Payne's A Framework For Understanding Poverty

Stacy Behlau
A Framework for Understanding Poverty

A big problem that is plaguing many educators in today’s world is how to work with children who are living in poverty. Many of today’s educators come from a background of being middle class typically so they find it difficult to be able to communicate and to get information through to children of lower classes because they do not truly understand the needs of these students . With the passing of NCLB, school districts must now worry about how they are going to keep students from a lower socioeconomic status preceding at the same rate that all other students are.
Ruby Payne’s book, “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” focuses on families from lower socioeconomic status and the hidden rules that this class has. As educators I feel that this book is important for all who work with students to read because it does give some tips that are useful when working with these students. Each social class has their own set of values and rules that they live by. Many people do not know certain things about social classes that are not their own and if we are going to work with children from all different classes we need to be well versed in their culture so that we may be able to help them to the best of our abilities.
In her book, Payne lists some of the hidden rules of poverty. Some of these rules include that the noise level is always high, the most important information is non-verbal, and one of the main values of an individual to the group is an ability to entertain. Payne also points out in her book that most students from poverty do not have the same registers of language that most students have. She states that most students from poverty speak mainly in casual register instead of the formal register that most of us were taught to speak at school in.
Payne’s work has been met with much criticism from scholars who say that her work is based on assumptions from people that she has encountered and is not based on any scientific research. Also it has been said that she is perpetuating the stereotype of poor families. There are two types of poverty so it is unfair to lump all children who are currently living in poverty in the same category. There are children who have been born and raised in impoverished families which is considered generational poverty, and then there are those that do to unforeseen circumstances were in the middle class and have found themselves living in poverty all of the sudden. This last type of poverty is called situational poverty. One outspoken critic of Payne’s work is Anita Bohn. In Bohn’s 2006 article, “A Framework for Understanding Ruby Payne” she writes that Payne’s case studies are no more “substantive than a few random anecdotes about children and families she claims to have encountered over the years.” Many say that she has ignored research and data that has been gathered and gone solely off of her own ideas and “experiences”. Bohn and many other critics find the picture poverty-stricken children and fillies painted by Payne’s work to be superficial and insulting.
Payne’s message is important and could be useful to educators if it is used in the correct contexts. It is good to know that some families value things like entertainment more than other things like education but this does not speak for all families in poverty so it would be wrong to treat all children from impoverished families the same. Instead, teachers should read Payne’s book, take in the information, and learn how to properly communicate with families of a lower class. Teachers should not read this book and just assume that all families are the same. If teachers want all of the children in their classrooms to be successful simply reading a book will not help, they will need to be more flexible with lesson plans and the way the information is taught in order to get the message across to all children.

Bohn, A. (2006). A Framework for understanding Ruby Payne. Rethinking Schools Online Volume 21(2). http://www.rethinkingschools.org/
Payne, R. (2005). A Framework for Understanding Poverty. Highlands TX: Aha! Process Inc.