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20.2.1.2: Families with Less Economic Support or Resources

  • Page ID
    142502
    • Amanda Taintor
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    Poverty

    Poverty is a multidimensional, relational, and dynamic phenomenon, clearly illustrated through many definitions and indicators generated during the last 200 years by disciplines such as economy, sociology, political science, and anthropology (Spicker et al., 2006). In general, there are three main approaches to considering poverty: (a) as a material condition in which needs, a pattern of deprivations, and limited access to resources are the main components; (b) as an economic circumstance, in which standards of living, inequality, and the economic position are the main components; and (c) as a social circumstance, in which lack of basic security, exclusion, dependency, and social class are the most referred components.[1]

    Contemporary literature surrounding poverty suggests the following as the most critical protective/risk factors:

    • prenatal maternal health (i.e., nutrition, exposure to environmental toxic agents and drugs, stressors)
    • perinatal health (e.g., prematurity, birth weight)
    • quality of early attachment
    • environmental stressors at home and schools
    • parenting and care styles
    • early cognitive and learning stimulation at home, care centers, and schools
    • parental and teachers' mental health
    • developmental disorders
    • family financial stress
    • access to social security and health systems; community resources
    • lack of social mobility
    • the social, political, and economic crisis
    • family, social, and cultural expectations about child development (e.g., discrimination, stigmatization, exclusion)
    • natural disasters (Bradley and Corwyn, 2002; Yoshikawa et al., 2012; Lipina, 2015; Ursache and Noble, 2016).

    In addition, evidence suggests that the influences of poverty on cognitive development are due to the compilation of risk factors, the accompaniment of adversities, the individual's susceptibility to family and social environments, and the duration of the exposure (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2005; McLaughlin et al., 2014; Wagmiller, 2015).[1]

    Since the mid-20th century, several researchers designed and implemented different intervention programs to reduce the negative impacts of poverty on cognitive and emotional regulation. These efforts have emerged simultaneously within the humanities, social, and health sciences. This type of intervention program demonstrates that, given the multidimensional nature of childhood poverty and development, any intervention aimed at optimizing the conditions and opportunities for the development of children who live in poverty requires the same type of complexity. This involves designing multiple intervention modules that incorporate actions for children, families, teachers, civil organizations, and governments and developing the genuine integration of different conceptual and methodological perspectives.[1]

    The rights to adequate nourishment, housing, education, and health care are listed in the UN General Assembly (1948, §§25–26). These rights are contested in different political systems and cultural contexts where there is a tendency to deny these rights as a social responsibility and, instead, explain poverty as a personal failure of the person afflicted (e.g., Feagin, 1972, 1975, and the review by Hunt and Bullock, 2016). Poverty is not regarded universally as unequal access to social benefits. These individualistic views are common in North America and South America, where the problem of poverty is immense, compared to western and northern Europe, where social views on poverty are more dominant. Countries and political systems accepting these rights as a shared social responsibility are among the countries most successful in combatting poverty, social violence, and insecurity [e.g., the Scandinavian countries (cf. Eurostat, or the World Bank Global Poverty Overview)].[1]

    Evidence from neuroscience renders the individualistic way of explaining poverty as a personal failure absurd. For example, an infant does not choose which social context to be born. When the infant's brain is prevented from healthily developing due to poverty and its surrounding social conditions (lack of adequate nourishment, housing, childcare, schooling, health care, etc.), it is not a question of personal failure. Parents cannot be held entirely responsible for an environment that does not provide each child with the means of healthy development. Neuroscientific evidence reveals how poverty may breach human rights and how it may prevent a child's possibility of ever enjoying them. It is a crucial discovery of how poverty may cause problems in the very prerequisites for attaining development.[1]


    [1] Lipina SJ and Evers K (2017) Neuroscience of Childhood Poverty: Evidence of Impacts and Mechanisms as Vehicles of Dialog With Ethics is licesed CC BY


    This page titled 20.2.1.2: Families with Less Economic Support or Resources is shared under a mixed 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Amanda Taintor.