The rich are getting richer.... and more educated

If there's two things I'm passionate about, its Education and trying to combat poverty. So when the Psychology department at Bath emailed its students about a 'Psychology in the Pub' talk entitled 'The Educational Binds of Poverty' I didn't really have an excuse not to go...

Ceri Brown, a lecturer in the department of education at the University of Bath gave the talk, which was based on the content of her latest book: ‘Educational Binds of Poverty: The lives of school children’. The talk was fantastic and insightful, and did a brilliant job of demonstrating the intimate relationship between poverty and educational achievement, and how they directly effect eachother.

The first section of the talk highlighted how the government and current policy adopt a punitive approach to truancy, and often blame the parents for supposedly allowing school absence, and for the child's apparent lack of aspiration. The government's introduction of fines for truancy for example, work through the same system as parking fines. Their response to these families whose kids run truant are depersonalised, unforgiving and almost business-like. Combine this with the constant threat of the marketisation of education: schools becoming academies, the potential reintroduction of new grammar schools, selective entry schooling and increased fees for HE institutions, it is no wonder the gap between the educational achievement of children from rich and poor families is growing ever wider.

Ceri's talk provided an alternative, more sympathetic explanation as to why children from poorer families in the UK are underachieving at school. She outlined 4 educational binds that children from poor families experience which prevents them from achieving the same as wealthier kids in school.

1. Material Deprivation
   
   Children from poor families are likely to have poor housing, poor diet, and as a result poor health. Poor health in the family can lead to absence from school to go to the doctors, or even absence from school to look after a family member who is ill. Financial pressures can also result in anxiety and stress which also leads to illness.
   
   
2. The Alien Culture of Schooling
   
   This bind refers to the idea that the family environments of poor and wealthy families are extremely different. However, schooling environments tend to be most similar to the family environment of wealthy families, meaning that from the first day, school is a more alien environment for children from poor families, raising more barriers for them to break through in order to achieve their potential.
   
   
3. Friendship as a means of including and excluding
   
   Circumstances for families who struggle financially can have a knock on effect for the child's friendships. For children whose parents don't have the funds for extra curricular activities, or school trips, or even the correct uniform, they can find themselves excluded from groups of friends who are able to afford these things. This exclusion can lead to further problems surrounding the child's well-being, which in turn is integral to their educational achievement.
   
   
4. Irregular School Transition and Turbulence
   
   This bind refers to the negative effects that moving schools at irregular points can have on children, especially with regards to Bind 3 and friendship groups. However, Ceri also reiterated the point that the children who tend to move schools irregularly are often from less wealthy backgrounds in the first place: travellers, refugees, families moving to escape debt or families moving to temporary social housing.

These 4 binds shift the blame away from parents or individuals, and towards the circumstances of these families. The number of factors contributing to their poverty are often deep-set, complicated and difficult to unravel. Ceri's talk emphasized that the binds that result from these circumstances often serve to exacerbate the issues that these families experience, and crucially, that the government and public policy is not doing enough to help them. Instead it is set on punishing the families for the repercussions of poverty - something they have little control over.

With recent news suggesting that two-thirds of middle-income families are now classed as living in poverty, and the attacks on education only set to increase, a focus on social mobility is needed now more than ever. With education being one of the most important factors in helping people out of poverty, public policy should be aiming to make it accessible to all rather than punishing the least fortunate for circumstances beyond their control.

It is crazy to me that despite knowing education is so important for social mobility, we insist on a punitive approach to issues such as truancy, or just in the news today - overdue lunch money. Something that was alluded to in the Q&A at the end of Ceri's talk, and is something we see time and again in programmes such as Educating Essex or Educating Yorkshire, is that often with these families, it is the autonomy within the school and devolved leadership which allows for the professional generosity from teachers that encourages and inspires children in their learning. It takes individuals in pastoral positions to be sympathetic and take some initiative: pay for the child's bus fare to school, or investing in the child to make up for the time they missed school, in order to help relieve the negative effects that the 4 binds have on educational achievement.

As ever, the sympathetic and more understanding approach should win out against the depersonalized punitive approach. But despite this, whether it be with regards to education, or even refugees and immigration, the punitive approach is the dominant one. The strive for efficiency, order and even profit in these situations overrides our level of understanding of the circumstances and our humanity. I can only hope that people like Ceri, who thoroughly research this issues, can bring their research to the attention of policy makers in order to bring about integral changes which can help to reduce the educational attainment gap between the rich and poor.