...OF ISSUES RELATED TO CHILDREN LIVING IN POVERTY _________________________________________________ A PAPER SUMBITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR FS 5833: FAMILY ECONOMICS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY SCIENCES TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION BY SARAH KERAMATI ______________________________________________ DENTON, TEXAS APRIL 2012 Introduction Over the last few decades, the world has drastically changed, and the effect on the family dynamic has been profound. Today, there are more single parents, dual earner couples, and parents with more than one job living in both rural and urban areas in the United States than at any time in history (Miller, 2007). There is approximately one in five American children who live below the national poverty level (Meyer, Cancian & Nam, 2007). In today’s society, many people live below the poverty line and those numbers continue to increase because of our high unemployment rates. The Census Bureau reported that 12% of Americans live in poverty. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the poverty level in 2009 for a family of four was $22,050. Working parents have no time and their finances are often strained. Welfare reform in the United States may pressure single mothers to be employed even though child care is expensive and they may barely make minimum wage (Miller, 2007). If a child experiences poverty during their preschool or early school years...
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...Psychology in the News: Poverty as a Childhood Disease by Perry New York Times (May 13, 2013) In this article, it explains how damaging poverty can have on a child’s development and how raising children in poverty complicates everything. Buying the right groceries, attaining good medical attention, educational opportunities, and security at home are all affected by where the family stands financially. Even health problems such as diabetes, obesity, substance abuse, and mental illness, to name a few, have been increasing in children who live in poverty. Toxic stress has even been a focus recently where it is thought that a child’s brain can be significantly damaged by too much exposure of stress hormones such as cortisol and norepinephrine. I chose this article because I was interested in our section about child development. It made me think about situation that I’m sure poor families go through when raising children such as not enough attention for the children, bad nutrition, and low emphasis on education and exercise. Also, when families are at a low poverty level, parents must work much longer to provide for the family, whether that is working all day and even night shifts. This means less time for parent-child bonding. This article made me think more broadly about this topic and reminded me about attachment between the child and care giver. Aside from many of the health effects that children with poverty may face, I thought that in this situation the bonding would...
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...Isn't it obvious that a country can have childhood poverty which numbers are not that higher however, it can be much uglier. An example can be United States. If we take a look at U.S today, 22% of the children live in families that are below the Federal poverty level. According to a new study from the urban Institution, before they trun into 18 years old, almost 40% of the American children spend at least one year in poverty. While a current analysis of poverty trends might find a lower rate of children living in penury, that doesn't capture the fluid nature of people's lives, with many lower-income families bouncing slightly above the poverty line -- just under $24,000 for a family of four -- before sinking below the threshold in other...
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...Is Childhood Poverty Increasing Inequality In America? Is childhood poverty increasing inequality in America? The test of our progress," said Franklin Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." It is by that great test that we must measure our progress in the years ahead. John F. Kennedy, 1960' (Lindsey, pg 34, 2009) Children born in America are promised equality and opportunity. How well is America keeping its promise to 1 in 4 children living in poverty? The Bible teaches we are created in God's image (Genesis 1:27). Each child is born with God's DNA but not all children grow up in a world conducive to developing their God-given potential and dreams. Not all children are given equal opportunity. "Their economic and social development will be primarily influenced by the opportunities their parents, community, and society provide" (Lindsey, 2009, p. 3). What defines childhood poverty? The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines child poverty as "a child is deemed to be living in relative poverty if he or she is growing up in a household where disposable income, when adjusted for family size and composition, is less than 50% of the median disposable household income for the country concerned" (Garofalo, 2012, p. 1). The United States Census Bureau for 2011 qualified the poverty threshold for a family of four as $22,281 annual income...
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...Wyness (2006, p. 94) looks at both the national level and the global level of childhood to identify whether he thinks childhood in in crisis. At a global level childhood could be seen to be in crisis. Wyness (2006, p 78) discovers a key theme which could be linked to childhood being in crisis. This is the idea of children being abandoned on the streets to fend for themselves. In developed countries these children are seen to be troubled and unwanted by society, but in developing countries they are seen to be there through extreme poverty often caused by natural disasters or wars. Corsaro (1997 cited in Wyness 2006, p 79) believed child poverty would lead to those children entering ‘dangerous adult territory’, which could involve gangs, drug...
