Poverty Narrative Analysis
Education is considered to be an important sign in any success story that we heard of in the world. many people suffered a tough childhood and poor life in their youth and become successful later on their careers because of a good education. In this paper, I will be discussing how gender, race, and class can change the educational experience depending on people's race, class, and gender. I had three interviews with three individuals, the first one is Anthony a nineteen years old African American male, born and raised in California state. On the other side is Jennifer, a twenty-one-year-old Hispanic female, born and raised in Washington state. And finally Steven, Twenty-one years old Asian American homosexual. I did change the names in order to preserve privacy for them. As I stated before, I interviewed the three individuals Steven, Anthony, and Jennifer and I picked the interviews randomly without having the intention to choose. Obviously the similarities are not
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that much between me and my guests, probably the only thing that we have in common is the gender between me and Anthony. On the other hand, we share numerous differences in terms of race. Talking about myself, I am from the middle east and Anthony is African American while Jennifer is Hispanic American, and Steven is Asian American and they are from the United States, so that's a huge difference between us. During the interviews, I had to take notes with my computer because it's way faster than writing. In terms of questions, I asked Anthony, Steven, and Jennifer about particular instances, how did they choose classes, support and encouragement to continue a higher level of education from the society, teachers that they admired or were helpful to them and those who were bad for them and hurtful. Moreover, I asked about the family support, because I do believe that the family can play an essential part to encourage their kids to pursue a higher level of education. Finally, I asked whether they had outcomes from the school. In our case, I asked Anthony, who graduated from a high school in Los Angeles area, California about any instance that he remembers from his high school experience, Anthony told me that many African American friends dropped out of high school due to financial and economic problems. Statistically, students from low-income families are five times more likely to drop than their peers from high-income families, so we can figure that dropping out of high school has a strong connection with low income and poor conditions (Leon-Guerrero 2013:206). The argument and the big question is that why they dropped out of high school. I asked Anthony if he knows anything about their parents, and he mentioned that most of their parents have a low education which in most cases lead to low income. Typically, families with high income can spend more time educating their kids (Leon-Guerrero 2013:207) and sending the kids to school with a good reputation which will have better teachers and a better environment for the kids. Comparing to my high school experience which was outside the United States, I do not remember anyone who dropped out of my high school back then, dropping usually happens in rural areas in my country due to lack of knowledge of the education benefits. Back to Jennifer, who graduated from a high school in Washington state. Jennifer had a different experience than Anthony, she didn't remember any friend or person that she knew that dropped from her high school, probably because she went to a high school in a prestigious neighborhood in Bellevue, because poverty and location have a strong connection with the dropping rate among the students in Anthony's case. My guests agreed together that Poverty in certain races has a strong relation and can cause a lack of educational attainment.
Frankly, I do myself agree with that, poverty can cause many serious consequences, especially for young people during their school time. On the other hand, policymakers disagree and argue in the article "The Paradox of Poverty Narratives" said by Gerstl-Pepin (Leon-Guerrero 2008:151). They say that poverty has no effect on the outcomes that students will get in the future (Leon-Guerrero 2008:161) which I do extremely disagree with. Poverty can lead to low grades in most cases, and would lead to a new environment and probably certain friends from the same level as you are. Moreover, friends from the same level as you are can keep you on the same level and sometimes make you even poorer. Youth tends to act like their peers, so in most cases if the majority of your friends have bad grades or they are part of gangs that will probably going to influence you to be like
them. In my perspective, I think being good in school has a lot do with your environment, I mean your family, friends, and the people you hang out with all the time. for example, it’s very rare to see an Asian American who is not good at school, Steven himself told me that his family did a great job to encourage him to do well in school and that impacted in his excellent grades later on, while I asked the same question to Anthony who didn’t remember that much encouragement from his family during his high school time. Steven was in the top 10% in his school and that could be related to his environment and the peers from the same race and ethnicity. I asked Anthony about choosing classes and he explained that to me, says the majority of African American classmates would have similar interests, including football, basketball, and any class involves sports activity and they are outstanding with that with some exceptions of course. Although many reasons can explain why they love sports, but I do believe motivation is the reason beyond these actions, I mean when an African American student sees Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant as ideals, he would be motivated and be in love with