Raisbeck Aviation High School
Supporting Research Documents on the Effects of Poverty and Inequality in the United States
3 November 2020
Effects on Brain Development Due to
Poverty, An Annotated Bibliography
of Selected Sources
Anna Wencel
Raisbeck Aviation High School
This is a series of annotated bibliographies in order to aid someone in their research or lesson planning.
Blair, Clancy, and C Cybele Raver. “Poverty, Stress, and Brain Development: New Directions for Prevention and Intervention.” Academic Pediatrics, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5765853/.
This article provides an extremely detailed summary of how and why children are affected by poverty. It utilizes information gathered from studies conducted on a range of subjects typically from early childhood to their early twenties. In the first section of the article, the direct correlation between poverty and brain development is established through the comparison of percentages of gray brain matter volumes. The studies had shown that “When families were at 150% of poverty, these reductions were 3% to 4% below developmental norms. For children in families at 100% of poverty or below, reductions in these regions were 8% to 9% below developmental norms.” This means that children in poverty have less gray matter, which essentially controls regions of the brain involved in muscle control, and sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making, and self-control. The second portion of the article moves on to the direct negative effects that poverty has on the developing brain. Highlighting that a lack of stimulation, shown by fewer resources and less present parents, and or negative stimulation such as ongoing and unmonitored television, household chaos, and conflict among family members are the main culprits in slower development. These factors add stress to the child's life once again altering their executive brain functions. In the final sections of the article, the author notes the importance of the quality of care a child receives is oftentimes dependent on the amount of stress and level of poverty the family is in. Continuing on, the article comes to a close with a short summary of programs in place aiding these families as well as proposed short term solutions. In short, this article is a great source to gain the most information on the topic because it approaches the idea from a multitude of angles and goes quite in depth. I would definitely use this source in an academic setting for lessons and as a general foundation document for those who wish to pursue a project on this topic.
Crash Course, director. Schools & Social Inequality: Crash Course Sociology #41. YouTube, 22 Jan. 2018, Schools & Social Inequality: Crash Course Sociology #41.
This video focuses on inequality within the school system in the United States and the various barriers students face. The first major concept brought up in the video is the idea of a “meritocracy” which is a society in which success is based on the raw individual talent, rather than the wealth or social class of a person. It then shifts onto the reality that the education system is most definitely not based on individual merit and is often influenced by differing factors, most commonly poverty. Both neighborhood and poverty were mentioned and expanded upon showing distinct correlations between both types and the success of a student. It emphasized the notion that those who have better access to resources and higher quality materials do have a significantly easier time in school and a higher chance of going to college. The video also touches on the patterns seen in poverty, specifically race and structural disadvantages such as location and ability to fund schools. Preconceived ideas of “unacceptable” behaviors are often tied to minority students resulting in them being disciplined more often. A more reasonable approach to this would be recognizing the connection to the idea that students who grow up in poverty struggle developing the primary functions that control these behaviors. I would present this video in a class or in a professional setting to brief on the situation going on. This source is also ideal for a wide range of audiences because the information is easily digestible.
Dawson, Joe. “Inequality Squares Up With Brain Function, Behavior.” Association for Psychological Science - APS, 13 July 2018, www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/inequality-squares-up-with-brain-function-behavior.
This article groups a bunch of smaller articles together all focusing on the central theme of inequality, but each a very specific type of inequality. The first article was based on two research studies, the first done on 100 five-year-olds and the second on 66 children, both to see the relationship between cognitive stimulation and the executive functions needed to be successful in school. The results of the studies proved that the lack of cognitive stimulation leads to changes in the brain. The author, Katie McLaughlin, a psychological scientist, explained the connection further by stating “A child that grows up in an unstimulating environment will utilize fewer neuronal connections in regions of the brain that process complex cognitive and social inputs. Connections that aren’t utilized frequently will eventually be eliminated in a process called ‘synaptic pruning’.” The next article, written by Ezemanari Obasi discusses the disparities of drug use in the U.S. and how African Americans disproportionately use them. The article continues to find chronic stress due to “racism, neighborhood violence, crime, & low family resources” and drug use closely related. Similar to the first article, the third written by Deanna Barch was about the effects of poverty on the brain, but focused more on a broader group of subjects as well as rat studies. An idea that Barch introduced was the importance of parenting behavior, noting that a parent under stress and facing poverty was not able to provide enough cognitive stimulation for their children. One’s income is also able to dictate their willingness to take risks in order to improve socio-economic status according to the research done in Keith Payne’s article. He explored the relationship between risky behaviors in groups of people from low and high-income situations. The final article took a different approach, the author Kenneth Scheve questioned if pairs were given unequal amounts of money, how would they act if given the opportunity to give or take money from the other? Through the study it was found people are less likely to give or take enough money from the other in order to make the amounts equal. They were more likely to give only a fraction of what they had been given. Only a small portion of the group labeled “equalizers” opted to make the amounts equal. All these articles provide interesting perspectives on the central theme of inequality while also working towards the goal of educating their readers in the various topics. This collection of articles would be extremely useful for those conducting a research project, considering the variety and the credibility of the authors.
