Adolescence: Change and Continuity

Questions from Teachers . . . Answers from Students

Environmental Effects on Academic Performance of Adolescents in Poverty

The family environment, as well as the schools that economically disadvantaged adolescents attend, are factors in their poor academic preparation, and may contribute to their high dropout rate. Family disruptions and dialect differences can make a student's transition into mainstream schooling a difficult one. Competing needs for early work experience, along with the heavy dating practices common to several minority adolescents, as well as delinquency problems, also increase the chances of dropping out. (Pallas, 1984). One of the major problems for minority students is the common cultural perception that school failure always follows family problems, such as a pregnancy. When social issues such as drug and alcohol use, sexual behavior, and delinquency and violence are brought to school with the students, academic achievement does not seem to be a primary concern. Disadvantaged adolescents realize that a high school diploma does not provide adequate wages, and that there are few job prospects available to them, which places little value on schooling. It also lowers students' morale. (Stinchcombe, 1964).

Other household contributors include home environments that can deter academic achievement. Financial resources may encourage or discourage going to school. The emotional tone, including stress and disorganization, can increase susceptibility to sickness, leading to high absentee rates. Children of single parents are especially at risk. They may have to spend a lot of time helping out with younger siblings and doing household chores. Living in a mother-only family decreases the chances of children finishing high school. Adolescents in one-parent families have lower grade-point averages and more behavioral problems. Other factors negatively affecting school achievement involve the negative perceptions that teachers have of children from single-parent homes.

Minority versus majority status and gender are major determinants of school continuation. The number of years of schooling completed is the best predictor of later occupational attainment. A student's academic ability and the family's socioeconomic status are the main areas used to account for individual differences in achievement. A study performed in 1970 evaluating the effects of background variables such as sex, academic ability, and socioeconomic status found that ability and social class contributed to school outcomes, although they influence different outcomes. Ability is the primary influence on class standing and self-concept. Both contribute to the number of years of schooling completed; and class is the main predictor of hoe parents, teachers, and peers influence students.

Curriculum tracking is influenced by social class more than by a student's ability (Feldman&Elliott, 1990).

Another environmental factor concerns the weight of peer influence that is evident in minority youth. Certain minority groups, especially African American adolescents, tend to de-emphasize the value of obtaining an education. "African American youngsters diminish the implications of doing poorly in school and maintain the belief that their occupational futures will not be harmed by school failure (Elder, 1965).

Parental Education Attainment and Its Effects on Children

There are many factors that influence children's academic success. Some of the factors are the parent's education level and socioeconomic factors. "It is suggested that family environments were much more important than school environments in influencing adolescent's aspirations"(Wilson, 1992, p. 53). In a longitudinal study of the National Center for Educational Statistics, a study on parental educational aspirations and environment factors was studied to determine the effects on children. Parent's education level was put into two different categories. One category was less than a bachelor's degree and the other was bachelor's degree to Ph.D. or other advanced professional degree (Wilson, 1992). The effects on adolescents educational aspirations were found for parents' educational level, perceived father's and mother's aspiration for adolescent, and parents' influence on high school plans (Wilson, 1992). The findings concluded that parents who had a high level of education tended to have higher aspirations for their children than lower educated parents.

In another study, parental educational attainment has been found to be significantly related to the educational attainment of their children in both rural and national samples (Sarigiani, 1990). This study also had two levels of judging education levels. The two levels are some college or below to college graduate and above. As with the case previously, the children of the more educated group tended to have higher aspirations and had higher education plans.

Both of these studies help illustrate that children from parents with higher education levels tend to do better than the less advantaged group. In regards to children in poverty, the parent's education almost always falls under the less advantaged group. Children in turn are then disadvantaged when their parents have a lower education as well. It may form a cycle of uneducated family members. Each generation of the family does not go much higher than the previous parent due to the aspirations demonstrated to them.

