parents and schools. According to the results of the survey, students’ educational achievements vary by family background. The students’ families were divided into four even groups (quartiles) based on an index of socioeconomic status. Those in the lowest quartile are the most disadvantaged, while those in the highest quartile are the most advantaged. The average income un the lowest quartile is about ,000, with an average of family size of 4.6. In the second quartile the average family income is about ,000, with an average family size of 4.4. The third quartile’s average income in about ,000 with average family size of 4.3 while in the fourth quartile the average income is nearly 0,000 with an average family size of 4.4. The results of the survey showed that children from families in the highest quartile have higher average test scores and are more likely never to have been held back a grade than in children from families in the lowest quartile. Children from families in the top quartile are also more likely to never to droop out of school, and therefore more likely to have a high school diploma six years after they entered the eight grade (Rouse and Barrow 2006).
Educational Attainment and Life Chances
Educational test scores during compulsory schooling are identified as the most frequent and effective childhood predictor of adult outcomes. Research suggests that individuals who leave school with low levels of educational attainment are a higher risk of experiencing social exclusion as adults, with those who lack basic literacy and numeracy skills at particular risk. Educational attainment is strongly related to unemployment and earnings across the developed world. In general unemployment rates decrease as the educational attainment of workers increases.
Adults with poor skills are to five times more likely to be unemployed, compared with those with average skills. The labor market difficulties associated with poor basic skills emerge during the early stages of working life. When making judgments on the value of employing individuals, employers require easily accessible and comparable data. Educational qualifications most commonly fulfill this requirement. Hence, there is a link between qualifications, labor market participation and earnings. There is a string evidence that a lack of qualifications is associated with an increase risk of unemployment (Sparkes 1999).
Moreover, adults with poor educational backgrounds also tend to pass this disadvantage to their children, exposing their children to economic, social, health and educational challenges.
References
Archer, L et al 2003, Higher Education and Social Class: Issues of Exclusion and Inclusion, RoutledgeFalmer, New York.
Haverman, R and Smeeding, T 2006, ‘The Role of Higher Education in Social Mobility’, The Future of Children, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 125+.
Kane, T J 2004, College Going and Inequality, in K Nekerman (ed), Social Inequality, Pell Institute, Washington.
Kirst, M 2005, Overcoming Educational Inequality: The Role of Elementary and Secondary Education Linkages with Broad Access to Postsecondary Education, Maxwell School of Syracuse University.
National Center for Education Statistics 2002, National Education Longitudinal Study, 1988, U.S. Department of Education.
National Center for Education Statistics 2003, The Condition of Education, U.S Department of Education.
Rouse, C E and Barroww, L 2006, ‘U.S. Elementary and Secondary Schools: Equalizing Opportunity or Replicating the Status Quo?’, The Future of Children, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 99+.
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