High-Risk Children In Schools

Constructing Sustaining Relationships

Robert Pianta, Daniel Walsh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317795551
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie en psychologie

High Risk Children in Schools offers a way for psychologists and educators to see and talk about the growing population of "at-risk" children--those likely to fail at formal schooling--while helping to redefine the relationship between schools and families. Using systems theory and developmental psychology, the authors present a new framework for the study and education of children who are at-risk. This framework--the Contextual Systems Model--creates a dialogue between the child and schooling through which meaning, goals, and experiences are shared and accepted.

part one
Risk

1
	Contemporary Children And Risk

In this chapter we first provide a demographic snapshot of the realities facing contemporary children. We then introduce perspectives on the use of the term risk to describe children immersed in these realities. Finally we present a metaphor for risk.

A demographic picture of children and families in contemporary America begins to describe the appalling contexts of development that are at least tolerated and perhaps accepted in our society. This picture reflects a downward trend over the past 20 years, reflecting Moynihan’s (1993) contention that deviance (here operationalized in terms of a society’s tolerance for poor living conditions for its children) has been “defined down.” In other words, former examples of deviance become tolerated and accepted by the culture while even more extreme forms of deviance emerge. These are the conditions under which children are educated in the United States. They stand as a formidable challenge to the notion that all children will be ready, however one perceives readiness, for school by the year 2000. Their complexity reveals the underlying need for conceptual models capable of integrating information on sources and levels of risk. Any comprehensive conceptual framework must first start with these factors as “givens” that must somehow be accommodated in discussing the relationship between children and families, and schooling.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF RISK: LEVELS AND SOURCES OF NEED

When we wrote this section of the book we debated about the extent to which statistics and figures reflecting social problems should be introduced into the book and where. It seems that every issue of any major newspaper or national magazine contains articles that describe a litany of social pathologies, many of which involve children, families, and schools. We use these data as a backdrop, as a frame for looking at children, families, and schooling, and as a stark reminder of the urgency of the situation. Most of these demographic data are based on the 1990 census. Unless otherwise noted, statistics come from Children’s Defense Fund publications.

Each year the Fordham Institute for Innovation in Social Policy publishes the Index of Social Health, which it describes as

A method of monitoring the social well-being of American Society. It is similar to the Consumer-Price Index, the Gross National Product, or the Dow Jones Average, but instead of measuring the movement of the economy or the stock market, the Index of Social Health measures the country’s progress in addressing its major social problems. (1992, p. 2 )

The 1992 Index reported on 1990 as having the lowest rating in 21 years. Nine of the 16 social problems rated (e.g., infant mortality, drug abuse, unemployment, homicide) grew worse, three improved, and four remained about the same. Of the nine problems that worsened, six reached their worst recorded level. These included child abuse, teen suicide, health insurance coverage, average weekly earnings, out-ofpocket health costs for those over 65, and the gap between the rich and the poor (Fordham Institute for Innovation in Social Policy, 1992).

In the spring of 1994, the Carnegie Commission (Young, 1994) issued a report on the development of young children in relation to schooling and other social outcomes. This report, a compilation of the work not only of educators but of a wide range of disciplines, concluded that by age three most of the life experiences necessary for supporting adequate development had to be in place in order for a child to make use of subsequent exposure to school and community resources, and that it was more than apparent that a large segment of the population lacked these basic components of “developmental infrastructure.” Consequently, more and more children were growing up in seriously compromised circumstances that affected brain development, cognition, learning, and socialization. The scope and urgency of this report was unprecedented, as was the emphasis on the period from birth to age three as a necessary building block for later competencies. No longer was the problem of increased school failure rates located in the K—12 period. Instead a clear developmental emphasis was used to underscore the links between early experience prior to and often out of school, and subsequent experience in school. Following are some of the conditions that gave rise to the Carnegie Commission conclusions.

In 1991 economic, social, and political conditions combined to form a large group of poor Americans than had been seen in the previous 20 years (Greenstein, 1992). In 1992, 26% of all children under the age of six were poor, up from 17.7% in 1976 (Li & Bennett, 1994; Strawn, 1992). In 32 states the poorest fifth of families grew poorer in the 1980s and the purchasing power of the maximum Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefit for a family of three declined 43% in the median state, reflecting a benefit loss of more than $3,400 a year (in constant 1992 dollars). Between 1987 and 1992 the number of poor children under six grew from 5 to 6 million (Li & Bennett, 1994). In 1992 half of the 17.2 million children living in oneparent families were poor. The average black child spends 5.5 years in poverty between ages 4 and 18. Yet two-thirds of all poor children are white.