“Encounter Now.” Maps & Data, www.povertyusa.org/data.
This site offers a map of the distribution of poverty across the United States as well as median household income, median rent, deep poverty rate, unemployment rate, health insurance distribution, and supplemental poverty measure. The site also gives the user the ability to click on specific states and counties within the state to provide a more in-depth analysis of the specific area. In addition to being able to hone in on a specific area, there is also information on the general demographics, which provide more insight into the topic of inequality in the United States. This source would be quite useful if you wanted to explore the different distributions of people in poverty and make connections to wealth in certain areas and the success of students.
Maps & Data, www.povertyusa.org/data .
Hammond, Zaretta, and Yvette Jackson. Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Corwin, a SAGE Company, 2015.
Taking from chapters 2 and 3 specifically, this book provides valuable information on the functions of the brain and how the way teachers interact with students affects the brain. Chapter 2 of this book primarily focuses on culture and the different types there are. Hammond explains how understanding the cultures of others around us is important in a classroom environment in order for students to feel welcome and properly learn. She also highlights the differences among cultures specifically through individualism and collectivism noting that western cultures tend to boast individualism though it may not be as productive as collectivism. The chapter then transitions to discuss the more negative cultures surrounding race and implicit bias. By generalizing students we unfairly group them, leading to future problems such as widening education gaps. Building on this, Hammond emphasizes that poverty is not a culture and should never be treated as such because it is often an unavoidable consequence of a repeated cycle. Chapter 3 shifts the focus towards the workings of the brain and begins with a summary of the key parts and functions of the brain. By explaining each individual function and their role in aiding a child through school, Hammond was able to transition to a discussion about how different factors are able to affect these functions. Highlighting the importance of recognizing that each individual is inherently built differently, making broad generalizations and interpreting on a surface level is highly detrimental. The goal of these two chapters was to have the audience, more specifically teachers, understand that the traditional approach to teaching is not the best method of teaching and push the idea that teachers need to become more culturally responsive. In order for a student to find success in school regardless of their background, the environment needs to be perceived as safe and nurturing to promote better brain development. These chapters would ideally fit together with the first source because it provides a summary of the brain functions as well as concrete connections to real-life situations in schools with proposed solutions for teachers. I would definitely use this source as a base document in order to have a clear understanding of the workings of the brain and the effects of interpersonal relationships based on culture.
“Anatomy of the Brain with Descriptors of Each Section.” Neuroanatomy: The Basics, 25 Aug. 2019, www.dana.org/article/neuroanatomy-the-basics/.
Ireland, Corydon. “The Costs of Inequality: Education's the One Key That Rules Them All.” Harvard Gazette, Harvard Gazette, 1 Apr. 2019, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/02/the-costs-of-inequality-educations-the-one-key-that-rules-them-all/.
This article utilizes the success story of a formerly disadvantaged student turned successful politician Deval Patrick. The source gives insight into the life and challenges that someone faced and how they overcame it. It highlights the importance of education but more importantly how the quality of education affects the student. The article mentions that the United States briefly led the world in education but that soon fell due to disparities and the growing gap between white students and minority students. Connections between the quality of the school and location were found to greatly impact the overall success of the student. The more impoverished the area, the less funding received, and because of that quality of education falls, resulting in poor performance. It was found in studies that the achievement gap starts growing at an extremely early age. Children are born with relatively equal chances, but differing circumstances such as household poverty or low-quality education push students apart from each other even before they enter school. Once again as with the previous articles mentioned in this document, the achievement gap between students living in poverty is able to be closed or lessened through the improvement of the schools in which they attend. In addition to that proposed solution, the article offers other smaller solutions available to aid individual families or on a larger scale, communities. Overall the article provides a unique viewpoint into what is actually going on within the system and how students who are affected by these extraneous circumstances can be helped to find a better path towards academic achievement. I would use this article to show others that there are solutions to the problem and that it can be remedied by making changes. The article would also introduce into a research document or classroom a more personal connection allowing for audience members to make connections.
Mariani, Mike. “The Neuroscience of Inequality: Does Poverty Show up in Children's Brains?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 July 2017, www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jul/13/neuroscience-inequality-does-poverty-show-up-in-childrens-brains.
This article details the findings of multiple different studies conducted on children in poverty throughout the United States. All of the results of the individual studies added to the growing evidence that poverty does have a dramatic effect on the development of a child's brain. This article provides a lot of concrete figures and percentages, strengthening the overall argument that there is a direct connection. It also provides a more detailed explanation of how young children are tested and studied by researchers through MRIs as well as general behavior observations. A differentiation between the studies mentioned in the article compared to previous ones mentioned was a more detailed explanation of how an increase in income is able to promote better brain development and in turn better behavior in school. I would use this article as extra evidence for the correlation between poverty and brain development and how improving the socio-economic circumstances of families. The article would also work hand in hand with the site that provides data on the spread of poverty in the United States.
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