April 15, 2007

Ruby Payne -- Fraud?

Personally, having sat through her seminars as part of school in-service trainings, I would say yes.

According to Ruby K. Payne, a consultant to school systems locally and nationwide, teachers should know a few things about poor people.

The Texas-based author says in her book "A Framework for Understanding Poverty": Parents in poverty typically discipline children by beating or verbally chastising them; poor mothers may turn to sex for money and favors; poor students laugh when they get in trouble at school; and low-income parents tend to "beat around the bush" during parent-teacher conferences, instead of getting to the point.

In the past several years, at least five school systems in the Washington area have turned to Payne's lessons, books and workshops.

But many academics say her works are riddled with unverifiable assertions. At the American Educational Research Association's annual conference in Chicago last week, professors from the University of Texas at Austin delivered a report on Payne that argued that more than 600 of her descriptions of poverty in "Framework" cannot be proved true.

"She claims there is a single culture of poverty that people live in. It's an idea that's been discredited since at least the 1960s," said report co-author Randy Bomer.

My biggest criticism of her is that she is as much about instilling stereotypes as she is about tearing them down -- and many of those stereotypes are not healthy.

"She seems to be always stereotyping," Natialy Walker, Prince William's professional development supervisor, said during a staff meeting about Payne last month. "If only we could get away from all the labels and move beyond that."

I teach kids who are poor and minority -- nearly 70% of our kids are on free and reduced lunch, and we are only 12.5% white. And I've found that many of these stereotypes are false -- and get in the way of communicating with students and parents. This is especially true when we deal with Hispanic kids, because they often come from a very different culture from that upon which Payne bases her stereotypes.

Posted by: Greg at 02:03 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 If her observations of the poor are accurate then they help us to better understand the world. Why do you endorse pretending that poor people behave just like middle class people?

Posted by: Half Sigma at Sun Jun 10 12:42:25 2007 (9uPTf)

2 The problem, of course, is that they are not really accurate -- at least not for all groups in all regions. If you had read what i wrote, you would recognize that.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Sun Jun 10 13:13:18 2007 (K/dGH)

3 I just heard of Ruby Payne yesterday; I read about her in an article in the New York Times.

I feel that the dialogue is a good one, though the methods may need a lot of refining. The fact that poor people are being looked at as victims of circumstance is soething that is long overdue. In our culture we sometimes judge people based on their class status, regardless of how or why they are in that position. We therefore sometimes give credit to people who don't deserve it, and likewise we may judge society's poor as "losers" without knowing anything about them.

I understand why people whould be cautious about stereotypes--yet sometimes we need to work through our hesitation to act because we are afraid of criticisms. If Ms. Payne's intentions are good, that makes her work at least ethically benign. But if she is using her methodology merely to advance a little teaching empire for herself, then that would seem to ask for a healthy skepticism.

What do you think? I am interested in what educators think about this. I'm just the daughter of a redneck who is trapped between cultures -- so I kind of get both sides.

Thanks

Lisa Ann

Posted by: Lisa Ann Wright at Wed Jun 13 08:10:52 2007 (jRaac)

4 I think this book is horrible. Within the next few weeks I am planning on posting something on my blog discussing many of the issues I have with Payne and her theories.

Posted by: Not Quite Grown Up at Sat Aug 30 08:14:14 2008 (qRmPU)

5 Ruby Payne completely misses the boat on poverty. She relies on the research of respected anthropologists, sociologists and educational researchers without ever citing them (she suggests that her findings are hers alone when, in fact, she is referring to information that is 20-30 years old). And her interpretation of those findings are erroneous if not dangerous for future teachers. They fall squarely into deficit theory and stereotypes. In essence, she blames the victims of poverty for their situation rather than examining how society--including schools--create and reproduce the situations that cause poverty (largely through inequitable educational opportunities for the poor, racism, and teachers who subscribe to deficit theory thinking). To say that her intentions are good is naive. Her work reinforces the status quo by never questioning the role of classism on student success. She ignores how schools serve hegemonic functions which themselves reproduce economic and social inequality. She calls for assimilation into white, middle class norms rather than exploring how schools and society might be more open to the very real--and very legitimate--other cultures that make up the nation. She conflates the effects and the causes of poverty. She encourages teachers to adopt a deficit perspective toward poor students rather than encouraging them to see the value in the knowledge and experiences these students bring with them to school (values and experiences that our schools ignore as irrelevant). Her work is anything but benign. See the critique "Savage Unrealities" by Paul Gorski for a thoughtful and detailed critique of Payne's "Framework." Available at: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_02/sava212.shtml There are FAR better explorations of the role of poverty on schooling as well as effective means for teachers to work with students from poverty. Payne's work is simply misguided.

Posted by: J.W. White at Tue Sep 16 08:13:45 2008 (w5a30)

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