The Poverty Mindset
Feb. 6th, 2008 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageThe guest speaker at yesterday's session was Dr. Ruby Payne, from Corpus Christi, Texas, and she was speaking on the mindset of different classes in regards to money, time, possessions, and "hidden rules." It was very informative and not what I'd expected at all.
First, I'd like to point out that every situation is different, and I'm hoping that no one will take this information and use it to stereotype all poor people as being this way. However, our brains function by discerning patterns, and knowing the patterns helps us to plan and analyze, so we need to hear the patterns. I'm speaking in generalities with the firm knowledge that there are many cases where they don't hold true.
There were quite a few questions of the "put up your hand if your answer to X was yes" type, and most of them simply proved that everyone in that room had a middle-class mindset. A poverty mindset - that is, the mindset of someone who grows up and lives their whole life in generational poverty - is very different.
For example: a middle-class person sees money as a tool to get what they value, which is possessions. Middle-class people define themselves and each other by their houses, their cars, their computers, their degrees on the wall. They also define themselves by what they do for a living. Rich people define themselves primarily by their connections, which is why the biggest faux pas you can make at a gathering of wealthy people is to introduce yourself. Other people should introduce you, and if they introduce you only as, "My very dear friend," the subtext is, "who doesn't know anybody important."
Poor people define themselves by their relationships, and see money as a communal thing that is used to keep the wolf from the door. If a poor person asks another poor person to lend them money, one of the hidden rules of their class is that they must lend it or risk alienating that person - and then who's going to help that person the next time the wolf is at THEIR door? The mindset that you can save money to buy something you want doesn't generally work, because they know that if they're the only person who has money when the baby needs medicine, guess who's going to be buying the medicine?
The generational poor often lack a future story, which means they don't know how to plan for the future - or don't believe that they'll have one, or believe that it will be exactly like their present. The existence of a future story for middle-class people is what keeps us from flipping the bird at a nasty boss and walking out; we're there because putting up with it means we'll get ahead in our jobs, or have a good retirement, or be able to put our kids through university. People who don't have that concept that life can be made better are living without a plan, without hope, and therefore with no reason to try. So they might as well spend it as they get it, because if they save it someone will borrow it anyway, and in the long run it doesn't matter because nothing is ever going to change until they die. That's why poor people might not be able to pay the rent, but they've got the latest game system. Entertainment keeps the emotional wolf from the door, and is more valuable to them than saving money.
In order to pull out of generational poverty, you need two things: education, and a significant relationship. Usually, a poor person will have to give up relationships with other poor people in order to climb out of poverty. This is why many poor parents secretly fear their children's success: they know that if their kids are successful in school, they're more likely to leave, and the relationship that will take care of them in their old age will be gone. Parents who do help their kids succeed are attempting upward mobility, which usually takes about three generations, barring a catastrophe that sets the family back. The first generation is the working poor who struggle to make sure their kids can finish school and get a white-collar working-class job - as a bank clerk or a secretary, for example. The third generation, the first one to be firmly middle-class, are often civil servants, teachers, or in other extremely secure positions. (This is me, btw, and when she asked how many people in the room fit the profile of the third generation out of working poverty, three-quarters of the room put up their hands.)
The middle-class world is an abstract, representational reality. We can spend our entire paycheque without once handling cash. We teach our toddlers that the apple in the fridge can be represented by a red circle with a stem in a book. We know that when you see a picture of a person's head, you expect the neck and shoulders to be at the bottom and the forehead to be at the top. The language register that goes with this is also abstract and representational - and formal. Kids who grow up in this world have better vocabularies at age four than do the adults in the average family that has been poor for three generations or more.
The generational poor - and the more poor they are, and the further outside of a public education system they are, the more true this is - live in a world where the language is casual and referential. It includes a lot of gestures and general words, and often includes some code that only those in the same casual register and the same geographic area are going to get. Kids who grow up in this environment are expected to come to school and switch gears to formal language, the language of the middle class, and the language of most working environments. They have fewer actual experiences to back up what they know, and their language breaks one of the hidden rules of the middle class - that school is a middle-class place and you are expected to speak with school-type, formal language. They often get in trouble for not knowing how to speak "respectfully," i.e. using the formal language teachers expect. Furthermore, if they learn to speak that way and then take that language home and practise it there, they're going to get in trouble at home, because they've broken a hidden rule of their own class by speaking above everyone else around them. They don't dare do that, because those relationships are the most precious things they own, so they continue to speak the way they were raised. If the school is mostly kids from poor neighbourhoods, they'll resist speaking in the formal language that teachers request because their relationships with their poor peers are more important to their survival at that moment than their relationship to their teacher or their education. This is the root reason for gang formation.
