This document outlines a qualitative study investigating the impact of poverty on educational success in children, highlighting that students from low-income backgrounds face several challenges, including lower academic performance and higher dropout rates. The study aims to explore various factors such as parental involvement, school resources, and community dynamics that influence academic outcomes for these learners. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of understanding student perceptions and the need for targeted interventions by educational leaders and policymakers to improve educational equity.

1. EDD614ASSIGNMENTCASE2
Trident International University
James Newton
EDD 614
Assignment Case 2
Dr. James Hodges
February 10, 2020
“Impact of Poverty on the Education Success of Children”
Background
Education is one of the most fundamental rights across the
world. However, access to education continues to vary cross
different communities, cultures and ethnic backgrounds.
Numerous studies have attempted to explore the causes of
variations in access and successful educational outcomes across
different groups of people. Riedi, Dawn and Kim (2017) state
that learners with the capacity to deliver high academic
performance exist in all income levels across the United States.
Nonetheless, the success rates of learners from low-income
backgrounds continue to be lower than their wealthy
counterparts. While the dropout rates have reduced

2. phenomenally from low-income neighborhoods, children from
wealthy families still register the lowest dropout rates. Level of
income coupled with gender factors may also play a role in
school dropout rates or low academic performance for children
from poor backgrounds. A longitudinal qualitative study
undertaken by Ramanaik et al. (2018) found that for many poor
families, girls’ domestic tasks came at the cost of schooling
with greater concerns regarding the need to safeguard their
sexual purity. Furthermore, with the rising desire of the girls’
educational and career goals, parents often encourage girls’
agencies to communicate openly both at home and in school.
Children from poor households are also less motivated to work
harder in school compared to their contemporaries from wealthy
backgrounds. Friels (2016) observes that scholars have tried to
make efforts towards exploring the influence of poverty on
student success. According to Friels (2016), a combination of
factors such as poverty, race and ethnicity have been the
defining indicators of student academic attainment. For
instance, African American children from low-income
neighborhoods continue to face challenges such as low
classroom attendance and dropout rates compared to their peers
from financial stable backgrounds. In light of the above, this
qualitative study will investigate the effects of poverty on
educational success in children.
Research Problem
The indicators of academic achievements are often widely
recognized across different sides of the scholarly divide. They
include hard work, student competence and abilities, school
culture, as well as teachers’ competencies. While these factors
have been expansively identified and explored by scholars, one
major area of research has often been overlooked: the extent to
which poverty or level of income impacts educational outcomes
for children. Renth, Buckley and Pucher (2015) observe that
even though studies exist on this problematic area of
knowledge, there have been minimal qualitative explorations on
the influence of poverty on children’s educational outcomes.

3. For instance, major qualitative issues such as perceived parental
involvement and capacity, access tor sources and the role of
schools, can be important pointers of academic performance and
success for low income learners.
For more than a decade, poverty continues to remain the leading
causes of unsuccessful educational outcomes for able students.
According to Ferguson, Boivard and Mueller (2007), children
from poor backgrounds normally begin school already behind or
late compared to their peers from wealthy familial backgrounds
as pointed out through metrics of school readiness. In
particular, incidences, degree, length of time, as well as timing
of poverty all play a role in a child’s educational outcomes,
coupled with the nature of their communities and social
networks. Nonetheless, both American and global efforts to
reverse such trends have generated minimal outcomes.
Furthermore, an expansive body of literature indicates that
numerous factors interplay in varying ways, cultures and
situations to generate levels of disparities, which ultimately
adversely affect students’ academic accomplishments (Renth et
al., 2015). Poor performance coupled with school dropout rates,
often affect students’ success in their adult periods. For
instance, children who drop out of school are less likely to
secure well-paying professional jobs during their adulthoods.
Therefore, this study will provide valuable insights into the
influence of poverty and educational attainment with a keen
focus on how such problems can be addressed.
Purpose
The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the
effects of poverty on education for children. The qualitative
research will particularly use themes such as parents, teachers
and students’ perceptions regarding the influence of poverty on
students’ academic outcomes. The main research method that
will be used to complete this study will be the interview
method. There are various reasons why the interview method
has been selected for the study. For instance, the qualitative
research interview aims at identifying and describing the

