Socioeconomic Status Homes Research Articles

Nutrient analysis of varying socioeconomic status home food environments in New Jersey

Home food inventories of Oaxacan Mexican-American and African-American families of low-socioeconomic status living in an urban area in New Jersey with at least one child under the age of 12 were conducted using Universal Product Code scanning. The African-American and Oaxacan household food supplies were compared with a sample of White households, also with at least one child under the age of 12, not of low-socioeconomic status. Nutrient Adequacy Ratios for total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate, sugar, dietary fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron were used to quantify the adequacy of household food supplies per 2000 cal. The food supplies of the White households had significantly more calcium, vitamin A, and sugar and less total fat than the other two samples. The home food supplies of African-American households contained significantly less vitamin C than White and Oaxacan households. Compared to both other samples, Oaxacan household food supplies were lower in protein, sodium, and iron. Per 2000 cal, African-American households had the lowest supply of nutrients recommended to be maximized (i.e., vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, protein, and dietary fiber) and highest supply of nutrients to be minimized (i.e., total fat, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar). Overall household food quality scores were lowest for the African-American sample with no differences between Oaxacan and White household food supply quality scores.

Psychosocial and family functioning in spina bifida.

A developmentally oriented bio-neuropsychosocial model is introduced to explain the variation in family functioning and psychosocial adjustment in youth and young adults with spina bifida (SB). Research on the family functioning and psychosocial adjustment of individuals with SB is reviewed. The findings of past research on families of youth with SB support a resilience-disruption view of family functioning. That is, the presence of a child with SB disrupts normative family functioning but many families adapt to such disruption and exhibit considerable resilience in the face of adversity. Parents of youth with SB, and particularly those from lower socio-economic status (SES) homes, are at-risk for psychosocial difficulties. Individuals with SB are at-risk for developing internalizing symptoms, attention problems, educational difficulties, social maladjustment, and delays in the development of independent functioning. Emerging adults are often delayed in achieving milestones related to this stage of development (e.g., vocational and educational achievements). Methodologically sound, longitudinal, and theory-driven studies of family and psychosocial functioning are needed, as are randomized family-based intervention trials, to promote adaptive functioning and better psychosocial outcomes in families of individuals with SB.

Socio-Demographic Factors Influencing Work-Role Salience Among Nigerian High School Adolescents.

This study sought to find out the influence of socio-demographic factors (age, class level, sex and socio-economic status) on the work-role salience of some selected adolescents in Ibadan. Two hundred and thirty students made up of 123 males and 107 females were randomly selected for the study from five schools in Ibadan. Green ha us\' (1973) Work-Role Salience Scale was used to collect data from the respondents. The findings showed that students from lower socio-economic status homes and those from high socio-economic status homes, and SSI and SS3 students differed significantly in their work-role salience mean scores. However, male and female students and students of ages 14 years and below and students of age 15years and above did not differ significantly in their work-role salience scores. The need to involve the students\' parents in career education programmes and utilise career development activities for each school grade was highlighted. The Nigerian Journal Of Guidance And Counselling Vol. 7 (1) 2000: pp. 142-152

Characteristics of good and bad parents as described by Kenyan children

200 Kenyan school aged children were videotaped during a voluntary structured interview in which they were asked what good parents do and what they do not do. 108 of the participants were male and 92 were female with a mean age of 11.8 years. 66 of the participants came from low socioeconomic status (SES) homes, 67 from middle SES homes, and 67 from high SES homes. Of the 200 participants, 178 said they lived with both biological parents when not at school. Participants' answers to the question, “What do good mothers/fathers do?” showed an emphasis toward provision for the fathers and nurture for the mothers. In comparing subgroups, there were differences between age groups and socioeconomic status groups, but few gender differences. Future directions for research in understanding children's perceptions of good parents were suggested. African Journal of Cross-Cultural psychology and sport facilitation (AJCPSF) Vol. 8 2006: pp. 91-104

A Preliminary Examination of Vocabulary and Word Learning in African American Toddlers From Middle and Low Socioeconomic Status Homes

This study examined the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on the early lexical performance of African American children. Thirty African American toddlers (30 to 40 months old) from low-SES (n = 15) and middle-SES (n = 15) backgrounds participated in the study. Their lexical-semantic performance was examined on 2 norm-referenced standardized tests of vocabulary, a measure of lexical diversity (number of different words) derived from language samples, and a fast mapping task that examined novel word learning. Toddlers from low-SES homes performed significantly poorer than those from middle-SES homes on standardized receptive and expressive vocabulary tests and on the number of different words used in spontaneous speech. No significant SES group differences were observed in their ability to learn novel word meanings on a fast mapping task. The influence of socioeconomic background on African American children's lexical semantic tasks varies with the type of measure used.

