Socioeconomic Disadvantage: The Australian Context
Curriculum experiences at school have the potential to disafvantage children, in particular, those from disadvantaged backgrounds (Ewing, 2013. p. 73). John Graham (2012) explains in his editorial titled 'The Reproduction of Disadvantage ' that: "One important measure of the equity of a schooling systemis the impact of socioeconomic status background factorson student outcomes" (p. 5). Data from the Oragnisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicates that Australia is a country with high quality but very low equity, this means students from disadvantaged backgrounds are consistently achieving poorer educational outcomes than their peers (Graham, 2012. p. 5).
Where are we right now: PISA 2009
The 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) testing program for 15-year-old students
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p. 76). This impact is usually greater on particular groups - for example, children in rural areas, children of the long term unemployed, refugees, and children with special physical and emotional needs (Ewing, 2013. p. 76). It is important for educators to understand that some assumptions of particular groups of people such as: poor people brought it upon themselves and poor people are less intellectually advantaged than their middle and upper class counterparts (Ewing, 2013. p. 76).
Poor purchasing power in low income families decrease the lifestyle choices that low income families can make and choices about education is no exception (Ewing, 2013. p. 84). There has been numerous funding cuts to public schooling over the last fifteen years which, in turn, decrease the educational quality of a public schooling education (Ewing, 2013. p. 84). Schools that are in remote areas of Australia are likely to have the most inexperienced teachers that lack experienced mentors (Ewing, 2013. p. 84).
Furthermore, Chapter 15 begins to explain educational inequality. In the United States, education is available but not to every child in the same way. Different social-classes means different schools, instructions, criteria, rates, and times. In addition to class differences, races and ethnics unfortunately play a role in educational achievement. For example, in general, African Americans, Latino/a’s, and Native Americans usually do worse in school than white or Asian American students
Consequently, this means all types virtual backpacks, cultural capital, socioeconomic status and other factors need to be valued. Part of value adding is getting the community involved. A multicultural café event was set up at a small school in Sydney that has a high socioeconomic status and a small amount of students with a language background other than English (LBOTE), this was woven into the curriculum over two terms (Ferfolja, 2015). What they found was that the students participated enthusiastically, however very few parents of the LBOTE students attended and some of the cafés were not accurate. As education changes in line with social justice when curriculum, pedagogy and assessment is altered there can be unfavorable effects too. Australia had schemes to promote the education outcomes of girls and consequently these changes in curriculum and the assessment process have been viewed as too successful by some and policy has consequently shifted to boys educational outcomes (Marks, 2009). Curriculum changes can be a long process, however necessary as some children find the curriculum problematic. The Australian curriculum can be seen as linguistically foreign, culturally insensitive or inappropriate for Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people) children who are in school (Kenyon, Sercombe, Black, & Lhuede, 2001). As indigenous children are a part of the least privileged and significantly disadvantaged group in Australia (C. Mills & Gale, 2010), social justice is failing educating those students. The Australia curriculum, which has been accessible since 2010, declares that it is committed to a curriculum that promotes excellence and equity in education in addition to teachers using the curriculum to assist in physical, social and aesthetic needs of all students amongst other factors (Australian Curriculum,
Students in poverty tend to obtain low grades, have little academic achievement, and often misbehave. Many often drop out before graduating high school. Students ages sixteen through twenty-four are up to seven times more likely to drop out. A study published in Nature Neuroscience discovered “a link between physical brain development and poverty level. In a study of eleven hundred children, adolescence and adults from around the US, researchers found significant differences in the brains of children from the lowest income bracket in comparison to those in the highest. Families who lived on less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year had as much as 6% less surface area in their brain in areas like language and decision making than families who made more than one hundred and fifty dollars a year.” This may support why many students in poverty tend to do worse in school over middle class students. Employers usually lean toward more educated workers, leaving the poor at a serious disadvantage when it comes to work Children growing in poverty regularly have families of their own poverty. Some workplaces, manufacturing jobs have replaced their human labor with machinery and technology, which leaves many potential jobs out of the hands of people hungry for work. Having a weak education leaves them unskilled, resulting poor and low paying occupations. This creates a long lasting loop of poverty, a loop which is hard to escape. They
Those who are at risk tend to be minorty groups. This can be in part due to lower social
There is a common, underlying perception that students from particular cultural and linguistic backgrounds – what is generally referred to as ethnicity - have a predisposition towards educational success in Australian schools (Watkins, 2013). Students from Anglo backgrounds, for example, are often seen as having a cultural advantage whilst others, such as Middle Eastern students, are perceived as culturally prone to underachievement. These claims confine ethnicity to fixed and bound stereotypes, and see educational achievement as a result of the inherent qualities of these groups (Watkins, 2013). However, ethnicity cannot be held solely responsible for the inequalities in Australian education. A densely interwoven fabric of socio-cultural factors, for instance, geographical location and socioeconomic status, is evident in the disparities between students' academic achievements. It is within fabric that it can be established that students from minority groups are educationally disadvantaged due to their ethnicities, geographical locations and socioeconomic statuses, incidentally influencing their chances of educational success in Australian schools (Groundwater-Smith, 2009).
