The Cycle Continues

Yesterday I started talking about the cycles that are prevalent in all of the contexts my study looks at. I have two more contexts to think about today: family and personal identity (self). In the family, the cycle that seemed to present itself was one of negative influences leading to negative behaviors. For some of my participants and many of the educators, it seemed like the family is very influential. It is from a young age that people begin developing their scripts, which are the cognitive structures that influence how we think the world operates. The scripts we create for how "typical life" should be will stick with us throughout development. So, if there are negative influences in the home (or low expectations), scripts are developed around these negative influences and/or low expectations. Children begin to believe that what they have experienced is the way the world works. This can be detrimental to their progress in some cases.

On a personal level there are also cycles that are hard to break. Some educators talked about the personal choices adolescents make regarding relationships and how they play out for better or worse. For example, a teen chooses a partner who is educated, then they become pregnant and have a child, then they must work to provide for the child abandoning ideas for higher education, and without education they are likely to remain in poverty. Another cycle that was emphasized by my adolescent participants was around confidence and determination. They talked about hearing from others that they can't make it and eventually believing what they are hearing and not doing what they set out to do.

Now the question: how do we interrupt these cycles to create new pathways that allow them to rise up out of poverty?