4. meanings of key themes in the life world of the subject. The
major tasks that are related to interviewing is often to
understand the meanings of what the interviewees often state.
Furthermore, the qualitative interview will attempt to uncover
both the denotative and connotative meanings of responses that
will be provided by the respondents. This will be attained by
examining nonverbal cues and their interrelationships with the
verbal contents that will be provided by the respondents.
Theoretical Framework
The study will be guided by concepts from the human
capital theory. For a long time, the human capital theory has
been the overriding paradigm for socioeconomic progress that is
placed on education progressively as a major sector to promote
growth. According to the human capital theory, education plays
an integral role in promoting socioeconomic growth and poverty
reduction (Bonal, 2016). By improving children’s skills and
capabilities, education becomes the privileged investment that
can provide private and social returns. Therefore, increasing
access to education for children from low-income families is a
means for attaining economic growth in future and poverty
reduction.
Research Questions
The research questions will be developed in order to
provide guidance on hypothesis formulation and assessment of
the variables. In so doing, the research questions will be
instrumental in providing guidance to the study in ways that can
generate a valid and reliable finding. More importantly, the
research questions will be formulated as part of the ongoing
phases of the research, including the unfolding lives and points
of view of others on the area of knowledge that should be
investigated. In light of the above, the list of research questions
that will guide this study include:
1. What are the perceived effects of poverty on education
success for children?
1. How does poverty influence academic performance for school
students?

5. 1. In what ways do students feel that poverty influence their
education success?
Research Sub-questions
1. How does level of income increase dropout rates for
students?
1. Does poverty increase school absenteeism rates?
1. Does poverty cause low school performance in terms of low
grade?
Significance of the Study
This study will play an instrumental role in understanding
the problem of poverty and educational performance. In
particular, the qualitative study will provide insights into the
perceived ways in which poverty deters children from
generating their desired academic potentials. The study not only
contributes to the understanding to this problematic area of
research, but it is also going to be beneficial to educational
leadership, students, and policymakers. At the educational
leadership levels, the study can guide school administrators on
developing interventions that can promote effective
performance and success for low income learners. For instance,
educational leaders who understand the income dynamics of
educational success can use such knowledge to promote parental
involvement in order to increase success. Moreover, educational
leaders can focus on programs that are geared towards
improving equity in school, because the rates of teacher-school
collaborations and involvements are significantly among middle
and upper class parents than in low-income families.
The results can also be used to by practitioners and
educational leaders to explore the ways in which engagement
can be increased among low-income learners. According to
Jensen (2013), students from low-income families are more
likely to struggle with the problem of engaging in class
compared to their wealthier counterparts. This problem is
especially linked to issues such as poor health and nutrition,
low vocabularies, and efforts put in learning. Poor learners are
less likely to engage in physical exercise, access healthy diets,

6. and get appropriate and prompt medical focus. Moreover, such
learners are less likely to be administered with appropriate
medications and interventions. When such problems are
compounded, they result in the overall reduction in engagement
for learners. Educators and school administrators can address
this problem by providing feeding programs in school and
health services such as putting up of school dispensaries,
clinics, and health facilities to support the health and nutritional
needs of students. Addressing such challenges can significantly
bridge the nutritional and health gaps that generate a lot of
disparities in the performance between rich and poor students.
The proposed qualitative study can also support students to
attain their desired learning outcomes in various ways.
Williams, Greenlaf and Barnes (2018) note that both children
and adolescents from low families mainly come from public
schools across the country. As the number of learners form low-
income household increases significantly, the achievement gaps
between them and their richer peers increase. Understanding
students’ perception of poverty and its impacts on their
performance and educational success can help educators to
design proper interventions to address their learning needs.
Williams et al. (2018) state that understanding the major
perceptions and themes that are common among students on the
issue of poverty can help to improve their learning environment.
For instance, most commonly mentioned issues that affect low
income students include: establishing a culture of optimism,
designing relationship networks, and putting in place
meaningful and productive parent to school collaborations
(Williams, Greenlaf & Barnes, 2018). Thus, the outcomes of
such programs can encourage school instructors and counselors
to work with students in serving them to gain positive attitude,
optimism, and the spirit of hard work.
Further, knowledge on the relationship between poverty and
educational success can help to identify resources that are
critical in bridging the performance gaps between these two
groups of learners. One such resource that is instrumental in