Emphasizing the linkages among risk factors, Duncan (1991) reported three major reasons for the increase in children’s poverty from 1970 to the late 1980s: changes in family structure, particularly the increasing numbers of mother-only families; changes in the labor market (low wages and unemployment); and reductions in government transfers such as AFDC.

Living circumstances also changed for children. Where and under what circumstances a child was housed is a fairly new risk factor in studies of child development (Masten, 1992). Between 1970 and 1989 children living in doubled-up households increased 42%, to almost 5 million children. Homelessness threatened an increasing number of children; a 1989 survey of 27 cities conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that 1 of 4 homeless persons in cities is a child, and requests for shelter by families rose 29% from 1988 to 1989. Families with children are the fastest growing subgroup of the homeless, now estimated at approximately one-third of the overall population (Bassuk, 1989, p. 1). The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 220,000 school-aged children are homeless and that 65,000 of them do not attend school (Reed & Sautter, 1990). The General Accounting Office estimated that on any given night, 186,000 children who are not actually homeless are “precariously housed,” living on the verge of homelessness. Furthermore, an estimated 407,000 children, up 50% from 1986, depend on an overwhelmed and inadequate foster-care system. The Department of Health and Human Services calculates that over the course of a year, as many as one million youngsters under age 18 lack a permanent home or live on the streets (Reed & Sautter, 1990). Many of these children come to school each day.

Children’s health is one of the most efficient ways to index the level of risk to children in a given society or community because health statistics are fairly easy to measure and communicate, these statistics are very telling. The United States ranks 22nd in the world in preventing infant deaths (Shiono & Behrman, 1995). In 1991 the infant mortality rate was 8.9 in 1000 over all, but for black babies it was 17.6 in 1000. In in Washington DC the mortality rate for black babies was 26 in 1000. A black child born in inner-city Boston has less chance of surviving his or her first year than a child born in Panama, North Korea, or Uruguay. During the 1970s the proportion of mothers receiving late or no prenatal care improved 3.5% a year; during the 1980s it worsened 2.5% a year. Twenty-five percent of all U.S. infants receive no early prenatal care early; 40% of black and Hispanic infants lacked such care. The National Center for Health Statistics and Westat published a Children’s Health Index (1993) that lists the percentage of infants born in 1990 in the United States with one or more of six health risks. In 1993, 45% of all U.S. births involved one or more risk factors. The United States ranks 17th in polio immunizations, and 55th in nonwhite polio immunizations. In 1990 there were 27,000 cases of measles, which resulted in 90 deaths. The incidence of measles increased five times from 1988 to 1989 and ten times from 1983. Several infectious diseases associated with poverty—rheumatic fever, hemophilus influenza, meningitis, gastroenteritis, and parasitic diseases—are on the rise.

What happens to children exposed to these risks? For an increasing number of children the future holds not only academic failure, but many other failures as well—alienation, dysphoria, and violent death. In 1988, 1.8 million teenagers were the victims of violent crime. The suicide rate for teenagers between 15 and 19 more than tripled between 1960 and 1988. Suicide is now the third leading cause of death for 15 to 27-year-olds, behind motor vehicle accidents and homicide. The leading cause of death among black males 15 to 19 years old is murder as a result of a gunshot-wound; the homicide rate for young black males rose 43% from 1987 to 1990, up to 130.5 per 100,000 (Public Health Service, 1992). Between 1975 and 1986 the percentage of poor high-school graduates aged 18 to 20 who were attending college dropped from 34% to 30%. In contrast, students from well-educated affluent families were six times more likely to graduate from college within six years as were students from families with fewer resources.

To complete an intergenerational cycle, twice as many teens in the United States as in other industrialized countries have babies. One million get pregnant annually; half have babies, and half of these do not receive early prenatal care. One in four mothers having her first baby in 1988 was a teenager, and 65.9% of these teens were unmarried, compared to 33% in 1970. In Washington, DC, 94.7% of all teens giving birth are unmarried. At least 40,000 teens drop out of school each year due to pregnancy, and fewer than six of ten adolescent mothers graduate from high school by age 29. Regardless of race, teens who have below-average academic skills and are from poor families are about five to seven times more likely to have babies than teens with solid skills from nonpoor families.

How do children succeed against such a backdrop? What paths do their life courses take during the early school years? What happens to them in school? What kinds of friendships do they form? Does schooling have an effect on these children? How? What are the major influences on their lives? These are the issues and questions involving the nature of risk, the origins and course of school failure, and the actions schools can take to address the many levels and sources of need described previously. For many children the business of daily life has become very hazardous. The demographic statistics described above have real-life counterparts in children currently attending schools, children like those described in the brief case studies found at the end of each section of this book. It is little wonder that the major “risk factor” for most studies of children likely to develop behavioral, academic, health, or other problems is poverty.

