A study evaluated the world view of children from a third world low-income family setting. A secondary aim of the study was to see if the developmental stages of world concept formation, first described by Piaget in 1929, were present in the children studied. Ten 5- to 12-year-old Brazilian children were interviewed concerning the origins of the moon, the sun, and the stars, using Jean Piaget's clinical method. The interviews were semi-structured and directed toward the origin and explanation of the birth of the heavenly bodies. According to Piaget, the child undergoes three stages of belief: (1) that the stars are made by man or by God; (2) that creation is a union of nature with artificial forces, and (3) that the origin of the sun, moon, and stars is natural. These views have as a starting point a feeling of participation on the part of the child, who typically uses animism and artificialism in explaining the process. Results indicated that across the subject group, children showed an integral artificialism originating from primitive participation, which gradually gave way to a mitigated artificialism, and ended with naturalistic explanations. The results were in accord with the sequence of stages and average ages put forth by Piaget. (ET)