7. bridging the performance gap is technological infrastructure.
When children from low-income neighborhoods are given access
to technologies as learning resources, they can be able to use
such systems to access learning materials online, which they
were otherwise unable to owing to inability to afford such
books and contents. Rideout and Katz (2016) state that
computers and online connectivity are increasingly becoming
significant in ensuring that academic opportunities are open to
all children, irrespective of their socioeconomic backgrounds.
Thus, technological resources can enable learners to keep up
with school home work and assignments and track and improve
their grades.
Finally, the results of this study will be insightful to
policymakers to develop both local and nationwide
interventions to improve educational success for low-income
learners. For instance, the focus of policymakers can be on
strategies that can be employed to reduce poverty. Anti-poverty
policies can go a long way in reducing neighboring poverty.
Examples of such policies may include reducing disadvantages
stemming from income and racial segregation, extending
employment opportunities to low-income earners, and tackling
problems such as exclusionary zoning (Quillian, 2017). These
policies can significantly improve quality of life of students and
their performance and productivity.
References
Bonal, X. (2016). Education, poverty, and the “missing link”:

8. The limits of human capital theory
as a paradigm for poverty reduction. The handbook of global
education policy, 97-110.
Cross, J. R., Frazier, A. D., Kim, M., & Cross, T. L. (2018). A
comparison of perceptions of
barriers to academic success among high-ability students from
high-and low-income
groups: Exposing poverty of a different kind. Gifted Child
Quarterly, 62(1), 111-129.
Ferguson, H. B., Bovaird, S., & Mueller, M. P. (2007). The
impact of poverty on educational
outcomes for children. Paediatrics & child health, 12(8), 701-
706.
Friels, A. C. (2016). Motivation Towards Success: A Qualitative
Comparative Case Study
Illustrating The Differences In Motivating Factors In
Achievement Between Low Ses
High Achieving and Low Achieving African American High
School Females.
Jensen, E. (2013). How poverty affects classroom
engagement. Educational Leadership, 70(8),
24-30.
Quillian, L. (2017). Poverty, neighborhood, and school
setting. Focus, 33(2), 22-28.
Ramanaik, S., Collumbien, M., Prakash, R., Howard-Merrill, L.,
Thalinja, R., Javalkar, P., ... &
Moses, S. (2018). Education, poverty and" purity" in the context
of adolescent girls'
secondary school retention and dropout: A qualitative study
from Karnataka, southern
India. PloS one, 13(9).
Renth, B. A., Buckley, P., & Puchner, L. (2015). Academic
Performance Gaps and Family
Income in a Rural Elementary School: Perceptions of Low-
Income Parents. Education
Leadership Review of Doctoral Research, 2(1), 70-84.

9. Rideout, V., & Katz, V. S. (2016). Opportunity for All?
Technology and Learning in Lower-
Income Families. In Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame
Workshop. Joan Ganz Cooney
Center at Sesame Workshop. 1900 Broadway, New York, NY
10023.
Discussion: IRB Supporting Documents
Doctoral research requires IRB approval and several supporting
documents are needed to accompany your IRB Application. This
course focuses on the completion of a methodology document to
accompany your IRB Application. However, you will also need
to carefully consider other documents to collect and provide to
IRB. This includes permission letters (access to participants),
consent forms, instruments, etc. Develop a list of documents
that will supplement your IRB Application. Provide a brief
synopsis of your study and share your list of IRB documents in
the Discussion 3 post. Then, offer a peer review of another
student’s post, and work together to ensure that your lists are
complete. Be advised that IRB stands for Institutional Review
Board.