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...Lifespan and Personality Development: Middle Childhood Taylor Nail PSY/103 February 02, 2015 Michael Phillips Lifespan and Personality Development: Middle Childhood What kinds of things can affect an individual from the age of 6 to 12 years? There are many things that can affect a person of this age group (middle childhood). During the middle childhood, Social and Moral Development describes that “children either develop a sense of their own competence at a variety of tasks, especially schoolwork, or they come to believe they are not capable of success (n.d.)”. Even though this age group can determine their own success and their own identity, there are factors that can affect these individuals’ physical, cognitive and social, moral, and personality development. There are many things that can affect the physical development in young children during their middle childhood, including environmental influences. With all of the research going on these days, it all loops back around to one issue these children face in the environment; obesity. For example, more and more children are spending more time watching television, and while watching the television they are snacking or having more meal time causing them to increase in weight, ultimately affecting their physical development. This problem increases as the children grow older. “Children’s TV time and home environment factors were assessed longitudinally among 169 families with children followed from 6 to 12 years of age...
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...learn and are easily influenced throughout their childhood. These influences are categorized in three different groups. They are social, economic, and cultural influences. These different influences can affects a child’s development both negatively and positively. Social influence is very important for all ages, but it changes and forms over the course of childhood. Social influence comes in many shapes and sizes, but there are some majors influences that affect a child more dramatically. One of the main positive social influences is family. Family is especially important because they are the people that a child spends most of their early childhood with. They have a direct and indirect influences on the challenges that children encounter and have the resources they need to accomplish those certain challenges. Within the family children learn social skills and attach to people who love and care for them. Children who have parents that spend time with them are able to reach out and relate to others. There is a theory called the Attachment Theory which explain that the emergence of an emotional bond between an infant and their parent or caregiver and the way in which this bond affects the child's behavioral and emotional development into adulthood. According to this theory, children who have a secure bond with their parent use this attachment to develop social relationships. Because children are with their parents most of their childhood, children look up to their parents when it comes...
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...Canada, by international standards is a rich country; however, Canada has plenty of families struggling to make ends meet. It can be seen in “The Health of Canada’s Children” by Dennis Raphael, (2010) many social determinants influence health. One of the major determinants of health is living circumstances. The many different qualities of living within Canada have resulted in the health inequalities among children. This article in particular gives the reader the information needed to understand how living circumstances come about as well as how they affect health. Infant mortality rate or the number of newborns who die within their first year of life is considered to be one of the best ways to judge how healthy a population is. Low birth weight is also very important because it is affiliated with a wide range of health problems throughout a person’s lifespan. While there are many circumstances that play a role in infant mortality and low birth weight, a major component is living conditions the expected mothers are exposed to. This can be linked to the financial status of the parents. In Canada, the infant mortality rate is 60% higher and the low birth rate is 43% higher in the poorest income quintile than the richest quintile (Raphael, 2010). The effects of income on health are best portrayed by the living conditions to which children are exposed to. Income not only has a direct relationship with children’s health but various developmental outcomes as well. Income is a...
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...Early Childhood Development and Social Inequalities by all families should have the same opportunities to live a descent life. But due to the backgrounds of some families, and children, they may not have a chance for this. There are certain risk factors that have a bearing on social inequalities in health, and particularly those that are prone to preventative intervention. There are many that I could talk about, but I have picked out four of these factors to talk about. They are biological factors, family and social factors, parenting factors, and attachment. Even these I feel that I will not be able to cover completely, because there is only a certain part we see, and then there is the that is kept hidden from all. There are many factors that influence the development and social inequalities in a child’s life. These include biological, family and social factors, parenting factors, attachment, and the way non-maternal care is influenced. All of these are risk factors that are likely to have a bearing on the child’s social inequalities on their health. The biological factors include premature birth, low birth weight, and a serious medical illness. The significantly influence and infants growth. “Low birth weight, less than 2500 grams, has a prevalence of 6 percent in white middle-class U.S. women, and 15 percent in ethnic minority teenagers. These teenagers tend to be single mothers.” At the Infant Health and Development Project, they found that in a large amount of premature infants...
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...many laws in reference to child labor other nations do not recognize it as problematic and so it continues. In other countries children are being exploited by employers. These children are stripped of their right to have an education, a prosperous childhood, and of other rights. It can affect a child’s health and development. The objective of the following research paper is to raise awareness of the worldwide child labor issue and summarizes what is being done to help battle the issue. Introduction: Any issue that involves the abuse of young children is a sensitive matter. Images exist of children enduring maltreatment and abuse in different work settings. Child labor has been a long existing nationwide issue and although it is seen as a form of child abuse by many there are those that see it as a norm. Cultures in foreign nations believe that by placing a child in money paying work conditions positively helps the child build experience and responsibility. In the year 2004, worldwide over 215 million children, under the age of fifteen were considered to be employed. Statistics are vague because of how varied the meaning and views towards child labor are globally. Children are at times forced into labor due to poverty issues or because criminals know they can take advantage of...