At the same time, we do not wish to confound poverty, or race, with risk. To do so would be to ignore a huge, less-noticed population of more economically advantaged children whose development is compromised in other ways, mostly social and relational. Not lacking in physical resources, these are children whose relationship patterns have been stretched thin by family disruptions (e.g., divorce, separation) and other social conditions. These children also find their way into the “bottom third,” although their high risk coefficients are not attributable to poverty. In any case, we call attention to the stark realities of children whose chances for school failure are unacceptably high.

HIGH-RISK CHILDREN IN THE SCHOOLS

Schools have tried to grapple with the realities of social pathology and social inequities for as long as they have existed. The realities described above are not all new to the United States, although the level of need and rate of exposure in the population is unprecedented. The increased numbers of children coming to school exposed to these dire circumstances, and the difficulty in educating them, is, in part, one of the conditions that gave rise to the initial “Nation at Risk” report that first called national attention to the demographic realities facing schools and the high failure rates associated with these realities. In this context, the notion of risk and at-risk children became a popular rallying point for drawing attention to the large numbers of children whose experience in and out of school was compromising their capacity to become functional members of society.

The description of at-risk students and their families should be familiar. After all, it is almost 200 years old, and it remains today, as it was when it first appeared, a formula used by reformers to arouse the public to action.... For almost two centuries, poor children—often nonwhite and from other cultures—have been seen to pose a threat to the larger society because neither parents nor existing community institutions could control their unacceptable behavior. Fear of having to spend more for welfare payments and prisons drove public officials to compel attendance in schools as a solution to the problems of children we would today label “at risk.” (Cuban, 1989, pp. 780–781)

Thus the term “at risk” has both a long history and a strong appeal. The term has potential for influencing discourse in ways that might be fruitful, although a more thorough understanding of the concept of risk is required. Currently, the term is used to describe almost any child having difficulty in school, or as a euphemistic replacement for more offensive labels (Reeves, 1988). Both uses are incorrect. Neither helps advance our understanding of contemporary children.

DEFINING RISK

Risk refers to an actuarial, or probabilistic, relation between one index, for example, poor academic skills, and the likelihood of attaining a given outcome of interest, such as dropping out of school, given specified conditions or factors (Hess, Wells, Prindle, Lippman, & Kaplan, 1987). Risk does not refer to a causal process or etiological relation, that is, where one thing causes another, although a risk factor may indeed be integral to etiological processes (Eaton, 1981). Instead, risk status is a way of describing the likelihood that a given individual will attain a specific outcome, given certain conditions. The concept of risk emphasizes the probabilistic relations between specific factors and identifiable outcomes instead of some, at best, ill-defined relation between diagnosis and treatment. Eaton (1981) defines a risk factor as any event, condition, or characteristic that increases the probability of the occurrence of an identified target outcome (e.g., mental disorder, heart attacks, school failure, school-age pregnancy). A pervasive issue in risk research and especially its application to education is an understanding of the relation and distinction between risk factors and etiological processes.

Assigning risk status to an individual means that he or she shares characteristics similar to a group in which there is a known probability of attaining a certain outcome that is greater than the probability in the general population. We note that assigning such a probability to an individual must be done cautiously. Even very high correlations between groups and specified factors have limited predictive value for the individual. For example, a group correlation of 0.5, which is seen as relatively high in the social and behavioral sciences, “will provide a standard error of prediction that is 86 percent of the error that would be obtained by completely ignoring the predictor variable and simply using the group mean...to predict the value [for the individual]” (Cziko, 1992, p. 11).

For example, children who have flunked a grade before grade six and who have below-average reading skills in grade six are more likely to drop out of high school than students who have not flunked and who have average or above reading skills in the six grade (Hess et al., 1987). Thus flunking before grade six is a risk factor for dropping out. Flunking a grade may or may not be a cause of dropping out; it is not necessary to establish this in order for the concept of risk to be applied. Nevertheless, one must be very cautious in making predictions about any individual child who fits this profile because the increased probability of dropping out (the risk coefficient) is a property of the group of children who flunk a grade before grade six, not any given individual in that group. Other factors or combinations of factors may be more influential, factors may affect one child more than another. Further, these general predictions about children dropping out do not take into account actions taken by the school or the child after the sixth grade. We cannot change the fact that a child has been retained, and obviously we need to understand what it is about being retained in elementary school that is related to dropping out later. But we can addres...