Joseph Mulangaliro
02/23/15
Writing and Other Cultures
Effect of Social Economic Status Social economic status is often broken down into three categories of class (high SES, middle SES, and low SES) to represent the income an individual’s family or a specific individual may fall into. When talking about putting a family or person into one of these status’, one must look at three variables; income, education, and occupation. These variables play a huge role in how an individual would develop in as an child, view their health, and how they would ultimately value education. The environment that most low SES children are in result to less direct speech from parents, little time spent on reading books, and not seeing the doctor often because of no healthcare. These environments are sometimes small cramped apartments where the parents usually aren’t around because they either have to work or just don’t have the time. When comparing it to the environment to high SES children, the infants of these families experience more directed speech which leads to learning more words. As well as doing better in school, this goes along with having a better relationship with their parents. Parental roles in addressing their children may be linked to their position of their respective groups within society. The hard working class of individuals often has low power, small positions in their workforce. This positioning of social hierarchy requires a certain lifestyle and livelihood that is stable and capable of adapting to most circumstances. A stable style of life addresses and prepares children for maintaining good grades and going to college to get their degree. This is why low SES parents view the family life as more of a hierarchy, with the parents at the top, which can eventually lead to verbal fights. These differences in power usually results to the circumstances of the working class world, where they are ranked in society and discouraged. Of course education plays a huge role in income and social economic status. The main effects of low SES can hurt in developing a child's cognitive development. The families of low SES, have are more occurrences of their children getting lead poisoning, fetal alcohol syndrome, and premature birth. This can lead to language delays, attention problems, and learning disabilities. The school systems in low SES neighborhoods often have fewer resources. The kids they are teaching usually begin school with little to no preparation. This requires an educational system to try and hire more skillful and focused teachers. This makes it harder to find good teachers, because the teachers in the low SES schools are often paid less and have fewer skills than the teachers in higher SES schools. The results of this are often low achievement rates for the students of these areas. Which then leads to high school students in the low SES schools to not go to college; therefore, the graduation rate is low. In my personal opinion, I think the effects of social economic status has to be one of the bigger epidemics in the world today. As it has a ripple effect, which is hard to fix once it gets out of control. I think it is our government’s obligation to figure out something to fix this, as they are the ones with the money to help address this huge gap of inequality. Parents also have big as a role in helping this problem, as they are the ones their children look up to and giving them that little push can go a very far way. As it shows that parents who help mentor or motivate their children see them achieving more and more eager to go to college.