Children from Low Socioeconomic Status Families Lauren Sanders Social, Multicultural, Historical and Philosophical Issues

What is Low Socioeconomic Status? A group that may easily be overlooked and/or difficult to identify. An identified subgroup in No Child Left Behind. Low income families focus on meeting immediate needs and do not accumulate wealth that could be passed on to future generations.

What is Low Socioeconomic Status? (cont’d) Families with low socioeconomic status often lack the financial, social, and educational supports that characterize families with high socioeconomic status. Poor families also may have inadequate or limited access to community resources that promote and support children's development and school readiness. Parents may have inadequate skills for such activities as reading to and with their children, and they may lack information about childhood immunizations and nutrition (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory).

What is Low Socioeconomic Status? (cont’d) Zill, Collins, West, and Hausken (1995) state that "low maternal education and minority-language status are most consistently associated with fewer signs of emerging literacy and a greater number of difficulties in preschoolers." Having inadequate resources and limited access to available resources can negatively affect families' decisions regarding their young children's development and learning. As a result, children from families with low socioeconomic status are at greater risk of entering kindergarten unprepared than their peers from families with median or high socioeconomic status (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory).

Education Education plays a major role in skill sets for acquiring jobs, as well as specific qualities that stratify people with higher SES from lower SES. Annette Lareau speaks on the idea of concerted cultivation, where middle class parents take an active role in their children’s education and development by using controlled organized activities and fostering a sense of entitlement through encouraged discussion. Laureau argues that families with lower income do not participate in this movement, causing their children to have a sense of constraint. A division in education attainment is thus born out of these two differences in child rearing. In theory, lower income families have children who do not succeed to the levels of the middle income children, who feel entitled, are argumentative, and better prepared for adult life (Laureau, 2003).

Children from Low Socioeconomic Families Children from families with low socioeconomic status make up a disproportionate number of those most at-risk for school failure (Knapp & Shields, 1990). These children often begin kindergarten with "significantly less implicit linguistic knowledge of books, as compared to well-read-to kindergartners" state Purcell-Gates, McIntyre, and Freppon (1995, p. 659)(North Central Regional Educational Laboratory).

Children from Low Socioeconomic Families (cont’d) Although children of low socioeconomic status may begin school with significantly different experiences and skills than their middle-class peers, research indicates that these children can catch up. In a study of kindergartners and first graders, Purcell-Gates, McIntyre, and Freppon (1995) found that by the end of first grade, those children who began school with less knowledge of books had caught up to their more-read-to peers (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory).

Children from Low Socioeconomic Families (cont’d) Children from families of low socioeconomic status often attend schools facing other problems attributed to at-risk students. These schools typically have many students with high mobility rates, severe behavioral and emotional problems, and limited English proficiency. In addition, children of low socioeconomic status may come from culturally diverse backgrounds (Knapp & Shields, 1990)(North Central Regional Educational Laboratory ).

How Can We Educate These Students More Effectively? Creating conditions for effective schooling for students who are at-risk and students of low socioeconomic status includes maximizing time on task, holding high expectations, establishing a school climate that is supportive of academic learning, and strengthening parental involvement and support (Knapp & Shields, 1990) (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory ).

References Boushey, H. & Weller, C. (2005). Inequality matters: the growing economic divide in america and its poisonous consequences.. “what the numbers tell us.” p demos. Retrieved from on May 17, on May 17 Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: race, class, and family life. University of California Press. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Retrieved on May 17, 2009 from Purcell-Gates, V., McIntyre, E., & Freppon, P. A. (1995, Fall). Learning written storybook language in school: A comparison of low-SES children in skills-based and whole language classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), Zill, N., Collins, M., West, J., & Hausken, E.G., (1995, December). School readiness and children's developmental status. ERIC Digest [Online]. Available: