Effects of poverty on the education and mental health of children.

"Sure, poverty is a severe issue that effects the social and economical development of a country, however one hope that a country could have, is developing a substantial education system that could educated any student, as it is their right."

Poverty is a pervasive issue that affects millions of people around the world. It is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that can be defined in various ways, but generally refers to a lack of access to basic resources such as food, water, housing, healthcare, education, and employment. Poverty is often accompanied by social exclusion, discrimination, and powerlessness, which further exacerbate the problem. Further, it acts as a dominos effect causing destruction in the education and mental state of the children in a country. This article highlights the major areas that show this dominos effect, that poverty causes such as ; the way poverty hinders the growth of a country due lacking mentality the individuals embrace within. Moreover, the manner how mental state of children will be severely affected due to surviving in stressful situations which leads to disturbance in their education. Poverty is not necessarily depended on financial insufficiency but many other primal factors contribute to it, majorly poor education system.

Poverty is an inevitable shadow aspect of any country, in spite of it being a developed country or a 3rd. world. Poverty can be a profound hindrance for the growth of a country, children being the future of the country is suffering from poverty this will result in effecting both the mental and the physical state of the children. The growth dynamic of the country is restricted due to the lack of financial stability, as the country is often firefighting to survive through battles. When a country has a majority of population struggling to afford the basic survival needs the mindset of the country alters to survive than to grow. As a result, the new generation get effected because they lack in adequate education and mentality to make a difference in the circumstance. According to the article Poverty, Homelessness, Hunger in Children, and Adolescents: Psychosocial Perspectives. World Social Psychiatry (Pumariega et al.) “The world’s population is approximately 7 billion. Children make up about a third of the world’s population. About 925 million people go to bed hungry every night, and approximately a billion are homeless” the insufficiency in resources is the catalyst for the people to feel unstable and reject to consider about anything other than basic needs. The consequences of poverty are severe and far-reaching, affecting the mental state of the individuals and resulting an actual physiological damage in the brains of the children in low-income families. Due to surviving in a stressful environment and encountering various traumatic events, the children of these families often detected to be having damages that occurs in their brain hindering their ability to learn and reason. As evidence, according to a study done by Hair, several areas that determined the school readiness skills, and a gap of 20% in test scores could be observed due to maturational lags in the frontal and temporal lobes. Children being a prime victim of the poverty is quite tragic situation in the country. Furthermore, overall mental capacity and state of the individuals of the country will be deprived due to stressful lifestyle of the people. The data suggests that living in poverty increases stress and negatively affects ones mood, which might result in risk-averse and short-sighted decision-making by limiting attention and favoring habitual behaviors over goal-directed ones. These connections could create a feedback loop that leads to the persistence of poverty(Pumariega et al.). Poverty is as viral as an epidemic causing severe damage to the social system and hinders the growth of the children of the country.

One of the principal rights of a child is education, however unfortunately many countries that is in poverty does not have this right fulfilled. Children with low-income families despite it being a right, do not have the capacity to acquire a substantial education, at one point they will eventually become drop outs from the school. This proves from the statistic acquired from the journal article The Effects of Poverty on Lifelong Learning: Important Lessons for Educators (Boatwright and Midcalf) Only 28% of first-graders with high test scores are from low-income homes, and by the fifth grade, only 56% of those students are still performing at the top quartile, compared to 69% of their classmates from higher-income families (Wyner, Bridgeland, & DiIulio, 2007).

Further, according to the journal THE EFFECT OF POVERTY ON EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA (Nortje) “only 37% of pupils who start school pass their matriculation exam, and a low 4% of those students go on to finish tertiary education and earn a degree (The Economist, 2017).” Furthermore, due to lack of substantial education many young adults suffer from lack of employment, according to the claimant count for February 2003, 4.4% of the workforce was unemployed in Ireland and UK, (Horgan). In addition to not having the right for education another major factor for children in poverty suffer is, not having the mental state to acquire education. Due to the fact that these children are being subjected to severe stress and trauma the growth of their brain capacity are deprived. The highest impact was shown in children from the poorest homes, and poverty was linked to anatomical abnormalities in the several brain regions related with school readiness skills. The frontal and temporal lobe maturational delays may account for up to 20% of the test score disparity. Moreover, some of these impacts are influenced by differences in knowledge and linguistic exposure (Pumariega et al.). Furthermore, these children suffer from inner mental instability due to coping higher level of stress, causing depression (Pumariega et al.). In addition, according to longitudinal study done by Hastings et al. for 4000 families in Canada discovered that growing up in a low-income urban neighborhood was linked to a doubling in the chance of acquiring a psychosis-spectrum disease by middle age (Pumariega et al.). Despite education being a right every child has, many children around the globe are divested their right.

