Yolande Muschamp

Educational Relationships and Their Impact on Poverty.

This paper explores the premise that children in poverty are disadvantaged in their potential to learn by the extent and quality of their social networks and educational relationships. The research examines the quality and sustainability of educational relationships between children and adults in out‐of‐school activities. We build a theoretical argument to suggest that children with a greater number of successful, formal and informal educational relationships stand a better chance of success in terms of on‐going learning and rewarding employment. The study probes how children act as agents in developing and maintaining educational relationships with adults and the constraints on the use of their own agency in negotiating more formal educational settings. It explores educational relationships out of school and compares and contrasts the educational relationships experienced by children in poverty with a matched sample of those in more affluent circumstances. In doing so, it illuminates the nature and scope of educational relationships in supporting children’s engagement with learning; identify perceived gaps in their experiences and capture their explanations of the cause. Learning how to develop and sustain relationships, how to work with others, make use of, and build on other’s expertise are vital in improving life chances and these are the skills much demanded by employers. This research contributes to the understanding of the relationships that support the learning of children in poverty and of the barriers that obstruct their development in school.

‘Nothing to do’: The impact of poverty on pupils' learning identities within out‐of‐school activities

This article reports the findings of a project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which explored the participation of children in out‐of‐school recreational activities. The experiences of children living in poverty were compared and contrasted with their more affluent peers. The aim of the project was to explore these out‐of‐school activities as sites of learning and to identify the impact of the childrens experiences on the development of individual ‘learning identities’. Through in‐depth interviews with 55 children it was concluded that there were substantial differences in levels of participation and in the learning gained from these activities by two different groups of children, and stages in the development of their different dispositions towards the activities were shown. Attempts to identify the roles occupied by the children within a community of practice led the authors to question the extent to which the terms ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ can adequately account for the activity within such a ...

Educational relationships in out-of-school-time activities: are children in poverty missing out again?

Poverty may be the major obstacle to positive life chances in the UK. Ennals and Murphy (2005) suggest that escape from the poverty trap is more likely for those who remain in education after the age of 16. However, school life may bring problems for children from low income families, with learning assuming a lower priority than social acceptance (Ridge, 2005). This article argues that young people in poverty are also less likely to participate in other learning activities. The nature of learning in out-of-school-time settings is explored and the distinctive features of the educational relationships that underpin out-of-school-time learning are discussed. We conclude that children from disadvantaged backgrounds who have acquired an understanding of educational relationships are more likely to develop positive attitudes to learning. Strategies to redress the added disadvantage that non-participation in leisure activities creates for young people in low income families are suggested.