basketball. Another aspect is being homosexual in high school, according to Steven that could make your daily life tough for a teenager. Being homosexual could disadvantage you from many things, conflict theorists said that being a heterosexual is certainly a privilege in our society (Leon-Guerrero 2013:124). Steven explained to me how he had tough times dealing with the jokes that he gets every day from his classmates. Although Steven graduated from high school with an outstanding GPA and a good amount of advanced placement classes, he was still concerned during the interview about the employment opportunities that he will get after graduating from the college because of his sexual orientation and ethnicity. According to statistics, 46% of gays in the United States had faced discrimination, and revealing their sexual orientation could lower their income and decrease the chances of getting promotions or even jobs (Leon-Guerrero 2013:127). I do think the discrimination of homosexuals is not limited to the United States, I do remember that during my high school time in the middle east, students that are homosexual were discriminated by mostly all people including teachers and students due to traditions and religion purposes. Furthermore, females in high school are not very attracted to the science classes, including math, physics, and chemistry. Jennifer told me that many girls and herself were not into the science classes because males are dominating these majors in college. She said our society is constructed to advantage the males to put them in certain high-paid jobs many years ago, that's why we do not see many females holding a CEO position in the job market. people think that women are not capable of holding companies or giving crucial orders. From a feminist perspective, this is going to change and has started already since the 1970s with the women's movement, women start entering the market and that is going to reflect in a good way to the women in the future (Leon-Guerrero 2013:200). I quite frankly think that the society should give the women more confidence because nowadays we are seeing many great examples of women who are successful, a good one is Marissa Mayer the CEO of Yahoo.com, holding thousands of employees and managing one of the biggest companies in the world. In conclusion, what I have noticed in this paper is that the school experience can vary from person to person depending on many factors including the gender, class, location, and race. Consequently, every one of us, including Steven, Anthony, Jennifer, and I had a positive experience and a negative experience, but I think Jennifer had the least one. Jennifer has two disadvantages, including the gender which is female and the race which is Hispanic while for example Anthony is a male which is a privilege and African American which is a disadvantage in our society. Fixing the inequalities in social institutions is a very complicated problem that could take decades of hard work and tolerance between people. The media should address the problem to raise awareness of this dilemma because it could lead to minor problems.
that much between me and my guests, probably the only thing that we have in common is the gender between me and Anthony. On the other hand, we share numerous differences in terms of race. Talking about myself, I am from the middle east and Anthony is African American while Jennifer is Hispanic American, and Steven is Asian American and they are from the United States, so that's a huge difference between us. During the interviews, I had to take notes with my computer because it's way faster than writing. In terms of questions, I asked Anthony, Steven, and Jennifer about particular instances, how did they choose classes, support and encouragement to continue a higher level of education from the society, teachers that they admired or were helpful to them and those who were bad for them and hurtful. Moreover, I asked about the family support, because I do believe that the family can play an essential part to encourage their kids to pursue a higher level of education. Finally, I asked whether they had outcomes from the school. In our case, I asked Anthony, who graduated from a high school in Los Angeles area, California about any instance that he remembers from his high school experience, Anthony told me that many African American friends dropped out of high school due to financial and economic problems. Statistically, students from low-income families are five times more likely to drop than their peers from high-income families, so we can figure that dropping out of high school has a strong connection with low income and poor conditions (Leon-Guerrero 2013:206). The argument and the big question is that why they dropped out of high school. I asked Anthony if he knows anything about their parents, and he mentioned that most of their parents have a low education which in most cases lead to low income. Typically, families with high income can spend more time educating their kids (Leon-Guerrero 2013:207) and sending the kids to school with a good reputation which will have better teachers and a better environment for the kids. Comparing to my high school experience which was outside the United States, I do not remember anyone who dropped out of my high school back then, dropping usually happens in rural areas in my country due to lack of knowledge of the education benefits. Back to Jennifer, who graduated from a high school in Washington state. Jennifer had a different experience than Anthony, she didn't remember any friend or person that she knew that dropped from her high school, probably because she went to a high school in a prestigious neighborhood in Bellevue, because poverty and location have a strong connection with the dropping rate among the students in Anthony's case. My guests agreed together that Poverty in certain races has a strong relation and can cause a lack of educational attainment.
