Organized extracurricular activities (EAs) are prevalent among Chinese preschoolers, yet their role in children's development is poorly understood. This study investigated the relations between EA participation and Chinese preschoolers' school readiness (N = 343; M[subscript age] = 55.14 months) among a predominantly middle-class sample. EA…

Extensive research has explored the ability of young children to learn about the causal structure of the world from patterns of evidence. These studies, however, have been conducted with middle-class samples from North America and Europe. In the present study, low-income Peruvian 4- and 5-year-olds and adults, low-income U.S. 4- and 5-year-olds in…

Amid growing controversy about the oft-cited "30-million-word gap," this investigation uses language data from five American communities across the socioeconomic spectrum to test, for the first time, Hart and Risley's (1995) claim that poor children hear 30 million fewer words than their middle-class counterparts during the early years…

High and low SES mothers of one- and three-year-old children (N=104) were interviewed. Results showed that low SES mothers believed that infants acquire basic cognitive skills later and that the introduction of cognitively stimulating activities should occur later than did high SES mothers. (JMB)

Examined personal storytelling of European-American preschoolers from working- or middle-class families as a medium through which they construct autonomous selves. Found that children in both communities had extensive rights to speak of past experiences and limited rights to author experiences. Middle-class communities viewed expressing one's view…