The Influence of the Language that Hong Kong Primary School Students Habitually Speak at Home on their Chinese Reading Ability in School

This study examines how the language used at home, Putonghua or Cantonese, has influenced the Chinese reading attainment of 4335 primary school students in Hong Kong. Also examined was the influence of the birthplace and home background socioeconomic status (SES) of the reader. Although the indigenous Hong Kong population uses Cantonese, a dialect of Chinese, for everyday communications, the Chinese written in school is Modern Standard Written Chinese (MSWC), the written equivalent of Putonghua, the spoken language of the people of China. Many of the numerous families migrating from China to Hong Kong in recent years have brought with them children educated in Putonghua in China and with extensive experience of MSWC. It was hypothesised that the reading attainment of these students would be superior to that of classmates born in Hong Kong and using Cantonese habitually. This would apply particularly to students from advantaged SES homes. The children born in China indeed had superior reading attainment. But children speaking Cantonese at home and Putonghua ‘sometimes’ had the highest reading scores, regardless of their birthplace or SES. The writers reflect on assumptions about the influence of the language used at home on language attainment and the implications for educational planning.

It is not just the poor kids: the use of AAE forms by African-American school-aged children from middle SES communities

This study examined the production of African-American English (AAE) forms produced by 69 school-aged African-American children from middle socio-economic status (SES) communities to determine if age would influence: (a) the number of different types of AAE tokens and (b) the rate of dialect. Descriptive data revealed that there were more than 20 AAE morpho-syntactic forms collectively used by the children. The findings also indicated that factors of age, gender, and sampling context interacted in a variety of ways to influence these children’s production of the number of different types of AAE tokens, and the rate of dialect. Learning outcomes Readers should have (1) an increased awareness about the use of AAE forms in school-age children from middle SES homes; (2) a greater understanding of how the production of AAE might be influenced by age, gender, and sampling context.

Socioeconomic Status as a Moderator of ADHD Treatment Outcomes

To explore whether socioeconomic status (SES) variables moderate treatment response of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to medication management (MedMgt), behavioral treatment (Beh), combined intervention (Comb), and routine community care (CC). The MTA Cooperative Group's intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses were repeated, covarying for composite Hollingshead SES, education, occupation, income, and marital status. Individual SES variables were more informative than the composite Hollingshead Index. Treatment response of children from less educated households paralleled ITT outcomes: no significant difference was found between Comb and MedMgt (both better than Beh and CC) for core ADHD symptoms. However, children from more educated families showed superior reduction of ADHD symptoms with Comb. For oppositional-aggressive symptoms, children from blue-collar, lower SES households benefited most from Comb, whereas those from white-collar, higher SES homes generally showed no differential treatment response. Household income and marital status failed to influence outcomes. Controlling for treatment attendance attenuated the moderating effects of the SES variables only for MedMgt. Investigators are encouraged to use independent SES variables for maximal explanation of SES effects. Clinicians should prioritize target symptoms and consider the mediating role of treatment adherence when determining an ADHD patient's optimal intervention plan.

Home Computers and School Performance

This article assesses the effects of home computers on school performance, and examines inequalities in educational payoff among those children who have home computers. We find that having a home computer is associated with higher test scores in mathematics and reading, even after controlling for family income and for cultural and social capital. However, children from high socioeconomic status (SES) homes achieve larger educational gains from home computers than do lower SES children. Boys' performance advantage is larger than girls'. Ethnic minorities gain far less of a performance boost than whites. Home computing may generate another ''Sesame Street effect'' whereby an innovation that held great promise for poorer children to catch up educationally with more affluent children is in practice increasing the educational gap between affluent and poor, between boys and girls, and between ethnic minorities and whites, even among those with access to the technology.

A Longitudinal Exploration of the Cross-Contextual Stability of Social Withdrawal in Early Adolescence

The purpose for the present study was to determine the stability across time and social setting of the social withdrawal of early adolescents. Nominations by school peers for social withdrawal were stable across a 3-year period. Daily activity logs completed by parents indicated considerable stability for participation in large-group activities with peers in the community, but not for activities involving smaller groups of peers. Participants nominated as socially withdrawn by their schoolmates were involved less extensively in activities with peers in home and community environments than were other participants. Participants from families of higher socioeconomic status (SES) participated more frequently in home and community social activities with peers than did participants from lower SES homes, especially in large-group activities. These results indicated that social withdrawal during early adolescence is consistent across settings and stable over time, especially for the subgroup of early adolescents who are the most withdrawn socially.

