A school-based preferential option for the poor: Child poverty, social justice, and a public health approach to intervention

"Making an option for the poor inevitably implies working for social justice, working with poor people as they struggle to change their situation." Poverty is a significant national problem affecting millions of children in the United States, and it should not and cannot be ignored by schools. To put the problem of child poverty in perspective, in 2007 the U.S. Census Bureau indicated that 18% of children under the age of 18 were living in poverty, up from 17.4% in 2006 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008). This rate represents approximately 13 million children and is higher than the rate for adults ages 18 to 64 and for senior citizens age 65 and older (Whitehouse, 2006). In addition, data from recent years indicates that about 10% of all American families live in poverty, and that more than a quarter of families headed by single mothers are impoverished (DeNavas-Walt et al., 2005). As such, millions of children in our nation's schools are experiencing poverty, indicating that there is an urgent need to disseminate information to school professionals who work with these children (Whitehouse, 2006). The purpose of this chapter is to discuss poverty, particularly the many deleterious effects it has on children. A social justice perspective on child poverty will be provided, including the notion of providing a school-based "preferential option" for children living in poverty. Finally, a public health approach to school-based interventions for children in poverty will be described, including a framework for how interventions can be provided across multiple levels. We begin, however, with a brief overview of poverty.