My father often talked about how he cherished his educational opportunities despite growing up poor. Like many who ‘came from nothing’, he believes that he managed to pull himself up by his own bootstraps through his own effort, and utilising formal education the best way he could enabled him to climb up the social ladder. In many ways I did think that it was quite an accomplishment that he could escape from the intergenerational poverty his family suffered from, even though I knew he understated the influence of many other things, a supportive family that prioritised academic achievement, for instance.
A report on child destitution sharpened the distinction I was groping for: poverty isn’t a single, unified experience. My dad might’ve been poor, but he was never destitute. Sure, he didn’t have much money, but he always had enough to eat, a roof over his head that wasn’t going anywhere, and clean clothes. Destitution represents a harsher reality for those who are without access to shelter, food, heating, lighting, clothing and footwear, and basic toiletries due to extreme low income or poverty (Harriss-White, 2005). The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated that approximately 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022, including around one million children (JRF, 2023).
This matters for how we talk about school. For children in destitution, even attendance is precarious. How do you do homework without lights? Get to class without bus fare? Sit through lessons after skipping breakfast? For them, the story of mobility that my dad told cannot even begin to unfold. Just to be clear (in case my father reads this): this is not to say that his efforts shouldn’t be valued at all; his effort mattered precisely because the world around him allowed it to accumulate rather than dissipate. But this does mean two things: one, we could do with less mythmaking, and two, we as a society need to address the issue of destitution.
Survivorship bias could obscure many things. They invites us to listen to the people who make it and take their path as typical, when it is often exceptional. Universalising from these visible few who “made it,” we then turn fortune into virtue, misfortune into inadequacies, and underestimate how morally arbitrary factors – talent, effort and socioeconomic conditions – all played into the stories. My father’s story is sincere, but particular – everything that scaffolded his success was taken for granted by him, but is by no means guaranteed for all.
The first few steps towards a ‘solution’ seem simple enough to me: secure housing that prevents eviction and long commutes from temporary accommodation; heat, light, and basic connectivity so homework and school communication aren’t luxuries; breakfast at school, transport passes, and no-cost uniforms. Though none of this is glamorous, they feel decisive in making sure that the language of educational achievement or expectations has somewhere to land.
It is tempting—especially in academic settings—to elevate the conversation into abstractions. For instance, the word destitution has its Heideggerian interpretation: Heidegger called our age “destitute” not for lack of money but for lack of gods, grounding, orientation—a metaphysical destitution. Much can be said about that diagnosis, but the ‘lack of money’, the more literal destitution these children are faced with on a daily basis should surely make such talk ring a little hollow. When we lament homelessness in the house of Being, we might also want to attend to actual homelessness.
My earlier insistence on the word destitution, rather than poverty, might sound like academic hair-splitting, but words do matter. ‘Poverty’ can flatten the distinctions we need to make in order to direct attention to those who most need it. For (literally!) millions of children, school is not a ladder out of their current reality because there is no firm ground upon which the ladder can rest on.
References:
Harriss-White, B. (2005) ‘Destitution and the Poverty of its Politics – With Special Reference to South Asia’, World Development, 33(6), pp.881-891.
Fitzpatrick, S., Bramley, G., Treanor, M., Blenkinsopp, J., McIntyre, J., Johnsen, S. and McMordie, L. (2023). Destitution in the UK 2023 | Joseph Rowntree Foundation. [online] www.jrf.org.uk. Available at: https://www.jrf.org.uk/deep-poverty-and-destitution/destitution-in-the-uk-2023.
Author:
Yuxin Su is a PhD student at UCL, IOE. She is interested in how teachers make moral decisions in the classroom. She’s also the editor of this blog.