Students will examine data on income to understand that their future incomes are correlated with their parents’ incomes.
This is an important part of the economic cycle. An American citizens future income is rooted in the incomes of their parents, unless something changes access that they have to opportunities. This figure below illustrates that a child born into poverty will most likely remain in poverty while the opposite is true for a child born into a wealthy family.
Figure 1. This graph illustrates children’s income level given their parents income.
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Students will analyze charts and maps to determine the correlations between economic inequality and race, location, and upward mobility.
While economic inequality crosses the boundaries of race and gender, it is “intersectional”.
The term intersectionality was made popular by civil rights activist
Kimberle
Crenshaw in 1989. This concept explains that everyone's identity is made up of overlapping social categorizations and depending on the groups you belong in, oppression can be compounded.
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Economic inequality disproportionately affects some races and genders more than others.
For example, black children born into the bottom household income quintile have a 2.5% chance of rising to the top quintile, while white children born into the bottom quintile have a 10.6% chance of rising to the top quintile.
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Furthermore,
Hispanic, Asian, and white Americans are showing growing rates of upward income mobility. Low upward mobility characterizes blacks and Native Americans regardless of whether they are born into a high-income or low-income family.
When considering options to close the economic inequality gap, it is important to consider these variations because interventions are not one-size-fits-all.
Unless there is a policy change, it is unlikely that this trend will reverse.
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Students will gather information that supports the hypothesis that economic inequality is circumstance that they are born into and it is correlated with access to opportunity and outcomes in the future.
“Children born to parents in the top 1% of income are ten times as likely to become inventors than children born to parents of below median income.”
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The children measured in this data have similar 3
rd
grade math test scores. This data tells us that regardless of ability, children born into the top 1% have better chances of acquiring a patent than poorer children.
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This may be attributed to the learning environments that poorer children have access to compared to that of their wealthier counterparts.
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Students will use this data to support or refute the claim “The economic status that a child is born into relates to outcomes.”
Students will then hypothesize ways to level the playing field between children born into low- and high-income families. They will listen to J.D. Vance’s TED Talk
America’s Forgotten Working Class
.
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In this talk, he discusses his journey to upward mobility, sharing the obstacles he faced and the choices he made to overcome those obstacles. Students will use this personal experience to support or refute the claim “The economic status that a child is born into relates to access of opportunity.”
Students will create neo-futuristic theatrical pieces using texts, data, charts, and case studies from this unit.
The Neo-Futurists are an experimental theater troupe that was founded by Greg Allen in 1988.
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Their work is non-illusory, meaning that they do not pretend for the audience. The actors play themselves and the play takes place in the theater or whatever space they are using for performance. They want to create experiences for the audience that are as honest as possible using a combination of sport, poetry, music, or living newspaper. The pieces they create cross a range of genres: political, satirical, comic, tragic, personal, and the list goes on.
This is an appropriate art form for a Social Justice Theatre class as there are a wide range of students in my class with a variety of talents. This form of theatre breaks boundaries and allows students to use the art that they feel comfortable with presenting to an audience. Furthermore, they can use the text that they examine through this unit as the script for their pieces.
Students will reflect on how economic inequality shapes their identity by considering the power money has over the range of choices they can make regarding their future.
Economic status is linked to important factors that impact the quality of life and opportunities. These factors are correlated with the chances of upward economic mobility. Does knowing this information change the way a student thinks about their future? Where they choose to apply to school? The neighborhoods that they decide to plant roots in? The things that they value in life?