Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumWATCH: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton Both Used Joe Biden 'Millions Fewer Words' Talking Point
I wish it weren't necessary to post this, but it is because Biden's being called racist, or at least racially insensitive, for saying things that HRC and Obama also said.
New article at Mediate, with video:
https://www.mediaite.com/news/watch-barack-obama-and-hillary-clinton-both-used-joe-biden-millions-fewer-words-talking-point/
Clinton said that By the age of four, children in lower income families have heard 30 million fewer words than children in more affluent families, and that scientists can literally watch the synapses and neurons firing when parents read and talk with their children from the very earliest days.
The campaign was part of a Clinton Foundation initiative called Too Small to Fail.
And then-future President Barack Obama campaigned on, then delivered, funding for voluntary programs that provide nurses, social workers, and other professionals to meet with at-risk families in their homes and connect them to assistance that impacts a childs health, development, and ability to learn.
President Obama also cited the vocabulary gap frequently, as he did in this February 27, 2014 speech that also referenced resources like those Biden spoke about.
-snip-
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
bluewater
(5,376 posts)The point isnt that Bidens comments are the same as Clintons or Obamas they arent, and Obama and Clinton each took their fair share of criticism on issues of race.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)Minor details, I guess.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)True or not, he DID suggest social services should go to homes to tell people how to parent.
If it were just about literacy and the value of 'words' that should be a public service announcement, not a private invasion.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
strange how often it has to be explained what Joe meant
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Mr.Bill
(24,103 posts)Besides you, I mean.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
bluewater
(5,376 posts)The Long, Contentious History of the Word Gap Study
A 1995 study which suggested that kids from richer families are exposed to more spoken words than those from poorer families has long been the subject of controversy. Now, a new study fails to replicate its central finding.
Back in the 1990s, a team of researchers spent two and a half years visiting the homes of close to four dozen families with young children, starting when the kids were 7 months old. Equipped with tape recorders and notebooks, the researchersled by two Kansas psychologists named Betty Hart and Todd Risleyspent an hour per week in each home, recording every word a childs primary caregiver said to the child during the sessions. After transcribing each conversation and then analyzing the exchanges as a whole, the researchers (who have both since passed away) discovered major differences in the number of words spoken in middle-class families and in lower-income ones.
The result of their research was a landmark study published in 1995, which maintained that a typical child whose parents are highly educated and working professionals is exposed to roughly 1,540 more spoken words per hour than a typical child on welfare. Over time, they concluded, this word gap snowballs so much that by age 4, children in rich families have been exposed to 32 million more words than children in poorer ones.
The study was a sensation, with the media and policymakers fixating on the so-called word gap as a key source of longer-term academic disparities between poor and rich kids. It was immediately embraced by academic researchers, and was cited in more than 7,000 academic publications. It influenced welfare initiatives, government pilot programs, and grant campaigns. The Obama administration championed efforts to close the word gap, organizing a campaign to raise awareness of the issue and to encourage parents to talk more to their children.
Now, a new study has failed to replicate Hart and Risleys findings, further complicating the legacy of this body of research and renewing a long-standing debate among researchers about just how large disparities of language and vocabulary are among different social classesand how much those differences matter, if at all.
The new study, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development, reflects the findings of a group of researchers who over the course of two decades studied nearly four dozen families across five different geographic locations in the United States. Three of the communities studied were urban while one was rural; two communities were poor, one was middle class, and two were working class. (One was African American, and the rest were European American.) As with the 1995 study, the researchers recorded conversations between parents and their children, counting the number of words and conducting other linguistic assessments. But they also analyzed the words spoken by all of a given childs caregivers to that child, as well as those spoken between other people within earshot, even if not directed at the childan exchange between a parent and older sibling while the child was in the room, for example.
Douglas Sperrythe lead researcher and a psychology professor at Indianas Saint Mary-of-the-Woods Collegeand his colleagues didnt find a correlation between the socioeconomic status of a childs family and the number of words that child hears. There is a lot more language going on in the homes of [low-income] people ... than the Hart-Risley study suggests, Sperry said. The results were all over the map, with lots of variation within each socioeconomic level.
Other scholars and activists have also critiqued the original word-gap studys methodology and the way its findings have been interpreted by policymakers. Critics say that policies that grew out of simplistic interpretations of this study were racist, classist, and simply ineffective. Some policymakers and education reformers, they said, blamed parents for the academic gap, instead of acknowledging the other forces at play.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/06/the-long-contentious-history-of-the-word-gap-study/562850/
So, why is Joe Biden STILL pushing a racially biased study that new research has failed to replicate?
Sorry, but trying to hide Biden's actions pushing a debunked study THIS WEEK based on what other people said in good faith years ago, is inexcusable.
This is the problem when Biden insists on retelling and retelling old stories. He really needs to stay more current on such a sensitive issue before insinuating minority and poor parents are the problem.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Loki Liesmith
(4,602 posts)Cant wait to see what people post after hes nominated.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Thekaspervote
(32,606 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
HeartlandProgressive
(294 posts)Why would anyone bring that up in 2019?
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
samnsara
(17,570 posts)I noticed some babies talking at a very advanced age... these were always babies of the very young moms...14-16 yrs. When observing these moms at home with their babies, the younger moms tended to read to their babies and talk to them a LOT more compared to older mothers. This held across race and income levels....(altho about 95% of the families I saw were impoverished to some extent...I did have a few families who were professionals with adequate resources).
Now, altho I have no imperial data to back it up and just my observations to base this on...it seemed to me at the time, the very young teen moms had all their needs being met because they are basically children yet. They still had at least one parent who was responsible for the family, who cooked, cleaned and paid the bills...all of lifes daily struggles.. (regardless of family income levels)...allowing the very young mom the freedom to always talk to her newborn, to read to her newborn to play house with her newborn and just be a mom. ....(and what 14 yr old doesnt like being waited on?). The babes of these young teen moms seemed to reach other developmental milestones earlier as well.
It really does take a Village....
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Thekaspervote
(32,606 posts)Biased, unprofessional rambling
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
wellst0nev0ter
(7,509 posts)and you can see how that is offensive.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
elleng
(130,126 posts)No 'news' here, really, for those paying attention, but I guess bashers gotta bash.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
rogue emissary
(3,147 posts)Twisting Hillary's statement. The example you provide has nothing to do with her talking about the inequality in our country's educational system. It also doesn't address
disparities between different racial communities.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Cha
(295,899 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)NOT necessary to counter ugly lies absolutely everyone knows are lies.
Those who pounded and filed this decent and caring discussion into a shiv are contemptible, but they got their satisfaction from exercise of malice. Can't undo that.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
IronLionZion
(45,256 posts)While most liberals agree it's important for early childhood education and building their vocabulary, it can be done without talking down to POC as if some races don't know how to raise their kids.
The original question was:
We know Biden means well, but these comments are not helping. And the people who don't know what's wrong with these types of comments don't look like the people who these comments are about.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Gothmog
(143,999 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden