The cycle of poverty

Or why do people in urban neighborhoods struggle to rise out of poverty?

Wiki article

So, is it the lack of opportunity, the lack of education, the poor wages, the culture of poverty, all of the above, or something else that causes poverty to perpetuate for generations?

Education and stress, perhaps a bit of Values Dissonance thrown in there too.

School is hard when you're stressed. You're stressed when you're worried about your safety, worried about food, worried about water. You can't focus and learn, making school progressive harder, so it becomes more important to live today rather than tomorrow because if you forget about today, tomorrow may not even happen.

And then there's things like the idea of "Getting an education means becoming white", though that's not as far spread as before, can still be quite prominent and partially accounts for the rather disproportional amount of non-caucasians in that position.

Or the people who think any education is a good education, rather than going for professional skills.

Any education is good education since it's useful in some shape or manner, especially at the lower levels. However, if you need to prioritize, then do so.

Nah, there's art history degrees, which is a degree in dying in poverty. Trying to prevent them from doing that, remember?

Which can net you a nice job at art history museum. May not be the best of choices, though.

The type of degree doesn't mean a whole lot. There are plenty of lower-middle-class graduates with degrees in biology, computer science, mathematics, business, etc. who aren't exactly rolling in the dough these days. Regardless of the type of degree, many people are going to have to pay their loans, which is going to keep them from achieving their full economic output for quite some time. I can't think of a solution at the top of my head, but the whole "the type of degree is the end-all be-all of success" argument really needs to be taken out back and shot in the head. No, the usefulness of the degree is based on the person who has the degree. That degree is only as useful as you make it out to be, and I can name a few professionals of all stripes who aren't successful because they simply don't know how to use the skills given to them.

Come to think of it, there are some ways to encourage economic mobility such as offering loan forgiveness to teachers who work in at-risk schools for a set number of years. Unfortunately, many teachers leave after their contract is up because they get tired of trying to teach kids who come off as a lost cause (and quite frankly, some of them are). It's a matter of finding teachers who can keep their students motivated long enough for them to realize their full potential while also giving them an incentive to stay in the school. Easier said than done, I know. But making a dick-swinging contest out of who has the more important degree is not the solution to breaking that cycle.

A famous quote I once heard is that "parents kill kids' dreams more than anyone or anything else." Teachers can't follow their students home, and most major problems in education standards can be traced back to the home environment. You don't need a doctorate to raise a child, but something as simply as just giving a damn about their hobbies and interests can make a world of a difference in their ability to succeed.

edited 1st May '11 11:04:36 AM by Aprilla

You mean art history degrees as obtained by Kate Middleton, now HRH the Duchess of Cambridge? Don't think she'll be dying in poverty any time soon.

You'd have a point if working were at all a requirement for her. She attended St. Andrews' university*

edited 1st May '11 11:47:09 AM by Yej

I wouldn't be surprised if a doctorate becomes the new GED in ten years.

There are talks of fully implementing external hard drives as part of the central nervous system along with bio-technology that will possibly amplify information processing abilities. This could either decrease the gap between the educated and uneducated by decreasing the amount of time - and therefore money - people spend on both K-12 and higher education. On the other hand, it could widen said gap because the aforementioned bio-technology would be understandably expensive and, of course, only available to the wealthy.

Needless to say, there's a great deal of science fiction that explores the socio-economic ramifications of neural EHD devices, one of them being the perpetuation of the poverty cycle.

edited 1st May '11 6:42:18 PM by Aprilla

Hmm . . . Well, my sister lives her entire life from crisis to crisis—got to pay for something for her daughter, got to pay for something for herself. If she ever managed to resolve all her crises at once, she might be able to plan for the long term, but she just never has the time and money. I think a lot of this comes from a): her getting pregnant at a very young age, and b): the dad being a total loser who's contributed very little to the kid's upbringing.

Yay anecdotes. Besides which, that's just a flaw with teaching. The idea that art is at all important rather than amusing hobby is an idea that needs to be drug out back and have its skull ventilated more.

I think the simplest way top describe the woes of those in poor urban neighborhoods is essentially that... they are a mess.

A mess is all it is. A slippery slope scaled up to a monstrous size, engulfing all those who get near it.

I cannot begin to imagine what it would take to fix such trial, though I did start a thread a while back concerning a hypothetical project meant to restore such places.

