August 2008: Reaction to Ruby Payne's Book, "Framework for Understanding Poverty"

August 31, 2008

As a sociology major, I inhaled Payne’s book with exhilaration! She put several of the major social theories I’ve been chewing on and digesting for the past few years during undergrad into layman’s terms. My reflection on this book is going to be translating it from Payne’s terms into a sociologist’s terms, just because I love sociology so darn much. I believe Payne's representation of poverty and those who live in poverty is pretty accurate, with a few minor exceptions (one being her statement that most Hispanics in poverty have two-parent households). Because I think her representations are (overall) accurate, I will draw to the surface the evidence and theories (which, in good sociology, are linked) that support her seemingly over-broad, and sometimes outrageous, claims.

Chapter one and six were about what James Coleman calls “social capital.” As I learned in a college seminar, enthrallingly titled ‘American Youth Violence,’ all these various forms of non-monetary resources Payne lists (mental, spiritual, the ‘net’ of social support systems, etc.) form multiple layers of protection for at-risk youths which push them down a non-delinquent trajectory, or life-path.  If an at-risk youth can make it to the age of 16 or 17 without criminal offenses, research suggests that that youth has successfully dodged a life trajectory of delinquency. So preventing juvenile delinquency is about piling on the protective factors so teens can make it to that point.

Chapters 2, 3 and 8 reminded me of Peter Bourdieu and Anne Lareau’s work on “cultural capital” – that is, the internal, hidden knowledge a class has for communicating and surviving. One interesting point Payne failed to bring up in chapter two is the difference in how children from working class (as opposed to middle class) families hear a middle class teacher’s instructions. For example, these children are accustomed to directives from their parents, no polite question-form demands, i.e., “Otis, read page 5,” instead of “Otis, will you please read page 5?” Also, for children of the working class, imaginative play and asking questions is strongly discouraged at home, so they are at a disadvantage at school, where these things are expected and rewarded.

When Payne says, “hidden rules...are often the factors that keep an individual from moving upward in a career,” she is talking about the conflict perspective in sociology, espoused by Marx, Weber and Kozol (44). This perspective holds that the classes are always opposed to each other, and the upper class has both overt and covert ways of holding the lower class down where they are (preventing mobility). No wonder poor people “actively distrust organizations” (59)!

In the conclusion, when Payne talks about grieving the fact that adults in poverty seem to be left option-less, I was reminded of the strain theory in sociology, which states that structurally blocked opportunities literally slice away choices for an individual to avoid deviance or poverty.

I remember when I was being trained to be a mentor for a Hispanic girl when I was in college. The mentoring agency I did this through used Payne’s book in the mentor’s orientation meeting. The agency emphasized how those in poverty don’t know how to plan for the future (which Payne discusses in chapters 3 and 4), but rather emphasize their current feelings. I also remember being taken aback by Payne’s comment that people in poverty rely much more heavily on entertainment as a respite, and that they will dispose quickly of (much-needed!) income on DVDs, etc. I also recall that the agency said that the main resource a mentor gives a mentee is the lesson of positive and procedural self-talk, so that the mentee’s habit of impulsive decision making is revised.

I would definitely say that the book helped me understand my student population better, by enabling me to empathize with them (which is an important staple to keep intact when teaching, as draining and depressing as it can some days be); administering and reading my anonymous student surveys did the same thing. The book also gave concrete, practical tips and tools to implement better teacher-student rapport. What I like best about Payne’s book are the applications she lists in bullet-points at the end of each chapter. It really helps me simmer down to think of my students in terms of being products of their home environments, which are not necessarily bad environments, just environments with stresses of which I ought not be blind. If I can remember this this year, it will help me be a more compassionate teacher, who will groan, perhaps, at having to call a second time to reschedule a missed detention, instead of blowing a fuse over it. My favorite bullet-point motivated me to teach goal-setting and be an unwavering role-model to my students.  Chapter 8 also inspired me to set a new goal for myself as a teacher: to enhance my students’ ability to time-manage and use precise vocabulary to express themselves (I like the word maps on p. 100).

I also like the instances in which she tells real-life cases of how schools are addressing breakdowns in social support systems, like the middle school in TX with homework time and late buses built into the school day...how inspiring!

What I dislike most about Payne’s book is that she uses sources that are NOT academic. It’s an unpalatable mixture of good research and worthless subjective babble. Her goal to author a book that puts social phenomena within the layman’s reach is excellent; but I don’t like, for example, that she treats Steven Covey (a pop-, positive-psychology writer) and C. Wright Mills (an empirical social researcher) as equivalents in credibility and objectivity.