Frankly, I do myself agree with that, poverty can cause many serious consequences, especially for young people during their school time. On the other hand, policymakers disagree and argue in the article "The Paradox of Poverty Narratives" said by Gerstl-Pepin (Leon-Guerrero 2008:151). They say that poverty has no effect on the outcomes that students will get in the future (Leon-Guerrero 2008:161) which I do extremely disagree with. Poverty can lead to low grades in most cases, and would lead to a new environment and probably certain friends from the same level as you are. Moreover, friends from the same level as you are can keep you on the same level and sometimes make you even poorer. Youth tends to act like their peers, so in most cases if the majority of your friends have bad grades or they are part of gangs that will probably going to influence you to be like
them. In my perspective, I think being good in school has a lot do with your environment, I mean your family, friends, and the people you hang out with all the time. for example, it’s very rare to see an Asian American who is not good at school, Steven himself told me that his family did a great job to encourage him to do well in school and that impacted in his excellent grades later on, while I asked the same question to Anthony who didn’t remember that much encouragement from his family during his high school time. Steven was in the top 10% in his school and that could be related to his environment and the peers from the same race and ethnicity. I asked Anthony about choosing classes and he explained that to me, says the majority of African American classmates would have similar interests, including football, basketball, and any class involves sports activity and they are outstanding with that with some exceptions of course. Although many reasons can explain why they love sports, but I do believe motivation is the reason beyond these actions, I mean when an African American student sees Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant as ideals, he would be motivated and be in love with basketball. Another aspect is being homosexual in high school, according to Steven that could make your daily life tough for a teenager. Being homosexual could disadvantage you from many things, conflict theorists said that being a heterosexual is certainly a privilege in our society (Leon-Guerrero 2013:124). Steven explained to me how he had tough times dealing with the jokes that he gets every day from his classmates. Although Steven graduated from high school with an outstanding GPA and a good amount of advanced placement classes, he was still concerned during the interview about the employment opportunities that he will get after graduating from the college because of his sexual orientation and ethnicity. According to statistics, 46% of gays in the United States had faced discrimination, and revealing their sexual orientation could lower their income and decrease the chances of getting promotions or even jobs (Leon-Guerrero 2013:127). I do think the discrimination of homosexuals is not limited to the United States, I do remember that during my high school time in the middle east, students that are homosexual were discriminated by mostly all people including teachers and students due to traditions and religion purposes. Furthermore, females in high school are not very attracted to the science classes, including math, physics, and chemistry. Jennifer told me that many girls and herself were not into the science classes because males are dominating these majors in college. She said our society is constructed to advantage the males to put them in certain high-paid jobs many years ago, that's why we do not see many females holding a CEO position in the job market. people think that women are not capable of holding companies or giving crucial orders. From a feminist perspective, this is going to change and has started already since the 1970s with the women's movement, women start entering the market and that is going to reflect in a good way to the women in the future (Leon-Guerrero 2013:200). I quite frankly think that the society should give the women more confidence because nowadays we are seeing many great examples of women who are successful, a good one is Marissa Mayer the CEO of Yahoo.com, holding thousands of employees and managing one of the biggest companies in the world. In conclusion, what I have noticed in this paper is that the school experience can vary from person to person depending on many factors including the gender, class, location, and race. Consequently, every one of us, including Steven, Anthony, Jennifer, and I had a positive experience and a negative experience, but I think Jennifer had the least one. Jennifer has two disadvantages, including the gender which is female and the race which is Hispanic while for example Anthony is a male which is a privilege and African American which is a disadvantage in our society. Fixing the inequalities in social institutions is a very complicated problem that could take decades of hard work and tolerance between people. The media should address the problem to raise awareness of this dilemma because it could lead to minor problems.