How Poverty Affects the Didactic Triangle
Overview
This paper examines the impact of poverty and precarity on the three constituent elements of the didactic triangle: teachers, learners, and curriculum. The author argues that poverty negatively affects each vertex of the educational system, with particular emphasis on learners as the most vulnerable component, and explores how breaking intergenerational disadvantage requires addressing poverty's reach across all instructional processes.
What this essay covers
- Introduction defining poverty through the lens of basic needs access and its manifestations
- Distinction between poverty and precarity with global statistical context and Scotland's situation
- The Didactic Triangle model explaining its three equal components and how poverty disrupts balance
- Analysis of poverty's effects on teachers, learners, and curriculum individually
Preview
How Poverty Affects the Didactic Triangle
University of Strathclyde
Educational Studies: Professional Values
Student ID: 202092487
How Poverty Affects the Didactic Triangle
Introduction
Poverty can never be defined adequately in a particular way owing to the diverse range of definitions breadth of its range of definitions. This fact notwithstanding, poverty can be explored through various lenses, such as primary needs vis-à-vis attainment of the said needs. If this perspective is adopted, poverty can be considered an individual's inability to access basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, and even education (Wagle, 2018). This approach is more relatable, and the way it affects each of the three vertices of the didactic triangle, namely the teacher, the learner, and the curriculum- all of which are equally significant- is clearer. Manifestations of poverty include but are not limited to malnutrition, hunger, social discrimination, exclusion, and lack of participation in making decisions. Notably, family background is a crucial predictor of academic success and credible evidence has it that poverty directly and negatively affects a child's educational outcome (Naven et al., 2019). For example, children bred in poverty will likely exhibit impaired working memory, short attention spans, and lack of creativity which makes school harder for them.
Poverty and Precarity
Poverty points at the inability of an individual or a people to afford necessities. On the other hand, precarity refers to the worrying uncertainty people find themselves in when they are undergoing tough times like job losses, unemployment, and underpayment (Kirk, 2019).