Even though primarily poverty is caused by lack of financial abundance, there are many elements that contributes to create poverty in a country. Inability to generate a well-equipped environment for education is also a long- term effect for poverty. This is what creates the dominos effect in the country, without sufficient resources to provide a sturdy foundation for education as quoted “very few people in developing countries are illiterate. Samuel (2013) states that education is important for a country to grow economically and socially.” (Nortje). According to the extraction of the journal writing poverty is caused by many factors, “(a)financial—having the money to purchase goods and services; (b) emotional— being able to choose and control emotional responses, especially to negative situations, without being self-destructive; (c) mental—having the mental abilities and skills to deal with daily life; (d) spiritual— believing in divine purpose and guidance; (e) physical—having physical health and mobility; (f ) support systems— having friends, family, and backup resources available to access in times of need; (g) role models—having frequent access to adults who are appropriate and nurturing to the child; and (h) knowledge of hidden rules—knowing the unspoken cues and habits of a group.” (Boatwright and Midcalf). Lack of resources will not only hinder the learning process but also the teaching aspects as well. Teachers not being able to be ready with the resources, that are necessary to provide a proper education is also a factor. Not having appropriate teachers that are qualified to teach the mentality of poverty deprived children is also an issue (Boatwright and Midcalf). Poverty is not just being low in income but a cycle that is created and continued due contribution of many other factors; mainly increase in un-educated society cause this cycle to continue.

In conclusion, poverty causes a ripple effect on the society. The growth and stability of the society is intact with the individual growth mentality, however constant struggle to survive hinders this. In addition to this, pressure on children due to poverty will lead to have a mentality unmotivated for education resulting a never-ending cycle of poverty. However, with proper measures this cycle could be broken. Providing an opportunity for the children to be educated will be a chance that could long-standing, the initial step for this will be making the teachers resourceful to teach poverty deprived students(Kakkar et al.).Hopeful enough there are programs that aid the teachers to get equipped with (Boatwright and Midcalf) “One such program can be found at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. The mission of FMU’s Center of Excellence to Prepare Teachers of Children of Poverty is “to increase the achievement of children of poverty by improving the quality of undergraduate teacher preparation, graduate teacher preparation, and the professional development of in-service teachers” (para. 1).” Sure, poverty is a severe issue that effects the social and economical development of a country, however one hope that a country could have, is developing a substantial education system that could educated any student, as it is their right.

Dewmi Bartholomeues, 7th May 2023

Works Cited

Boatwright, Patricia, and Lisa Midcalf. “The Effects of Poverty on Lifelong Learning: Important

Lessons for Educators.” The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin: International Journal for

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Horgan, Goretti. “Child Poverty in Northern Ireland: The Limits of Welfare-To-Work Policies.”

Social Policy and Admistration, vol. Vol39, no. 0144–5596, Feb. 2005, pp. 49–64.

Kakkar, M., et al. “Opportunities for One Health Policies to Reduce Poverty.” Rev. Sci. Tech.

Off. Int. Epiz, 2019, pp. 135–144.

Nortje, Martinus Jacobus. “THE EFFECT of POVERTY on EDUCATION in SOUTH

AFRICA.” Educor Multidisciplinary Journal, vol. vol 1, Dec. 2017, pp. 47–62.

Pumariega, Julio, et al. Poverty, Homelessness, Hunger in Children, and Adolescents:

Psychosocial Perspectives. World Social Psychiatry,. 2022, doi-

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