Promoting Elementary School-Age Children’s Understanding of Wealth, Poverty, and Civic Engagement

• Published in: PS, political science & politics political science & politics, 2017-10, Vol.50 (4), p.1068-1073
• Main Authors: Mistry, Rashmita S., Nenadal, Lindsey, Hazelbaker, Taylor, Griffin, Katherine M., White, Elizabeth S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescents; Age; Behavioral Objectives; Child development; Children & youth; Citizen participation; Core curriculum; Educational Practices; Elementary School Teachers; Equal Education; Grade 2; Inequality; Inquiry method; Lesson Plans; Poverty; Social Studies; Stereotypes; Students; Symposium: The Politics and Pedagogy of Economic Inequality; Teachers; Teaching; The Teacher; Tolerance; Wealth; Young Children
• ISSN: 1049-0965; 1537-5935
• DOI: 10.1017/S1049096517001329

Next, we tie together our discussion of theoretical and empirical evidence on children's understanding of wealth and poverty and extant curricula approaches by briefly reviewing findings from a recent evaluation study in which researchers collaborated with teachers in the design, implementation, and evaluation of an arts-based inquiry guided unit addressing wealth and poverty with early elementary school-age children (see Mistry et al. 2016; Mistry et al. 2017; Nenadal and Mistry 2017). A second lesson focuses on fairness and inequality in access to resources and has students participate in an art activity with low- and high-quality resources (e.g., scissors, crayons) as a lead-in to a larger discussion about how unequal resources affect student performance in school (e.g., "What if my school had a library with thousands of new books and your school had a library with just a few old worn out books? An Inquiry-Based Pedagogical Approach to Wealth and Poverty, and Civic Engagement Motivated by developmental science on young children's conceptions of wealth and poverty and by the paucity of extant curricula focused on addressing these topics with young students, we recently undertook an intervention study in collaboration with a team of elementary grade teachers to design, implement, and evaluate an arts-based inquiry guided unit focused on teaching children about wealth and poverty, and civic responsibility (see Mistry et al. 2016; Mistry et al. 2017; Nenadal and Mistry 2017). Motivated by developmental science on young children's conceptions of wealth and poverty and by the paucity of extant curricula focused on addressing these topics with young students, we recently undertook an intervention study in collaboration with a team of elementary grade teachers to design, implement, and evaluate an arts-based inquiry guided unit focused on teaching children about wealth and poverty, and civic responsibility (see Mistry et al. 2016; Mistry et al. 2017; Nenadal and Mistry 2017).