Essay on Poverty in North America

Abstract

A common ideology in today’s society is that North American high school students who come from impoverished backgrounds have different academic results than their wealthier backgrounds peers. High school students living in poverty have historically underperformed compared to their wealthier peers. This is due to many reasons, many of which will be discussed in this paper. This paper will analyze the cause and effect of the issues that impoverished high school students face when trying to achieve success in high school. Major causes that affect an impoverished high school student’s success include impoverished high school students having less time to focus on their schooling, impoverished high school students having fewer resources available to them that would increase their chances for success, and the psychological effect that poverty has on these high school students.

The Effect of Poverty on High School Students

Impoverished high school students in North America have historically underperformed compared to their wealthier peers. Many experiments and case studies have been published discussing this problem that is faced by so many students around the continent. Many key causes have been discovered across many of these experiments and case studies. One key cause that has been discovered in many case studies is that high school students who come from a background of poverty have less time to focus on their schooling. This is due to a variety of reasons such as, but not limited to, having to work, looking after younger siblings, and having to complete the majority of the chores around the household. Another issue that is repeatedly seen in impoverished student’s lives is that they simply have fewer resources available to them that can increase their chance for success. The lack of resources includes not having access to tutors, not being able to afford private schools, and not being able to purchase and utilize expensive technology. Another barricade to success that North American high school students face is the psychological effect that poverty has on them. Living in poverty can affect a child’s cognitive development. Poverty can also cause a high school student to face mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Lastly, it can also cause these students to battle large amounts of stress. This research paper will analyze these issues and answer the question of why are North American high school students from wealthier backgrounds likely to have different academic results than students from impoverished backgrounds.

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High school students who come from a background of poverty have less time to focus on their schooling. This happens due to a variety of reasons, including students having to work to help their family make ends meet, having to look after younger siblings due to their parents not being able to afford daycare, as well as having to complete extra chores as parents work extra hours.

If a family is struggling with finances, a common solution is to have the kids pick up part-time or full-time jobs to bring in extra income. This can hinder a student’s ability to succeed in school. Research shows that “students who work more than 15 to 20 hours a week see a decrease in academic performance” (Blake, 2015, para. 2). Working 15 to 20 hours is common amongst Canadian high schoolers as they attempt to acquire money to freely spend on any clothing, social events, or even saving up for their first car. Working 15 to 20 hours a week may cause a small decrease in a student’s academic performance but increasing those hours to 40 hours a week can cause serious decreases in a student’s academic performance. This is due to the student having less time to study for tests and complete school assignments. High school students who come from wealthier families will not face this struggle, which results in them having more time to study for tests and complete school assignments. This advantage provides wealthier high school students a better chance to succeed in their classes.

If a high school student is lucky enough to not have to work, they can still be affected by their family’s economic struggles in other ways such as having to babysit their younger siblings. More often than not, a family living in poverty is not able to afford the astronomical prices of child care. They end up relying on their oldest child to look after their younger siblings. The parents might work two jobs to bring in the necessary income to support the family and this results in them not being able to complete certain parental tasks. Not only can this prevent high school students from studying and completing school work at home, but it can also cause them to miss high school classes if they need to look after their siblings during the daytime. In cases like these, “the surrogate parent - sometimes just a teenager him or herself - must manage household logistics and make difficult decisions for siblings, all while dealing with their grief and anxiety” (Ludden, 2012, para. 6). Looking after kids can be a very time consuming and mentally taxing task. A High school student having to look after their younger siblings will hinder their ability to maximize their potential in their success within the classroom due to their greater responsibilities. A wealthy high school student can come home after classes and study all night without having to be disturbed, which is a luxury that impoverished students cannot afford if they have to look after younger siblings.

Furthermore, high school students who come from a family living in poverty often have to complete extra tasks at home as the parents work extra hours to provide for the family. Instead of sharing household chores amongst family members, the student may find themselves having to clean the dishes, take out the trash, and try to unclog the clogged toilet, as well as other household tasks. These tasks can be very time-consuming when one person has to maintain the household that multiple people live in but are too busy to help maintain. A wealthy household might split the tasks between all members of the family or might be fortunate enough to have the financial ability to hire someone to do said work for them. This is just one of the ways that impoverished high school students are negatively affected “by the harmful effects of stress at work on family life” (Friedman, 2018, para. 8). There are many other barriers that high school students may face that cause them to focus on other things rather than their school work, but having to work, looking after younger siblings and completing extra tasks at home are three of the most common and extreme barriers that result in high school students not being able to reach their full potential in succeeding in high school.

High school students who live in poverty are also affected in ways that cause them to have fewer resources available to them that can increase their chances for success. High school students who come from wealthier families have access to tutors, and private schools, and not being able to purchase and utilize technology. These resources give high school students the ability to turn their weaknesses into strengths, which is a luxury that many high school students who live in poverty cannot afford.