I think that's the gist of it. It was a very informative and interesting talk, and has given me a window to see into the lives of some of my students.
First, I'd like to point out that every situation is different, and I'm hoping that no one will take this information and use it to stereotype all poor people as being this way. However, our brains function by discerning patterns, and knowing the patterns helps us to plan and analyze, so we need to hear the patterns. I'm speaking in generalities with the firm knowledge that there are many cases where they don't hold true.
There were quite a few questions of the "put up your hand if your answer to X was yes" type, and most of them simply proved that everyone in that room had a middle-class mindset. A poverty mindset - that is, the mindset of someone who grows up and lives their whole life in generational poverty - is very different.
For example: a middle-class person sees money as a tool to get what they value, which is possessions. Middle-class people define themselves and each other by their houses, their cars, their computers, their degrees on the wall. They also define themselves by what they do for a living. Rich people define themselves primarily by their connections, which is why the biggest faux pas you can make at a gathering of wealthy people is to introduce yourself. Other people should introduce you, and if they introduce you only as, "My very dear friend," the subtext is, "who doesn't know anybody important."
Poor people define themselves by their relationships, and see money as a communal thing that is used to keep the wolf from the door. If a poor person asks another poor person to lend them money, one of the hidden rules of their class is that they must lend it or risk alienating that person - and then who's going to help that person the next time the wolf is at THEIR door? The mindset that you can save money to buy something you want doesn't generally work, because they know that if they're the only person who has money when the baby needs medicine, guess who's going to be buying the medicine?
The generational poor often lack a future story, which means they don't know how to plan for the future - or don't believe that they'll have one, or believe that it will be exactly like their present. The existence of a future story for middle-class people is what keeps us from flipping the bird at a nasty boss and walking out; we're there because putting up with it means we'll get ahead in our jobs, or have a good retirement, or be able to put our kids through university. People who don't have that concept that life can be made better are living without a plan, without hope, and therefore with no reason to try. So they might as well spend it as they get it, because if they save it someone will borrow it anyway, and in the long run it doesn't matter because nothing is ever going to change until they die. That's why poor people might not be able to pay the rent, but they've got the latest game system. Entertainment keeps the emotional wolf from the door, and is more valuable to them than saving money.
In order to pull out of generational poverty, you need two things: education, and a significant relationship. Usually, a poor person will have to give up relationships with other poor people in order to climb out of poverty. This is why many poor parents secretly fear their children's success: they know that if their kids are successful in school, they're more likely to leave, and the relationship that will take care of them in their old age will be gone. Parents who do help their kids succeed are attempting upward mobility, which usually takes about three generations, barring a catastrophe that sets the family back. The first generation is the working poor who struggle to make sure their kids can finish school and get a white-collar working-class job - as a bank clerk or a secretary, for example. The third generation, the first one to be firmly middle-class, are often civil servants, teachers, or in other extremely secure positions. (This is me, btw, and when she asked how many people in the room fit the profile of the third generation out of working poverty, three-quarters of the room put up their hands.)
The middle-class world is an abstract, representational reality. We can spend our entire paycheque without once handling cash. We teach our toddlers that the apple in the fridge can be represented by a red circle with a stem in a book. We know that when you see a picture of a person's head, you expect the neck and shoulders to be at the bottom and the forehead to be at the top. The language register that goes with this is also abstract and representational - and formal. Kids who grow up in this world have better vocabularies at age four than do the adults in the average family that has been poor for three generations or more.
The generational poor - and the more poor they are, and the further outside of a public education system they are, the more true this is - live in a world where the language is casual and referential. It includes a lot of gestures and general words, and often includes some code that only those in the same casual register and the same geographic area are going to get. Kids who grow up in this environment are expected to come to school and switch gears to formal language, the language of the middle class, and the language of most working environments. They have fewer actual experiences to back up what they know, and their language breaks one of the hidden rules of the middle class - that school is a middle-class place and you are expected to speak with school-type, formal language. They often get in trouble for not knowing how to speak "respectfully," i.e. using the formal language teachers expect. Furthermore, if they learn to speak that way and then take that language home and practise it there, they're going to get in trouble at home, because they've broken a hidden rule of their own class by speaking above everyone else around them. They don't dare do that, because those relationships are the most precious things they own, so they continue to speak the way they were raised. If the school is mostly kids from poor neighbourhoods, they'll resist speaking in the formal language that teachers request because their relationships with their poor peers are more important to their survival at that moment than their relationship to their teacher or their education. This is the root reason for gang formation.
I think that's the gist of it. It was a very informative and interesting talk, and has given me a window to see into the lives of some of my students.