Posts

New study examines how social class bias influences youth mentoring relationships

Spencer, R., McCormack, M. J., Drew, A. L., Gowdy, G., & Keller, T. E. (2021). (Not) minding the gap: A qualitative interview study of how social class bias can influence youth mentoring relationships. Journal of Community Psychology.  https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22737 Summarized by Ariel Ervin Notes of Interest: It’s common for mentees from low-come families (many who are also […]

Programs Can Build on the Strengths of Latino Families with Low Incomes to Improve Outcomes

By Natasha Cabrera, Avery Hennigar, Yu Chen, Jerry West, Jay Fagan, & Elizabeth Wildsmith, Reprinted from Child Trends Healthy relationships that are positive and nurturing support children’s and parents’ well-being. Some parents have difficulty initiating and maintaining healthy relationships. These challenges can be compounded for families with low incomes (e.g., below 185% of the federal […]

Mentoring. Youth mentoring.

What Poverty Does to the Young Brain

BY MADELINE OSTRANDER For a growing child, deprivation and stress can become a kind of neurotoxin. The brain’s foundation, frame, and walls are built in the womb. As an embryo grows into a fetus, some of its dividing cells turn into neurons, arranging themselves into layers and forming the first synapses, the organ’s electrical wiring. […]

What is the “single greatest threat to children’s well-being:” And how can mentoring help?

by Jean Rhodes “The way a problem is defined determines not only what is done about it, but also what is not done—or what apparently need not be done.”   Caplan, N., & Nelson, S. D. (1973). On being useful: The nature and consequences of psychological research on social problems. American Psychologist, 28(3), 199-211. According to data […]

An interview with Professors Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane

Editor’s note: If you are interested in how poverty affects young people and their educational opportunities, I’d like recommend  Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Outcomes, edited by Greg Duncan (U.C.-Irvine) and Richard Murnane (Harvard University). This volume explores how rising inequality is compromising the capacity of public schools to provide our nation’s youth with opportunities for […]

Three ways mentoring can help disrupt the growing racial wealth divide

Written by Justin Preston In a pair of new studies conducted at Yale University and the Institute for Policy Studies, researchers identified a troubling trend in the United States: The racial wealth divide is worse than we realize, and we are only growing further apart. How bad is it? According to a study conducted by […]

At UC San Diego, retired professors are mentoring first-generation college students

By Melvin H Green, The Conversation Thursday, January 7, 2016 My mother cried when I told her I was changing my major from engineering to chemistry. Her fear was that I would never earn a living as a chemist. When she heard a few years later that I planned to go for a PhD in […]

Roundtable: How Does Poverty Affect the Brain?

By Princess Ojiaku | October 23, 2015 Scientific American Blog Growing up in poverty can hinder childhood achievement and affect life trajectory. Researchers in fields, such as economics and social sciences, have extensively documented these differences, but can neuroscientists develop a more complete understanding of poverty’s reach by studying the brains of infants and young […]

New study suggests that prison cycle is tough to break for teens

Posted by Jared Wadley-Michigan  Jailed teens whose parents have a history of incarceration are unlikely to be successful without outside intervention. For a new study published in the Journal of Poverty, researchers examined the extent to which various risk factors experienced by youths in eight juvenile and adult correctional facilities in Michigan are related to […]

Kids learn better when they manage their moods

Posted by James Devitt-NYU on May 21, 2014 Kindergartners and first graders from low-income families showed gains in math and reading after taking part in a program that helps them learn to manage emotions. Earlier studies suggest that poverty can affect a child’s readiness to start school, both emotionally and academically. Researchers tested an intervention […]