Poverty, Stress, Trauma, and Academic Performance: ACE Scores and Student Outcomes in an Urban District

• In Event: 81.033 - MTCC Roundtable Session 38
  In Roundtable Session: 81.033-11 - Promoting Caregiver and Child Well-Being Across Contexts

Abstract

Students living in poverty more frequently experience traumatic stressors, which we measure using the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Scale. Health researchers continually find strong relationships between ACE scores and negative health outcomes, so we examine whether they also predict negative academic outcomes in a sample of over 6,000 students from Buffalo Public Schools. Although students with higher ACE scores in our data exhibit more behaviors correlated with lower performance (e.g. higher drug use and lower levels of self-belief), ACE scores strongly predict higher school graduation rates, college attendance, and test scores. We discuss the challenges of measuring traumatic stressors in order to ascertain their impact on educational outcomes.

Authors

• Corey Bunje Bower, SUNY - Buffalo

• Kerri Tobin, Louisiana State University