There's lots of positive feedback in terms of keeping people in poverty which is why I like to advocate the government's role in lifting them out, primarily through education. Unlike Deboss, for these guys, any education is beneficial, even an arts degree. Not everyone can become professionals and for those that don't, receiving an education is likely to make them a better businessman just via the exposure to an academic environment.

You do realize, Deboss, that if you want to work anywhere even near an art museum at any job except security guard or tour guide, you need an art history degree, right?

Curators and assistant curators especially. (not that I didnt expect yet another random "LOL ANYTHING BUT ENGINEERS ARE STUPID AND POINTLESS" from ya, though I similarly see business degrees as inetllectually bankrupt and useless. :P)

On the original topic, another big problem is the poor culture tends to have a tendency to take pride in being low class. Country music, redneck culture, and urban poor culture all tend to celebrate how their life is the best life possible and other people are living "fake" lives.

edited 2nd May '11 10:51:45 AM by Midgetsnowman

When museums become something other than a waste of space and money, I'll be sure to note that.

I view technical degrees, and trade school in particular, as better investments since they're useful and likely to make money, unlike art and the like. Trade schools in particular would be much better investments than college for most people, particularly if they don't have years to dedicate to the task. Business schools should go die in a fire.

Good point. It does seem like a "free will versus institutional control" issue. If people want to voluntarily bask in their own squalor, then it technically adheres to the concept of freedom. It varies from country to country, but you can't really force someone to care about an education they don't want. Doing so would have to involve cognitive control techniques that would infringe upon the freedom of the individual in question.

Some of what we have said echoes the "intellectual versus anti-intellectual" thread we had a while back. Refraining from intellectual ferocity is attractive to some people, and when combined with instant gratification, it becomes very difficult to convince someone to hold out on 4-6 years of higher education, let alone a childhood of K-12, when the profit to be had from such an endeavor is not immediately apparent or accessible. Some people are perfectly content with making a little bit of money now instead of making a whole lot of money after long periods of training and studying.

edited 2nd May '11 3:18:00 PM by Aprilla

If this is the case, it's no longer a problem. Well, other than as another argument for allowing culture to exist.

That mentality is a lot more common than you think. Hell telling the truth about that mentality got Bill Cosby in a lot of trouble with black activists when he told the truth that the only thing keeping black America down are the blacks.

That wasn't the truth. That was his opinion of the situation, and many African Americans were less upset with what he was saying and more upset about his being so dogmatic about it. And as one other troper put it, he's not really in the best position to criticize the black community's allegedly self-imposed laziness when he himself has made a career out of Uncle Tom Foolery and Jive Turkey, two stereotypes that still hurt us today, especially in education. In his slight defense, when you encourage pop culture over intellectual culture, you get lower test scores. But don't get me started on standardized testing...

edited 2nd May '11 3:51:36 PM by Aprilla

Standardized testing is one of the most wonderful things. It's so nice to not get bullshit grades from math teachers who get pissed off when you ignore them because you already know all of the material.

No offense Deboss, but do you ever say anything that doesnt make you sound like you consider yourself intellectually superior to the entire universe?

Also, multiple art fields like Graphic design, Graphic Arts, or Computer graphics and animation makes lots of money. You cant exactly run ad firms or make cartoons or design videogames if theres no artists to make the graphical back end.

The "art doesnt make a lot of money" stereotype mostly grows out of the few crazy people who decide going directly into studio art with no alternate plan is definitely a viable way to make it.

And yet that's how most people think artists make money.

All the time, check out TRS and IP or some other subject. It'd also be less of a problem if teachers lost their "you can't know it yet, because it's above your grade level and I haven't taught you yet" habit. Wasn't ever a problem in college, just in primary school.

One person provides a reasonable rebuttal against a claim, and the other person basically responds with the cyberspace equivalent of plugging his fingers in his ears and saying "la, la, la, I can't hear you". Welcome to the Internet.

"you can't know it yet, because it's above your grade level and I haven't taught you yet" habit.

Yay for anecdotes. You must not work in teaching. Children who are ahead of their designated skill level are a godsend. It makes the job so much easier, and while I won't deny that there are those few teachers who are by-the-book and insist on keeping everyone in line, those teachers are idiots. We have these programs called advanced placement for those who get ahead.