Income greatly impacts a child’s learning ability. In the United States, where a child attends school is based on where he or she lives, which is based upon the income of the family. Typically, families with lower income must send their children to poor quality schools. Schools in low income areas are more likely to have unsatisfactory teachers, or teachers with little experience because of the salary the school can offer. Even though many forms of financial aid are accessible to low income students wanting to attend college, there is no such acclaim available to low income families who would prefer to live in a higher quality school system (Rouse/Barrow, 1-2). Children who live in a home where money is scarce do not have as many necessary resources as their wealthier peers. For example, many low income families lack books, computers, Internet access, and parents with a high education that can assist their children with schoolwork. These children are behind academically, and piling on standardized test after test to measure their progress and teacher worth is not productive (Strauss, 2). The federal education policy has been ignoring the issue of poverty for years now because many school reformers argue that the effects of living in pover...
Socioeconomic disadvantage within the Australian schooling system is rife. Socioeconomic status (SES) is an economic and sociological combined total measure of an individuals’ access to material and social resources as well as their ability to participate in society. (ABS, 2006).
Race and wealth play a significant role in the education of children. Studies show disproportionate reading and math levels of students of color vs white students. Studies have also shown disproportionate behavior consequences and suspensions. Students coming from wealthier families receive more opportunities. Students from less well-off families oftentimes do not get those opportunities.
Have you noticed that a lot of Americans most disadvantaged children grow up without the skills they need to thrive in the twenty-first century? Have you ever wondered how NYC High School scholars judge each other? Whether in educational attainment between income groups or racial/ethnic groups, inequality still persists. In New York City, the nation’s largest school system, on average student outcomes and their opportunity to learn are more determined by social class and family backgrounds. Think of your own experiences when you were in high school? We always hear people speak about others because of the way they dress, where they live, and who their parents are. Also some are treated differently and have greater opportunities than others. For example, children growing up in low-income neighbors are much more likely to experience repeated stress from violence crime that may cause them to be capable for development. On the other hand, high income in the United States has increased the importance of how external environment factors impact students and schools. What is a good education to you? A good education is the key foundation and the need for every child to succeed in the world today, with the fast growing markets and a lot of competition. A lot don’t understand and need to learn what it takes to compete with other individuals and make a decent living. However, not every child has been receiving a fair and equal education throughout all of society and education inequality has become a major issue. Many of the children living in low-income and middle-income families are not receiving an equal type or quality of education as those who live in high-income families.
About 40 percent of Australia’s poorest 19 year olds are not completing school, compared to the 10 percent of the wealthier. Poor students are believed to miss a month more of school than the wealthy each year. Students who are Indigenous, poor, and live in remote areas are falling behind their peers at major stages of their schooling.
Diversity encompasses many areas which educators need to acknowledge and support children who withhold differences in either background or experiences as oppose to other children in educational settings. To put it simply, children bring to school with their beliefs, customs, practices and behaviour. This set of identities is known as socio-cultural. In fact, Ewing (2013, p. 74) state a claim by Connell, White and Johnson that most often, children who come from disadvantaged environments are inclined to be successful at school than their privileged counterparts. Mostly, the circumstance where those children in are implicated through social and income inequality, cultural diversity, gender and sexuality, and consumerism. This means that socio-cultural
Social institutions are an important element in the structure of human societies. They provide a structure for behavior in a particular part of social life. The five major social institutions in large societies are family, education, religion, politics, and economics. While each institution does deal with a different aspect of life, they are interrelated and intersect often in the course of daily life. For example, for schools to be able to exist they rely on funding from the government. This is an intersection between politics and education. Social institutions affect individual lives through other aspects of society such as culture, socialization, social stratification, and deviance. This paper will focus on the social institution of education, and how it affects individual lives through socialization, deviance, and social stratification.
Education in our country is a social problem, because millions of poor children are affected by the deplorable and decaying conditions that the buildings where they attend are. Furthermore, a lot of the personnel assigned to teach academics are not qualified to do so. The children that live in a household where the conditions are bellow poverty level, do not received the attention of parents or incentives to reach for higher education. Logically they end up being what they see most of the time, which is criminals. Why is it that we have these conditions in our Country? Do we have any solution to solve the problem? But if we do not live among the poor class, does it affect us?
Many people of today’s world may not seem to understand the importance of education and how we can go a long way with being educated young people. The dropout rate among individuals has probably been at its highest then it has ever been over the past couple of years. THE ACTUAL DATA IS EASY TO FIND, SO THIS SCREAMS “LAZY WRITER!” IT ALSO GETS US RIGHT INTO THE TOPIC TOO QUICKLY. In today’s society education plays a key role in the foundation of developing individuals by proving social success. Education enables the primary skills and ability that we can apply to regular bases in the market such as networking. With the current education system, kids are given many opportunities with the proper schooling to SUCCEED in order to further their education. All in all at the very moment the general public as a whole is failing, the rate of people processing to finish school or graduate is dropping at an uncontrollable percentage. AGAIN, EASY ENOUGH TO FIND. Clearly individuals who deal with family issues, insufficient preparation, work/life balance have a great chance of not wanting to
Traditional schooling has both advantages and disadvantages to its approach. Traditional schools are open to the public, as for they cannot decline enrollment of any student, as stated by the U.S Department of Justice “All children in the United States are entitled to equal access to a basic public elementary and secondary education regardless of their actual or perceived race, color, national origin, citizenship, immigration status, or the status of their parents/guardians.” (www.justice.gov) School districts that deny a student 's access into their school or has policies set in place for students of parents who may be undocumented or not a U.S citizen would be violating a federal law. Any child living in the United States can attend any public school he/she desires regardless of their race, color, nationality, their status or parental status.