Posted on 08/29/2007 2:56:39 PM PDT by shrinkermd
It costs about $22 and it is worth it!
I’ve read it. Found it more useful to understand people with a lower SES than those better situated than myself.
BFL
Gotta leave for school.
He do?
Bttt - library list.
111 respondants from a sample of well under 500 - for a workplace of millions. Sory - no sale.
A better read
Unheavenly City and The Unheavenly CIty Revisited.
Both very good books and they are peer reviewed.
Senior executive srvice?
“A three year old from a professional family usually has a larger vocabulary than the average adult in a welfare household.”
I don’t think so. This sounds like elitist bullshit to me.
"EDWARD BANFIELD's two books perform a service for the government official that none other has: They cut down his agenda. In place of a long list of troubles that are described as typically urban, Banfield reduces the prototypical urban problems to one. That's the persistent existence of a group of people whom he categorizes as "low-class." All the other difficulties of urban life--the bad housing, the obsolescent street pattern, the conflicts between metropolitan-wide necessities and the desires of communities and neighborhoods within the metropolis--are problems that urban governments and private economies are solving; indeed they are much nearer solution than ever before, as well as considerably less dangerous to life and health. By comparison, the "low-class" problem is not better, but worse."
The URL for this review is: HERE.
It did seem Banfield was initially focused on urban planning. Incidentally, Murray coined the term "underclass" which while still having a pejorative connotation is less likely to provoke outrage than "low-class" (Banfield) or "poverty class" (Payne). A psychiatrist writes about this regulary in City Pages. His real name is Anthony Daniels but he is also known as "Dalyrmple" (sp?).
“socioeconomic status”
Ah. Must be one of those class differences - in my AO, SES means general-level officer. As in, General so-and-so just got promoted to such-and-such...
Actually, I should read the book. It seems to have some valid points.
It’s actually a misstatement of the conclusions of research by Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley and reported in "Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children"
http://www.amazon.com/Meaningful-Differences-Everyday-Experience-American/dp/1557661979/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-4026262-0762063?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188430854&sr=8-1
What Hart and Risley actually found that three-year-olds of "professional" mothers (their term) used more words in interactions with their children than mothers on welfare.
The sample was around forty parents, total.
The study didn't address the the size of the adult vocabulary of either group of parents.
It’s a shame that Lyon (who has identified “Meaningful Differences” as the source of this Factoid) isn’t more careful – she has a lot of interesting things to say about class in the US.
Very interesting post!
The book deals with how people who are mired in poverty perceive the world around them, and communicate with each other and others. Having spent 23 years in education, I know exactly how poor schools in poor neighborhoods are short-changed (unless they are non-public schools). But THAT IS NOT THE SUBJECT OF THIS BOOK.
To quote my sainted Mother, about half of all the credentialed academics I've dealt with over the years "don't have the common sense that God meant for an animal cracker." Is that your experience, also?
Congressman Billybob
I imagine that that would be a general phenomenon . . . easier to understand the lower level than the higher one.
The real problem with inner city beyond social class considerations is the middle class has abandoned the city and the median IQ for entering students in the inner city is now 85. This is the cutting score for graduation from HS. This means that up to one half of inner city children will not succeed at a HS that has usual academic standards. I know this sounds terrible but you can find the data on this: HERE. Note you will have to scroll down to find "inner city IQ distribution" The actual link does not post.
Recalling that, on the average, and adding in mentally handicapped youngsters about 5% of the general population will have an IQ of 70 or less; this is the cutting score for graduating from the usual grade school; less than 70 requires extraordinary educational and student effort.
Further, if the median IQ in the inner city is really 85, this means you may have up to 15% of this population with an IQ of 70 or less. It all depends on who does the math and where.
No one wants to speak to this. No wants to admit what has been known for 100 years.
The idea is to deny realty, blame the bourgeois and capitalism. If that doesn't work deconstruct the whole idea of variations in ability and wage a class war.
Because things are tough in the inner city, does not mean we should spend less, but rather more and with more intensely interested and educated teachers.
Just my thoughts.
Oh my, what an emphatic yes that is. There are documented studies of children entering kindergarten with a spoken vocabulary of less than 500 words. These are children who do not even understand left to right and top to bottom directionality in print - or even what a "book" really is.
One study I read in one my grad classes taped a welfare mother, a middle class mother, and a nanny with their respective children for 1 week. The welfare mother used the fewest words by far - and 40% were used in a negative comment, but the upper class nanny used less than the welfare mother, because of the language difference. The language stimulation came in the form of scheduled classes and sports. The middle class mother used well over 12k words in one week. (Understand, I'm putting a long study into a few words and using fairly general terms).
So the advantages begin at home and continue into the schools thus partly accounting for a correlation between high SES and high scores and low SES and low scores. Not that this excuses the poor schools in any way. If you know your population, serve their needs, not whine that they are coming in behind - catch em up ! It can and has been done, but not by those that say it can't be done or who whine for more and put on a pity party.
As noted above, I found it more enlightening about people down the SES from me than those above - probably because it was easier for me to understand at a practical level what they would have change to succeed in my world than what I would have to change to succeed in the role of a F500 CEO or their spouse. I’ve known - casually - several successful CEOs of mid-size companies, and after careful study I’m still pretty much clueless as to the personal or intellectual factors that make them .001% outliers professionally.
You and me both, or I would be one...
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