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Investigating The Connection Between Low Ses, Criminal Behavior And Low Self-Efficacy And Achivement Of African American Students

Bernadette Harris
EDF 6480
Research Study
Assignment 1

Investigating Connections between Low Self-Efficacy, Low Academic Performance and Future Behavioral Problems of Low SES Students

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM:

Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are entering schools with very low self-efficacy which is leading to poor academic achievement. Many of these students later develop behavioral problems of increasing severity, leading to dismal prognoses for their future. As a result, they become frustrated and develop external behavioral problems, often increasing in severity and leading to criminal activity.

Researchers have conducted many studies on the constraints of poverty on high achievement (Burney & Beilke, 2008) beginning in elementary schools and continuing throughout high school and beyond. As early as first grade, low reading achievement has been linked to visible outward behavioral problems as soon as two years later (Morgan, Farkas, Tufis & Sperling, 2008) in students from low socioeconomic backgrounds attending urban schools.

Direct connections have been established by extensive research (Austin, 1978; Crockett, Eggebeen and Hawkins, 1993) between juvenile behavioral problems in school and later criminal activity.

This raises the question to examine whether educators in urban school environments can improve these students’ future prognoses using conventional methods. It seems that the probability of our at risk student populations is pointed toward criminal activity and violence, and thereby threatens not only their futures, but the future of our society. This should be investigated further in an effort to address and support the underlying causes of all three factors, together in the whole child rather than separately or exclusively of each other. We must investigate whether students from low socioeconomic status with low self efficacy in elementary school, later choose criminal behaviors that result...