Childhood Poverty Epidemic

There currently are, and always will be, issues within schools that we should work towards rectifying. In America, we currently handicap children in poverty by viewing them through a certain lens. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2013 between 20 and 22% of individuals under the age of 18 were living in poverty. This is the highest percentage out of any other age group. For this reason it is imperative that individuals who work in the education system have a firm understanding of how poverty works, why intergenerational poverty is such a problem, how to work with children who come from an impoverished home, and how to help children escape the poverty cycle. Childhood poverty is an important problem for several reasons. First, children …show more content…
Some problems have relatively easy solutions. Poverty and poverty-related issues, however, are not that type of problem. There are several factors which contribute to the childhood poverty epidemic. There are obvious economic concerns when considering the causes of poverty. When looking at economic contributions it would be important to include things such as welfare and minimum wage. When considering how people of view people from poverty one may want to consider the unequal distribution of goods. There are also several political factors contributing to how children born into poverty are viewed. Without becoming too political myself, I would say that some politicians try to draw a line between people who are in poverty and people who are not. Once people who live in poverty are considered an out-group, we begin to view their poor circumstance as a result of their poor character which makes it easier to dismiss them and deny help. Similarly, there are social factors contributing to how children from poverty are viewed. This directly relates to viewing children from poverty as “different” than us but then not being willing to make changes in our interactions. There is also a stigma put on children from poverty that they may have done something to deserve to live in poverty or that their economic situation is a result of a choice that their parents made rather than a result of external factors. This is often the result of a one’s need to imagine the world as a just place (Cozzarelli, Wilkinson & Tagler, 2001). If one acknowledges that financial standing is due, at least partially, to luck then it means their success is not solely of their hard work and that they may become financial unstable at any time. This realization is frightening to many people because it means acknowledging they are not immune to financial