Social Support and achievement in childhood and early adolescence: a multicultural study

Support from networks (family, teachers) has an effect on school achievement for different ethnic groups. Relations between support and self-esteem have been reported for African-American adolescence, but there are few studies of social support in childhood and adolescence that have included different ethnic samples. A study conducted by Levitt, et.al., (1994) examined multicultural variations in which three hundred and thirty-three African-American, Hispanic American, and Euro-Americans ranging from grades 1 through 2, 4 through 5, and 8 through 9 were asked questioned which determined the effect of social support on school achievement.

Stressful life events were negatively related to grade point average and support was deemed as positive. Stress was also related to negative school behaviors in older children, but was "otherwise unrelated to achievement in adolescent groups" and it was found that "support does not buffer stress."( ) Support was also related to SAT scores, which it proved to be positive for Hispanic and Euro-Americans but was negative for African-Americans. The effects were weak, with significance only for Hispanics, perhaps because of the need support of being bilingual. ( )

Furthermore, loneliness effected younger children's achievement but not older individuals and "family support was positive to academic self-concept except for African-American females, for whom this relation was reversed."( ) This may occur because as children develop, they increase cognitively, which "alters their conceptualization of self and their relations with others."

In conclusion, researchers found support from networks as a whole was not related to school achievement and informal support (peers) had a negative effect on academic averages. "Perhaps this result reflects and increased capacity to differentiate emotional and cognitive domains of experience, that is, to perform academically despite socio-emotional distress."( )

Home environment and its effect on cognitive development

Aside from the school's financial debt in such an area, students in these concentrated poverty-stricken, public housing neighborhoods are deprived of such commodities as books, pencils, and scribbling paper in the home. Although they seem like minor necessities, they, along with stimulation to learn in the home are just as important as education in the school. Savin-Williams and Berndt (1990) support the influence of the parent at that it "appears to be greater than that of the best friend on educational plans" (p. 296). The children display the unspoken and often unrecognized manners of their parents. Minor details in the home affect major aspects in one's educational attainment. For instance, a fellow eighth grade teacher (in a predominantly poor neighborhood) performed a project in the classroom incorporating tasks on how her kids could follow directions. She instructed this by asking the kids to follow baking directions on a box to bake a cake. To her surprise she discovered something other than how they could follow the steps; the majority of the students, when ask to pour 2 ½ cups of flour, poured two ½ cups (equaling one cup). They have never experienced such a task. This is just one example of the differences in poverty homes, and what minor details are lacking and brought into the school every day.

In addition to the unprepared student entering the classroom, these neighborhoods bring in unnecessary violence, drug problems, and unmotivated students. Kids come to school with overwhelming stresses of premature adult responsibilities forced upon them, distracting them in the classroom. A child's attention span can be shortened as he/she is preoccupied with fear of walking home from school by themselves, or wondering how they are going to eat tonight, or concerned that their mother made it home safe from working the night shift. They don't drop of their problems at the door every morning as they enter the school. And how can the parent(s) stimulate learning if they are also worried about more important things such as putting food on the table or if they have a ride to work because their car's battery has been dead for two weeks? It deserves great variability from the more fortunate kids who wonder about things like what amusements they are going to ride this weekend when their parents take them to the fair, or what flavor ice cream they want after school. All of these concerns affect the way a child receives and perceives information to learn. This therefore contributes to the dropout rate greater then 50% in many large cities (Haberman, 1998). "Among children who come from lower-class socially impoverished circumstances, there is a high proportion of school failure, school dropouts, reading and learning disabilities, as well as life adjustment problems" (Deutsch, 1990, p. 163). Stimulation on a personal level adapting to an individual's needs is necessary in the home for normative development in the school environment.

Malnutrition and its Effects

"Young children need nutritious food, enough sleep, safe places to play, and regular medical care. These things help children get a good start in life and lessen the chances that they will later have serious health problems or trouble learning." But what happens when they don't receive one or more of these things?