Like all high school students, students who live in poverty will not excel in every subject matter. A student may be naturally gifted in mathematics but might struggle with their English classes. However, the difference between them and wealthy high school students is that wealthy high school students have access to amazing tutors. Tutors allow a student to have a vital one with a professional who can explain concepts and methodologies that the student is struggling to understand. One study showed that students “who received tutoring saw big jumps in their math test scores on multiple exams and were much less likely to fail regular math courses” (Barnum, 2017, para. 10). Tutors have been repeatedly proven to promote success in any level of schooling. If an impoverished student is unable to comprehend a lesson that they learned in high school, there is not much help for them to access. For a wealthy high school student, help is always a phone call away in the form of a tutor. The result is that a wealthy high school student will have a perfect understanding of all concepts and methodologies while impoverished students will not comprehend these concepts and methodologies.

High school students who come from wealthier backgrounds also have access to better schools than their less-wealthy counterparts. Many wealthy high school students are enrolled in private schools. These private schools have historically done better than public schools in standardized tests. Fraser Institute’s recent school rankings show that “a disproportionate number of the top-ranking schools are indeed private ones.” (Maharaj, 2015, Para. 3). The reason that private schools have a tendency to score higher in standardized tests than public schools and are also constantly ranked higher than public schools is that they can offer better resources to their students. Many things make private school attendees more likely to succeed, like tutors being accessible through the school and class sizes are often smaller. These factors make a big difference in the grades that a student achieves and cause them to achieve higher grades than the grades they would have achieved had they been attending a public school. These benefits come at a very expensive cost, with most private schools charging families tens of thousands of dollars per student per year. This high cost instantly limits private school accessibility to wealthy families, leaving impoverished students in the dust.

High school students from wealthy backgrounds also have other resources that indirectly affect their success in school. For example, wealthy families may have things like nannies, cleaners, and other personnel to help complete many daily tasks. This results in wealthy high school students having fewer tasks to complete and the ability to spend more time focusing on their studies. Families say that “allowing someone like a trusted nanny or housekeeper to help with the morning routine serves the purpose of creating greater peace in families” (Scully, 2015, para. 23). These helpers can help high school studento live a stress-free life without having to worry about things like cleaning up after themselves or making food for themselves as these basic tasks are completed for them. This allows them to focus solely on their academic performances. Students from less wealthy backgrounds do not get to live this luxurious lifestyle and have to devote hours every week to completing these basic maintenance tasks, which takes away from the time that they can spend on their academics.

Lastly, it is important to consider the psychological effect that poverty has on high school students. Living in poverty can affect a child’s cognitive development. Poverty can also cause high school students to face mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. On top of that, it can also cause these students to battle large amounts of stress.

Living in poverty is often linked to a delay in cognitive development. “Low income affects direct measures of children’s well-being and development, including their cognitive ability” (Cooper & Stewart, 2013, para. 13). This delay in cognitive development affects how students think, explore and figure things out. A delay in cognitive development will limit a student’s ability to comprehend the material they learn in school. A student from a wealthy background is more likely to have better cognitive abilities, resulting in them having a better chance of comprehending the material they are taught in class. This difference in cognitive development is an issue that is simply out of any child’s hands. The longer the child spends living in poverty, the bigger the difference in cognitive development will be. A short-term rough patch will not make a significant impact but if a student’s family has been living in poverty since the student was born, then the impact can be very significant.

When a high school student is living in poverty, they face a high chance of developing mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Nearly “80 percent of the studies showed that poverty comes with higher rates of mental illness” (Sohn, 2016, para. 5). Anxiety and depression, amongst other mental health issues, can cause extreme problems in a student’s life. When a student is facing these mental health problems, their performance in school will be hindered. A student struggling with mental health is more likely to try to focus on their mental health than they are to focus on their school work. Mental health does not discriminate against class or any aspects of an individual’s social location. However, a student who lives in poverty will have a higher chance of developing a mental health issue than their wealthier peers.

High school students who live in poverty are also more likely to face high levels of stress. These stress levels are achieved through the crazy circumstances that students living in poverty are facing. When a high school student is facing high levels of stress, it “can lead to mental conditions that impact a student’s motivation and desire to do well in school” (Bovaird, 2017, para. 4). One of the most crucial things in achieving success in school is a student’s motivation to succeed in school. If a student is so stressed out that their schooling is simply not a priority to them, then they will have no motivation to succeed in school as they focus on more pressing aspects of their life such as working or focusing on their mental health.

North American high school students living in poverty perform lower than their wealthier peers. High school students who come from a background of poverty have less time to focus on their schooling. They also have fewer resources available to them that can increase their chance for success. Lastly, they face great amounts of psychological effects that poverty has caused them to experience.