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...The Social Context of Childhood Describe and analyse how social factors impact upon children and young people and consider how your setting and practice responds to it. The concept about the nature of childhood has changed in significant ways over time. According to James & Prout (1997) the beginning of the twentieth century has marked what they refer to as 'Century of Child'. This is the time when children were acknowledged as the future of every country. Serious attention was paid to things such as children’s health and education. Also many campaigns were formed to relieve child poverty, which led to the first major success of the Family Allowances Act (1946). This act offered a regular sum for second and subsequent children to be paid to the mother, raising the living standards of children and providing a better quality of life. However over the years particular attention has been paid to the environment that children live and the impact that it has upon their development and life chances. Bronfrebnner (1979) looks at the environment as a layered complex where each layer has an effect on child’s development and life chances. He believed that interaction between factors in the child’s maturing biology, his immediate family/community environment, and the social background fuels and directs his development. Bronfrebnner (1979) continues that modifications or conflict in any one layer of child’s environment will flow through other layers. Furthermore Paquette...
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...information (including programme) p.11-18 Communication p.19 Advice and support p.19 1) Module team contact information: Module Leader: Sue Norman – Room 3S405 – Sue.Norman@uwe.ac.uk 0117 328 4251 Module tutor: Mandy Lee – Room 3S406 – Mandy.Lee@uwe.ac.uk – Tel 0117 328 4279 Module tutor: Sarah Whitehouse- Room 2S407- Sarah.Whitehouse@uwe.ac.uk Tel 0117 328 4178 2) Module specific information MODULE SPECIFICATION Part 1: Basic Data | Module Title | Children in society, past and present | Module Code | UTTGPT-30-1 | Level | 1 | Version | 1 | Owning Faculty | ACE | Field | Primary, Early Childhood and Education Studies | Contributes towards | BA Hons Early Childhood | UWE Credit Rating | 30 | ETCS Credit Rating | 15 | Module Type | Standard | Pre-requisites |...
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...male within the family, drawing attention to how it is not just women but also children who are subject to this. 2 One piece of evidence that supports the view that childhood is socially constructed is that the meaning of childhood varies over time; for example, in Europe in the Middle Ages children were expected to work from about the age of seven rather than child labour being seen as wrong, as it is today. A second piece of evidence is the variation in childhood between different societies today, for example adulthood may be achieved at a significantly younger age than 18 as in Britain today. 3 Note: this is not an exam-style question. Ariès meant that childhood, as we understand the term today, did not exist then. After infancy, young people were treated as little adults — they dressed in adult clothes, worked and played alongside adults and were held responsible for their actions. There was no separate social sphere of childhood as we know it today. 4 One way in which the lives of children in pre-industrial society were different from those of children in the UK today is that children were expected to work from a very early age, for example helping on a family farm or being an apprentice. A second way is that there was little school education, which meant that children mixed socially with people of different ages rather than spending a lot of time with children of the same age. A third way is that entertainment and leisure activities were shared by all age groups rather...
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...Child Labor – A Challenge the World is Facing Childhood is the most innocent stage in a human life. It is that phase of life where a child is free from all the tensions, fun-loving, play and learns new things, and is the sweetheart of all the family members. But this is only one side of the story. The other side is full of tensions and burdens. Here, the innocent child is not the sweetheart of the family members, instead he is an earning machine working the entire day in order to satisfy the needs and wants of his/her family. This is what is called 'CHILD LABOUR'. There are various causes and effects of child labour. Eliminating child labour is one of the biggest challenges that the whole world is facing. Child labour includes working children who are below a certain minimum age. This practice is going on since long and is one of the worst forms of child exploitation. Child labour not only causes damage to a child’s physical and mental health but also keep him deprive of his basic rights to education, development, and freedom. According to statistics provided by UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 5 to 14 years employed in child labour worldwide and this figure is continuously increasing. Child labour is not only affecting under-developed and developing countries, but developed countries are also facing this though the rate is comparatively very less. Child labor in Asia accounts for the highest percentage of child labour (61%) followed by Africa (32%)...
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...Throughout this paper, I will be giving insight on poverty stricken students who are struggling academically in the classroom. Many of these students are falling behind in their studies and should be provided with extra resources to help catch them up. There are several factors in poverty that can contribute to a student being unsuccessful. However, the school administration and the teachers should do everything in their power to help the students be academically successful and increase their chances of being successful in life. The students suffering from the negative effects of poverty are most likely lacking basic needs at home, and it is most definitely not the fault of the student. These needs should and need to be met at school in order...
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