How Socioeconomic Status of Parents Affects Kids

How socioeconomic status of Parents affects their Children’s Development in Academics It is obvious that most people have set beliefs on when they see a family of a low socioeconomic class that their children will grow up to be the same as their parents. People believe that they will not be as likely to do well in school or even in the real world. Many psychologists have done studies that have proven that this assumption is right for the most part. Children that have parents, family and neighbors of lower socioeconomic status tend to not do as well in school as their peers of a middle or upper socioeconomic status. Duncan, Kato, Brooks-Gunn & Klebanov, 1993) (Duncan, Kato, Brooks-Gunn & Klebanov 1993) conducted a study to determine whether a child’s socioeconomic status had any correlation with their academic development, ethnicity and if they were raised by a single parent. (Duncan, Kato, Brooks-Gunn & Klebanov 1994) They hypothesized that children of a lower socioeconomic, status and neighborhood would have a direct relation to lower IQ of the children they measured at age 5. They measured each child in their study at age 5 from all of the different socioeconomic, ethnic, and parental backgrounds.

They found a strong correlation of a person’s economic status and economic status of the people around them to their IQ. (Barry 2005) also did a study that involved whether or not socioeconomic status had any relevance on whether a child would have better or worse test scores in 10th grade on a standardized test based on the child’s economic status. He hypothesized that children of a lower economic status or of a Hipic, African American, or Indian will tend to have lower Scores than children of white children with a higher socioeconomic status.

His results show that the strongest predictor of student test scores is socioeconomic status. (Barry 2005) He states that ethnicity combined with economic status plays a large factor in how well the students did on the SAT standardized test. For example, in 1991-1992 African American students placed significantly lower on the SAT than White students. (Barry 2005) Janet Currie and Joshua Goodman have also done a study in that they were looking for a correlation between socioeconomic status of a child and how well they would perform on certain standardized tests.

Their results have shown the same positive correlation as in the other two articles. (Investments in education pay off in the form of higher future earnings, and differences in educational attainments explain a significant fraction of the adult variation in wages, incomes, and other outcomes. But what determines a child’s educational success? Most studies point to family background as the primary factor. But why does background matter? While many aspects are no doubt important, research increasingly implicates health as a potentially major factor.

The importance of health for education and earnings suggests that if family background affects child health, then poor child health may in turn affect education and future economic status. ) (Currie, Goodman) After reviewing both ideas of ethnicity and socioeconomic status having or not having a measurable outcome on academic proficiency, psychologists are able to determine that while not 100% of lower economic status students and ethnic students performed worse an overwhelming majority didn’t perform as well as their upper economic status or white peers.

References Barry (1994) The effect of socioeconomic status of academic Acheviement Wichita State University, Thesis Paper Duncan, Kato, Brooks-Gunn & Klebanov (1993) Economic deprivation and Early childhood development Currie, Goodman (ND) Parental socioeconomic status, Child Health, and Human Capital