A Framework for Understanding Poverty Read Online Free PDF Page A

leads to her dependence on alcohol.) Of all the resources, emotional resources seem to be paramount in maintaining a lifestyle with some semblance of order. When emotional resources are absent, the slide to poverty is almost guaranteed. But because her financial resources are limited, she must learn the rules of generational poverty. And one of the rules in generational poverty for women is this: you may need to use your body for survival. After all, that is all that is truly yours. Sex will bring in money and favors. Values are important, but they don't put food on the table-or bring relief from intense pressure. So Adele will probably go out with the mechanic, for two reasons: (i) She can get her car fixed and (2) she can have an evening out on the town.

    Maria and Noemi are included because they represent the classic Hispanic pattern of poverty. In the Hispanic poverty pattern, the majority of families are two-parent. As can be seen, of all the scenarios Maria and Noemi have more resources than any of the others.
    In conclusion, the resources that individuals have vary significantly from situation to situation. Poverty is more about other resources than it is about money. The other resources are those that educators can influence greatly.
    WHAT DOES THIS INFORMATION MEAN IN THE SCHOOL OR WORK SETTING?
• Resources of students and adults should be analyzed before dispensing advice or seeking solutions to the situation. What may seem to be very workable suggestions from a middle-class point of view may be virtually impossible given the resources available to those in poverty.
• Educators have tremendous opportunities to influence some of the non-financial resources that make such a difference in students' lives. For example, it costs nothing to be an appropriate role model.

     

CHAPTER 2

The Role of language and Stork
    -.5-o better understand poverty, one must understand three aspects of language: registers of language, discourse patterns, and story structure. Many of the key issues for schools and businesses are related to these three patterns that often are different in poverty than they are in middle class.
    REGISTERS OF LANGUAGE
    Every language in the world has five registers (Joos, 1967). These registers are the following:

    RULE: loos .found that one can go one register down in the same conversation, and that is socially accepted. However, to drop two registers or more in the same conversation is to be socially offensive.

    How then does this register impact students from poverty? First of all, the work of Dr. Maria Montano-Harmon (1991) found that the majority (of the students in her research) of minority students and poor students do not have access to formal register at home. As a matter of fact, these students cannot use formal register. The problem is that all the state testsSAT, ACT, etc.-are in formal register. It is further complicated by the fact that to get a well-paying job, it is expected that one will be able to use formal register. Ability to use formal register is a hidden rule of the middle class. The inability to use it will knock one out of an interview in two or three minutes. The use of formal register, on the other hand, allows one to score well on tests and do well in school and higher education.
    This use of formal register is further complicated by the fact that these students do not have the vocabulary or the knowledge of sentence structure and syntax to use formal register. When student conversations in the casual register are observed, much of the meaning comes not from the word choices, but from the non-verbal assists. To be asked to communicate in writing without the non-verbal assists is an overwhelming and formidable task, which most of them try to avoid. It has very little meaning for them.
    DISCOURSE PATTERNS IN FORMAL AND CASUAL REGISTER
    This pattern of registers is connected to the second issue: the patterns of discourse. Discourse will be discussed here with two different