This article endeavours to inform early childhood education teachers about the issue of poverty. It draws on a body of literature to argue for the critical importance of teachers being reflective and reflexive in relation to children and families who face economic disadvantage. Furthermore, it contends that unless teachers are critically aware…

It is a sad fact that children born into poverty are far less likely to perform well in school and to finish school. Their inadequate schooling then negatively affects their degree of economic success at a large cost to society. The author--a professional tutor for underachieving students at PS 8 and Brooklyn High School for Leadership and…

Early childhood education has received attention from philosophers, educationists and psycho-analysts such as Plato, Avicenna, Locke, Pestalozzi, Whitehead, Carl Jung, Binet, Piaget, Montessori, Sigmund Freund, Howard Gardner, among others. In Africa, the backdrop of poverty, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in strife-torn countries, among…

The contemporary attempts to tackle poverty and child poverty in the United Kingdom have been seriously hindered by the effects of the economic crisis (Hirsch, 2008a; Mooney, 2011). The prevailing discourses of the recession and intergenerational poverty can lead to a view that the effects of child poverty and the consequent detrimental impact on…

The author of this article, a developmental anthropologist, illustrates how the instructor can use ethnographic films to enhance the study of anthropology and override notions about the scope and efficacy of Western intervention in the Third World, provided the instructor places such films in their proper historical and cultural context. He…

Children in low-income families face a myriad of risks which compromise optional development. Despite this, many children from disadvantaged backgrounds grow up to lead productive and healthy lives. A key contributor to this variability is the family context. This article reviews research on how families exacerbate or buffer children's experience…

Over the past few decades social policy in the UK and other major developed countries, has emphasised the provision of social care programmes to deal with vulnerable, deprived groups and communities. This reflects the increase in social problems such as addictions, homelessness and poverty which have occurred in that period. It also illustrates a…

Extensive media coverage of New York City's Harlem Children's Zone's cradle-to-career program over the past several years has served to focus mainstream attention on school reform in a way unprecedented in recent history. Cradle-to-career programs seek to provide children living in poverty with a high-quality birth-to-employment education through…

It is often argued that indicators of achievement or deprivation should be measured such that they display a property of "level-sensitivity", whereby a given change in the indicator acquires a greater significance the higher (lower) the level of achievement (deprivation) at which the change occurs. In this note, it is shown that a level-sensitive…

These "Stories From the Field" describe five Wallace-funded programs working to expand learning and enrichment for disadvantaged children, so they can benefit from the types of opportunities their wealthier counterparts have access to, from homework help to swimming classes. The report details each program's approach, successes and…

Low-attaining schools have been targeted by government for closure and transformation into academies. This article argues that opposition to academies is necessary but not sufficient. It is vital to do more than simply defend the status quo. In the city of Leicester an alternative vision for high-quality education, local authority led and grounded…

The transformations in Russian society that took place in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century led to a rapid rise in social and economic differentiation. According to official data, the income gap between the 10 percent most-well-off and the 10 percent least-well-off families (the capital coefficient) rose to 14.8 times in…

The year 2006 marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of Michael Rutter and Nicola Madge's Cycles of Disadvantage (1976). As such, it provides an opportunity to take stock of debates over an alleged cycle of deprivation, both in the 1970s, and more recently. This article seeks to use historical methods in order to outline some areas in…

Twenty-five years ago, the still-resonant report "A Nation at Risk" urged schools to add more time--an hour to the usual six hour day and 20-40 days to the typical 180-day ear--to ward off a "rising tide of mediocrity" in American education. Today, city, school, state, and national leaders are engaged in a renewed effort to do…

This article presents a new approach to index development, extending the methods used by Townsend, Mack and Lansley and Hallerod to measure deprivation in the developed world. The index combines three "objective" dimensions of deprivation (i.e. monetary, consumption and work-related), and weighs them according to subjective perceptions…