How Lack of Access to Information Disadvantages Poor Children

[ThereseR]

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Information capital–the ability to think and use information creatively–evolves as the product of a person’s experiences with words and concepts. Having information capital makes you not only a knowledge consumer but a knowledge creator. Not all children, however, have the same chance of developing information capital. It depends greatly on where you are born. As part of a grant from the William Penn Foundation, we have spent more than 10 years in two divergent Philadelphia neighborhoods, one a low-income neighborhood and one in a middle-class community, watching how information capital grows.</p>

<p>From the start, children in poverty are at a disadvantage, we found. Print materials, a key ingredient in helping children develop reading skills, are hard to find in a low-income neighborhood. There are fewer books, magazines, or newspapers to buy, and fewer school libraries. In the middle-class neighborhood, there were 13 titles available for each child who lived there; in the low-income area, only one title for every 20 children. As a result, children in poverty see fewer people reading and have fewer resources to read themselves.

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<p>Read more here: [Bridging</a> kids’ information gap](<a href=“Bridging kids' information gap”>Bridging kids' information gap)</p>

[ThereseR]

<p>This article raises several important points.</p>