Cultural Awareness for Educators on “Stereotyping Poverty Today”

The Impact of Poverty and the Social Class

Teachers are expected to bring current event issues into their secondary and higher education classrooms in 2023/24. Teachers and all communities of education practice might find it insightful to consider the following questions when looking at relevant current event issues. For example, students can analyze “The Mindset of Poverty” in light of these or similar questions:

• How are poverty and social class intersectional?
• What is problematic about poverty?
• How do we stereotype poor students?
• What is the difference between generational and situational poverty?
• Have you witnessed or experienced the effects of stereotyping in your own life?
• For educators, these questions might be valuable:

For educators, these questions might be valuable:

• How do educators stereotype poor students?
• What stereotypes appear or are mentioned amongst fellow educators or community educators?
• Have you, as an educator, witnessed or experienced the effects of stereotyping? It is valuable to spotlight families’ experiences. The lens used to look at a situation can completely change the effects and perceptions.

Some stereotypes to consider:

• Do poor people need to be fixed?
• Does everybody need help?
• What help is needed?
• Do impoverished students need an opportunity?

It can be powerful to stop, listen, and look, to understand what they need. The best solution needs to reflect their context, not just the American way. Even in America, communities have different needs, which is why Culturally Responsive Teaching is so important. When looking at stereotyping, just look at beliefs about prisoners in jail, for example. Prison and jail recidivism rates can be analyzed as to why certain races are imprisoned over others and why recidivism occurs at such a high rate when we release inmates for the first time. Part of the reason may be stereotyping recidivism with low income and setting that
expectation. Stereotypes about economic status and then failing to break the cycles of wealth and inequality and prison, and then comparing the economy coming out of poverty as “luck” almost minimizes the hard work and efforts of the marginalized groups. In the same way that COVID is an illness, poverty is an illness with no known vaccine. Like mental health, poverty can be a taboo subject. Theoretically, everyone should have equitable resources, but sadly, that is not the case. The communities where the most impoverished students attend school typically collect fewer property taxes and spend the least money per student. This is problematic because it is entirely inequitable for a public school student in a poor versus wealthy community.

When educators or community members stereotype people living in poverty, they often say these students and families are not intelligent and are lazy, or that they do not have a strong culture and are typically from divorced families. Of course, many of these stereotypes are false and still believed as mainstream. More stereotypes include statements like because a child is poor, he, therefore, does not care about his education.

As educators, we need to be aware that some in the community and even educators practice this type of stereotyping and therefore show bias or implicit bias toward the poor. This stereotyping interfered with the inner belief and talk educators need in order to teach upward mobility and the idea that students can make it out of poverty. If teachers hold a view, the students will rise to believe in themselves and think there is a way up and out.

Ruby K. Payne speaks to thousands of school administrators to inspire working with
children from poverty. Her book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, is a significant influence on administrators and teachers to help them understand children from poverty in their classrooms, in their school districts, in states, and throughout the United States. It is essential to hold high expectations and not lower those expectations based on the population of students. Implicit bias towards impoverished people is apparent in public school systems and local and state communities. The solution starts by acknowledging and addressing our own stereotypes. Payne’s principal message is that poverty is not as simple as a monetary condition, but rather a culture. Payne says children growing up in a culture of poverty fail because they have
been taught the “hidden rules of poverty,” but not the hidden rules of being middle class. She talks in-depth about this culture having a set of rules, values, and knowledge transmitted from generation to generation that inform people how to live their lives successfully.

Payne claims that public school teachers, predominately from upper or middle-class communities, do not understand or relate to their students from poverty. She claims they do not appreciate the essential survival rules in poverty-stricken communities. She feels educators must acknowledge and encourage teachers to teach children of poverty some of the management and culture of the middle class. Payne listed these rules from the middle class: knowing how to hire a private attorney to handle a criminal or civil matter, how to reserve a table at a restaurant, how to set and decorate a table with flowers, placemats, and napkins, and how to evaluate and purchase appropriate medical, life, disability, homeowners, auto, and personal property insurance.

Payne claimed that poor people are not able to think abstractly. Was she joking? I felt her work was flawed in this aspect and do not agree. Some of Payne’s claims might have been stated to make a point about stereotyping. Payne’s framework placed the blame for low-income children’s lack of academic success entirely outside the schools. I must disagree with this premise. As educators, there is no place for excuses; students need to achieve under all circumstances.

Ideology can effectively prevent educational and social change when it supports the belief that we can reduce the problems of poverty without needing to make any changes in society or our own lives. If the ideas about poverty were different, our social and public policies would be also. We must recognize that racism and oppression account for much of poverty. Children in poverty would benefit from more explicit instructional strategies to help them understand and think about ideas presented in class; techniques such as graphic organizers, hands-on activities, and visuals definitely can help with the learning process.

Such tools and approaches are desperately needed because students living in shallow socioeconomic settings may be seriously deficient in vocabulary, may never have interacted with the same technology, or have exposure to the same jobs as are typical for middle-class families or the wealthiest of our nation. We need to work collaboratively with organizations and political movements that fight for systemic improvement of the lives of children and families in poverty.

We also strive to ensure everyone’s fundamental human right to adequate food, housing, medical care, decent education, and an equal opportunity to succeed. Some teachers celebrate small successes with significant numbers of children from poverty daily, against enormous odds. They remind us that existing answers are not secrets. We need to pay attention and learn. It requires hard work and unwavering dedication. It takes committed teachers and administrators willing to set high expectations and offer engaging curricula that make strong personal connections for their students.

It takes schools where students are not just prepared to take and pass standardized tests but where they are taught how to play a conscious, active role in society, how to recognize and combat racism and other institutionalized inequities, and how to work in pursuit of the dream of social and global justice. After learning these concepts, I ask you to think about what you could change anything about your thinking. Is there anything you would change in how you address poverty in education? As a leader, we need to be committed to addressing all economic disparity, and different colors, religions, sexes, and genders within our classrooms. We need to show inclusion. Sadly, there is glaring wealth inequality at schools. For example, there is elitism in the classical music field, with barriers to entry to many places. Those talents will go to waste without
those resources. In teaching students to run for office and leadership positions, a child will not achieve a class leadership position without knowing how to campaign or debate.

Within educator effectiveness, I will work to bring more awareness to these issues in diversity and help teachers and administrators improve their instructional practices or leadership. This improvement should include collaborative learning communities, evaluation rubrics, and be focused on individual student growth. There are also opportunities to develop new training programs.

In conclusion, it is up to the community of practice educators to change the perceptions and the language about poor students, be role models for those we teach and help them learn that it is not okay to stereotype people or consider them lost causes. To negate stereotyping, we must stop falling into deficit thinking with students. Impoverished students and their families often need access to computers and high-speed internet, as only three-fourths of households currently have a high-speed broadband or other regularly found materials that can aid a student outside of school.

Students living in poverty often need many more resources at home to complete homework. Studying or engaging in activities becomes a massive challenge at home as many parents work two jobs and are unavailable for assistance. In more extreme poverty, students do not have the resources or even the nutrition needed to complete homework. The equipment at school is not carried over into the house, and success during the school day cannot be sustained at home.