28. Culture of Poverty

Photo: Core Beliefs about Poverty c/o circlesusa.org

The Culture of Poverty, CoP, is a concept in ‘social theory’, which asserts that the values of people experiencing poverty play a significant role in perpetuating their impoverished condition, sustaining a cycle of poverty across generations.  It is a consistent and observable culture that overrides the ethos and way of life of a peoples’ own tribal/racial/ethnic identity, where that affiliation is weak.

In this situation, the culture of poverty is pervasive and dominates. In fact, it will become all they know, all they experience and all they understand.

It is an issue that this government should be doing more to address, rather than simply ‘poverty’ itself, as addressing this matter would see educational attainment levels of the children from this Culture increase significantly; and start the turn around and escape from this way of life. 

The culture of poverty is not about being poor, it is about becoming a people who live all aspects of their lives under this set of beliefs. It becomes the characteristic attribute of their identity. It is self-limiting, and blinkers their views of what might be possible, sucking joy and fulfilment from all they do and hope for.   

It is my experience that as the Equity Index (EQI) of a school increases (formerly, as the decile rating decreases), then an increasing proportion of its students come from this culture of poverty. 

To give you an idea, schools that were formerly rated as ‘decile six’, would draw around 20% of their students from this CoP, which was enough to make each class in that school more difficult to teach. Why? Because each one of these students’ attitudes impacts negatively on their classmates.

This Culture of Poverty is not about race, ethnicity, nationality or country of origin. It is about aspiration, or its lack thereof; and it is intergenerational.

So, what is this culture?

Like all cultures, it has its own language, (bro-talk/ghetto-speak), art (graffiti), music (rap/hip-hop), fashion (hoodies/lowrider baggy-crotch trousers), and includes a full set of shared, self-fulfilling, understandings and beliefs.

Among this ‘set of understandings’ is the belief that government employees cannot help them, including police, social workers and teachers.

The shared experience of these students tells them nothing good comes from government, except the dole.  Schools need to understand the powerful negative drag effect of these COP students, and address it deliberately, so the elephant in the room departs.

Most of the desperately poor in Africa, Asia, South America and Eastern Europe believe that education is the most viable way out of this poverty trap.  Whereas people born into this culture in New Zealand, many who are not actually poor, do not see education as even part of the solution. 

Their set of understandings are ‘all they know’ and everyone they live with around them shares the same basic beliefs and life-style practices. Which confirms it for them daily, and compounds it. 

It is a culture of despair. A culture of hopelessness and lack of aspiration.  

In lower socio-economic communities, it would help significantly if a community of support for prospective parents was set up and involved throughout pregnancy and over the first two years of childhood.

Otherwise, to improve the learning and lives of these students, each teacher and the entire school community needs to work with local parent groups, marae, fono, Church, … to help lift family, whānau, aiga, kāiga… aspirations, enabling hope to thrive.   

We need to help students grow their aspirations, one-step at a time, and often enough that it overrides the overwhelming effect of their background, suburb, its people, and their own crushing lack of self-esteem.  We need to help them build self-respect and self-discipline; as an essential base to enable learning. 

We need to encourage and support each student to develop a more open mindset and help each discover daily, how via their own effort, success will come to them too. A success that will grow and compound over time. 

Most from this culture of poverty will need help to overcome their first two years of life, where a level of parental neglect and/or abuse impacted their feelings of safety, security, self-esteem and mental health. And this neglect will have at least involved parents looking at their cell phone far too often, rather than engaging in face-to-face conversations with their child.

CoP children have a range of behavioural problems that need to be remedied to help them cope and grow in a way that, as a minimum, stops them from disrupting the learning of others.   Teachers and guidance counsellors need to identify the chief culture holders in each class and work with them to change behaviours and attitudes. 

These students need to come to believe that effort is worth it. They need to see their peers achieve, not just on the sports field or on the kapa haka stage, but academically, in the arts, in music, in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering mathematics), in debating, and in the giving of service.

And by peers, I mean peers from the same culture of poverty.  Kids just like them who have lifted their aspirations and have applied themselves to succeed.  And this needs to be across the full range of endeavours.  We need to celebrate every success in their homerooms, classrooms and assemblies.  We need to sell this and promote this as part of what happens in our school. 

Research on this culture of poverty has been ongoing and started around sixty years ago in Mexico City, and New York; where interestingly, the musical ‘Westside Story’ was, in part, about the culture of poverty that existed in its Puerto Rican community at the time. 

Schools that have addressed this with some success, have mostly been schools where nearly all students were from this culture of poverty.   Higher decile schools have a smaller percentage of children from this background, which makes it harder for them to address, as these CoP students see those who succeed as coming from another background to them, from another culture, from another place altogether.

Realising this culture exists, and that you are part of it, is the first step. Family/whānau ‘buy-in’ the next. A mandatory education programme of two ninety-minute sessions for all prospective parents, followed by Plunket/Tamariki Ora support through the early months of childhood the next…

At the moment some of this is provided free, but it should be mandatory for all, and, certainly, tied to any child benefit payments.

Murray Trenberth