In an effort to determine whether intelligence and school readiness could be estimated from observin g behavior and if middle class Head Start teachers ranked highly those pupils whose behavior resembled middle class behavior, the behavior patterns of 36 Head Start pupils were compared with their teachers' ranking of perceived intelligence and…

THE BEHAVIORAL NORMS OF LOWER CLASS DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN ARE DIFFERENT FROM CHILDREN IN MORE MIDDLE CLASS GROUPS. THE BEHAVIOR OF LOWER CLASS CHILDREN IS INFLUENCED NOT ONLY BY GENERAL SOCIAL CLASS AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND BUT ALSO BY SUCH SPECIFIC INTRACLASS VARIABLES AS FAMILY ENVIRONMENT. THE PRESENT ABSENCE IN THE LITERATURE AND IN PRACTICE…

Thirty-eight preschool children were subjects in this investigation. They were paired on the basis of similarity of sex and dissimilarity of socioeconomic level. Reward for completion of six puzzles was based on cooperation between the partners and, for another six, on competition between them. The data of this study consisted of (a) the content…

A primary purpose of the present study was to further investigate the effects of children upon parents in order to gain a better understanding of the interactional relationship between parents and children. Subjects were 42 middle and upper-middle class parents and their daughters. Mothers and fathers were first observed separately with their…

The effect of a high-opportunity (HO) versus a low-opportunity (LO) play environment on the aggression of preschool children was investigated, hypothesizing that the LO play environment will elicit significantly more aggression than the HO play environment. The two environments were presented randomly to one group of 10 4-year-olds, five of each…

To assess mother-child interaction, 23 mother-child pairs from the West Harlem ghetto (half lower class and half middle class Negroes) and from Washington Square (white middle class) were observed. Children were 3-year-old boys. Each pair spent 30 minutes in a laboratory playroom and were observed and tape-recorded. Children's nonverbal…

The study examines and compares free/spontaneous play behaviors of 20 Hispanic (from Ponce, Puerto Rico) and 20 Anglo (from State College, Pennsylvania) 5-year-old children from middle class socioeconomic strata. Within each of the groups there were 10 boys and 10 girls. Each child was observed in a group play setting in four observational…

The purpose of this study was to generate a library of 198 specimen records of the behavior of 24 3-year-old children in different socioeconomic environments: low income urban, low income rural, and middle income urban. (A specimen record provides a continuous narrative in natural language of the behavior of an individual together with the…

This research was designed to serve two major purposes: (1) to create a substantial library of theoretically neutral observational data as permanent documentation of actual life experiences in the lives of 3-year-old children from different socioeconomic backgrounds and (2) to analyze specimen records in order (a) to describe and quantify the…

THIS STUDY ATTEMPTED TO DETERMINE THE ENVIRONMENTAL PATTERNS (CHILD CARE PRACTICES, PARENTAL ATTITUDES, AND OTHER INTRAFAMILY AND EXTRAFAMILY INFLUENCES) WHICH ARE DETRIMENTAL OR BENEFICIAL TO THE OPTIMAL LEARNING AND INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF LOWER CLASS PUERTO RICAN CHILDREN. A SAMPLE POPULATION CONSISTED OF 95 CHILDREN WHOSE BEHAVIOR HAD BEEN…

The purpose of this study was to develop a method for assessing aspects of the cognitive functioning of young children from their symbolic play. Subjects were 60 children, aged 3 to 5 years, from middle-class and lower-class families. The study was conducted in two phases, with the following objectives: (1) to identify and analyze aspects of…

This project was designed to study the process of parents teaching preschool age children using a direct observational method. Six mothers and their own three-year-old sons from seven ethnic groups participated: middle-class Anglo, lower-class Anglo, English-speaking Mexican-American, bilingual Mexican-American; Spanish-Speaking Mexican-American,…