Poverty, urbanicity, and children's development of early academic skills

Abstract:

Poor children across the world live in communities spanning the rural to urban continuum. The United States has witnessed a transformation in the spatial location of poverty, with poor families dispersed increasingly across suburban communities and small towns as well as in inner cities and remote rural areas. Therefore, we must consider the broader macrosystem—what we call urbanicity—in which poverty is experienced. In this article, we draw from psychological and economic theories to present a conceptual model in which the experiences and repercussions of poverty may differ based on the macrosystem in which poverty occurs, that is, whether it happens in an urban, suburban, or rural community. We first describe characteristics of urban, suburban, and rural communities and propose potential repercussions of living in each of these places for economically disadvantaged children’s development. We then summarize results from research on urbanicity differences in associations between income and children’s academic skills. We end with suggestions for research.