Alternative treatments for sibling aggression

Eighteen clinic-referred, aggressive pairs of siblings and their mothers participated in one of three brief clinical interventions. Participant observation of aggressive episodes in the home setting served as the treatment outcome measurement. All sibling pairs participated in four clinic treatment sessions consisting of one of three treatments: Social Skills (SS), Timeout (TO), or Combination (COMBO). Training procedures consisted of observation of videotaped child models reacting to typical conflict situations, verbal rehearsals, role-playing, and parent training. Between treatment sessions, all mothers recorded aggressive episodes in the home and consequated such behavior with either discussion, timeout, or a combination of these events. The data indicated that timeout training was more effective than social skill training. Social skill training may also have been useful, however, especially for children from higher socioeconomic status homes. It was concluded that initial treatments for sibling aggression should include a discipline component.

READING AND TELEVISION

How does television affect children's reading skill development? The relationship between television behavior and reading achievement is examined within a conceptual framework of television and reading constructs such as media availability and parental media behavior, children's use of print and broadcast media, and measures of their attitudes and orientations toward television and print. The framework is examined for children at three different stages of reading development. Five principal constructs—socioeconomic status, print and television home environment, amount of media use, orientations toward print and television, and involvement with print and television—are used to predict reading achievement in regression analyses performed separately for each grade cohort.

Learning Disability and Socioeconomic Status

From a sample of 333 children in grades 4 and 6 of three western Canadian urban public schools, 35 were defined as learning disabled according to the criterion of educational age less than 85% of measured mental age and of chronological age. Eighteen were from families whose socioeconomic status was above the median for the total group and 17 from below the median. But of the upper SES children, 13 (72.5%) had been diagnosed by the Pupil Services Department, whereas only 5 (35.2%) of the lower SES group had been diagnosed. Thus, no significant difference in defined learning disability was found between children of above average and below average socioeconomic status, but the difference in the rate of diagnosis between socioeconomic groups was statistically significant in favor of children from higher socioeconomic status homes.

Syntax in Children's Written Composition, Socioeconomic Status, and Cognitive Development

This paper reports an investigation into aspects of syntax in the written compositions of school children. A total of 240 pupils was assigned to cells of equal numbers in a three-way analysis of variance design utilizing grade (4), sex (2), and socioeconomic status (2), with I.Q. as a covariate. Each pupil wrote three compositions, answered a questionnaire about home background, and completed a short Test of Cognitive Development. Contrary to hypotheses, pupils from low socioeconomic status homes showed no marked deficit on variables of complexity, length, and variety in written syntax when compared with pupils from high socioeconomic status homes. Further, stage of cognitive development, operationalized as concrete or formal thinking, did not interact with socioeconomic background in affecting maturity of written syntax. Implications for Bernstein's theories of language codes are discussed.

Some Personality and Motivational Factors in Reading Retardation

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationships between motivational, personality, and selected variables and retardation in reading achievement. The Ss were one hundred junior high school boys: fifty Cauca sians and fifty Negroes. Forty-three variables were submitted to a factor analysis, which yielded fifteen factors. The five factors which were related to reading problems suggested that inadequate readers had verbal deficits, came from low socioeconomic status homes, and adopted one of three adjustive patterns to their reading disability (aggres siveness, negativism, or passivity). Some of the factors were more descriptive of one racial group than of the other. THE PURPOSE of the present study was to investigate the role of selected motivational and personality variables in reading problems among junior high school students. Many similar studies undertaken in the past have suffered from methodological limitations (8) such as failure to use validated objective personality measures in the assessment of personality variables, or small samples of Ss. Moreover, although motivation has been frequently mentioned as a factor in the etiology of reading problems (17), it has not been objectively measured in the studies reviewed by the authors. A further limitation in many pre vious studies has been their failure to control for the effects of differences in intelligence among Ss. The present investigation was designed to over come these limitations by using objective meas ures of personality and motivation, controlling for intellectual differences, and using a large sample. In addition, the study explored the role of family background, socioeconomic status, race, motor abilities, visual memory, and writing productivity in reading achievement. Methodology

Dollars for Schools: The Reinforcement of Inequality

The authors contend that children from lower socio-economic status homes are systematically discriminated against in the delivery of school services. Data from Michigan are employed to demonstrate that state aid equilization arrangements not only do not alleviate this discrimination, but, in fact, actually tend to reinforce it. James W. Guthrie is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Urban Education Program at the University of California, Berkeley; George B. Kleindorfer is a Lecturer in the School of Education, University of California, Berkeley and a Consultant to the Ford Foundation on matters related to quantitative analysis: Henry M. Levin is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and a member of the associated faculty of economics at Stanford University; and Robert T. Stout is an Associate Professor at the Clairmont Graduate School and the Coordinator of the Ford Foundation-funded Administrator Training Program at that institution.