Nutrition plays a very big role in the development of a child. If a child is hungry in school he/she is less likely to concentrate. This idea dates back to early psychological findings that before one can be complete basic needs must be met. "By the time children reach their sixth birthday, he adds, most of the brain's total development has taken place and the body tends to "prune" unused neural pathways. For this reason, positive mental stimulation early in children's lives will better equip them in later years."

A child may even be considered to have malnutrition even when they are receiving food. There are several different types of classifications of nutritional disorders. "These nutritional disorders were classified by Jean Mayer (1976) into the following four categories:"

• Over-nutrition - The condition that results from consuming too many calories.
• Dietary deficiency - The condition that results from consuming a diet that lacks an adequate

Amount of a particular nutrient, such as a vitamin or mineral.

• Secondary malnutrition - A condition that results from the inability to successfully utilize the food that is eaten due to some other factor, such as illness or diarrhea.
• Under-nutrition - The condition that results from not consuming an adequate amount of food.

(Taken from Unit 18: Malnutrition: Determinants, extent and effects Anthropometry Resource Center Home Page http://www.odc.com/anthro/tutorial/tunit18.html)

When most Americans think of Malnutrition they think of a lack of food but the list above disproves this theory. The causes of malnutrition are:

• Inadequate food supply
• Limited purchasing power
• Poor health conditions
• Incomplete knowledge about nutrition (Berg, 1987)

The most common factor linking the causes above is poverty. "Poverty creates an environment in which all of these factors are a producer and a product of each other. The way that poverty connects all of these factors and results in malnutrition has been concisely spelled (Simon Hunt)."⁴ "Nearly three-fourths (71 percent) feel that their favorite foods are not good for them, a slight increase from the 1991 survey results. Likewise, more than two-thirds (64 percent) believe foods that are good for them do not taste good, up from 50 percent in 1991."²

"Malnutrition is a problem that can affect almost every facet of an individual's life. The following list

Summarizes the five main areas where malnutrition takes its toll:"⁴

1.Malnutrition prevents children from growing to their full genetic potential.

2.Malnutrition results in a reduced resistance to disease and a longer recovery time from illness.

3.Malnutrition may impair mental capacity by affecting cognitive ability, delaying the

development of motor skills, increasing the number of days children are absent from school

and making it more difficult for these children to be alert and interactive.

4.Malnutrition can result in a reduced physical capacity, agility and job ability for an adult

workforce.

5.Malnutrition results in increased mortality rates.

"For most children, failure to thrive describes the endpoint of a process that involves medical and nutritional as well as psychological and social influences. There is evidence of an association between malnutrition and stressors in the family environment and in parent-child interaction, although some researchers have urged careful review of this evidence."

There are many things that can help children who are not doing well in school. There are also many reasons behind each child's reasoning, anything from environmental stressors, to eating disorders, to lack of sleep. Evidence has shown that the best thing to do when a child is uninvolved is to get the parents involved. "Children also become excited about school when their parents show excitement." Evidence has also shown that outreach programs such as Head Start (a free breakfast program), Boys and Girls Clubs of America, can improve achievement. A study, conducted by Columbia University, found that Club youth who participated in Project Learn (a program sponsored by the boys and girls clubs of America), when compared with youth participating in generic after-school programs:

• Increased their overall grade point average by 15%
• Increased their grade point average in mathematics by 16%
• Increased their grade point average in history by 20%
• Increased their grade point average in science by 14%
• Increased their grade point average in spelling by 20%
• Had 87% fewer absences
• Showed 81% increase in homework completion

Overall malnutrition adversely effects school achievement, but there are ways for the schools to boost their achievement through free lunches, breakfast programs like Head Start and through working with other local outreach programs.

In closing these findings show the impact of poverty on school achievement as well as cognition. We have also shown that there are a few programs that can compensate or relieve the set backs of poverty and allow children and adolescents some assistance. We hope this serves you in your staff.

Sherri A. Wallace

Lynn Fishberg

Jennifer Balliet

Kelly McElroy

Erica Condo

Last updated 4/16/01.