Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Cognitive development in low-income children: Why should museums care?


In a previous post  we defined poverty and low-income, and addressed some of the ways that museums can engage low-income audiences. In this post, we will examine the effects of poverty on children’s cognitive development and what that means for museums. As free-choice learning institutions, museums need to pay particular attention to how these children, their potential audience, are learning and developing, and how best to reach out to them and help them grow.  

Many researchers have found that household income plays a major role in a child’s cognitive development, but it is not the only factor. Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal found that biology, genetics, and parent’s mental health and education are also major influences on a child’s development. But income has such a strong influence because low economic status can drive a parent to stress and depression, which will negatively affect the children. Those children then perform poorly in school and grow up to continue the cycle of poverty and financial stress.

Bradley, Corwyn, McAdoo, and Garcia Coll conducted a similar study based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth which found that poverty status has a much greater effect on a child’s access to learning than their ethnicity. This study examined the differences between “poor” and “non-poor” families across four ethnic groups (African-American, Asian-American, European-American, and Hispanic-American) and found that the effects of poverty were proportional across the African- European- and Hispanic- American groups. However, the study did find that European- and Asian- American children were more likely to grow up in homes with books and musical instruments than African- and Hispanic- American children, and therefore experience greater cognitive stimulation.

So, how does this relate to museums? In addition to ethnic backgrounds, the Bradley study looked at children of specific ages (0-2, 3-5, 6-9, and 10-14), as well as the ages of the mothers when the children were born. They found that African-American children were the most likely to frequently visit museums within all age groups.  Among the other ethnicities children between the ages of 3 and 5 were not taken to museums as often as their older counterparts.    Among all ethnic groups, though, “non-poor” children visited museums more often than “poor” children.

If household income is positively related to the level of cognitive stimulation that a child receives, as Votrubal-Drzal states, then there are many children who are not receiving the cognitive stimulation that they need to succeed and become successful adults. And if Xu is correct in stating that in developed nations, home environment is much more influential in a child's life than their school environment, then museums, as community centers, have the ability to influence the stimulation that children experience in their homes. So how do museums reach families and children in order to offer that cognitive stimulation that is so desperately missing from man children’s lives?

In the following posts, we will examine specific examples of how museums are reaching out to low-income families and children.



 

1 comment:

  1. I absolutely agree with all of this, and I saw it in action at my placement in the middle school this fall. The kids who were getting support at home were doing infinitely better than the kids who had little or no attention from their parents, got minimal sleep (often because there were nighttime parties in the house), and were "on their own" for what to do with their time outside of school.

    If the parents or families are unable to bring the kids to the museum, then does the responsibility fall on the schools to bring the students into museums for that cognitive stimulation?

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