BPS Research Digest discusses research that shows how children’s ways of thinking and feeling are being strongly shaped and delimited, as early as the age of five, through the imposition of social categories and stereotypes.
Poverty shapes how children think about themselves (BPS Research Digest, May 20, 2015)
Everything a human child experiences shapes how they think about themselves and the world around them, so this study, like most psychological studies, is stating the obvious.
Offering a child of poverty an opportunity he would not otherwise have is helpful. Telling him that his environment is shaping his world view is not adding value to the world. It is, again, stating the obvious. The money spent on this study could have been better spent as a donation to a school in a poverty stricken neighborhood.
That is nothing surprising. People tend to conform into the social norms and roles they’re thrown into, especially when there’s a punishment imposed for not following these roles. For people who are down in the society it’s a double bind of the damned if you don’t, damned if you do variety.
