This paper explores the hypothesis that parents consider preschool education to be more important for boys than for girls. To test this hypothesis, the following questions were examined: (1) Are boys disproportionately enrolled in nursery school? and (2) Do parents emphasize different reasons for enrolling boys and girls? The effect of social…

Examines ways in which current United Kingdom school-choice policies interact with parental pressures on their children to achieve excellence and how these pressures affect the emotional health of their middle- and working-class children as they make the transition from primary to secondary school. Finds serious emotional consequences (exam…

A total of 24 middle class and 16 lower class preschoolers were observed during free play period on 30 consecutive school days. The behaviors of the children were coded by combining the social play categories of Parten and the cognitive play schemes of Smilansky. Results indicate a significant difference in types of play by class. (Author/SB)

The development of locus of control was compared in rural Appalachian Follow Through participants and in lower and middle-class comparison groups. Participation in Follow Through did not enhance internality. A social class by sex interaction was found, and correlations between locus of control and achievement differed for social classes.…

Examines the effects of socialization on the size of Yoruba children's drawings of a man and a woman through use of the Draw a Person test. Findings support the prediction that male figures were drawn relatively larger than female figures only in the low income group, reflecting the gender inequality that appears typical of the Yoruba social…

Cognitive style differences exhibited by middle class and working class male and female adolescents were examined. Dimensions of cognitive style measured include: conceptual differentiation, categorizing flexibility, conceptual preference, originality, ideational fluency, flexibility, and category width. (Author/BW)

Explores narratives given by a group of British students on their future career aspirations, attending particularly to diversity. Offers an analysis of the self that is highly fractured, and reveals that inner diversity may account for contradictory student narratives. Suggests implications for an alternative feminist critical pedagogy that…

It was hypothesized that distinctive verbal processing styles would be characteristic of different social classes and different sexes, and that these differences could be largely explained by earlier socialization experiences. (BW)

Although many education for parenthood (EP) programs have been developed and implemented, a formal systematic determination of the attitudes of the groups to be served has yet to be conducted. A 110-item Education for Parenthood Attitude Scale (EPAS) was developed to measure attitudes toward EP, and administered to a sample of high school (N=226)…

Focusing on the acquisition of science processes, a study was made of the relationship of acculturation and social class to cognitive development among 1,677 lower and lower middle class students enrolled in the public high schools of three rural, 11 semi-urban, and three urban communities. Acculturation was defined at the community level in terms…

Preferences for 92 values, obtained from a survey of cross-cultural studies of values, were obtained from two separate and geographically distant sets of groups consisting of black and white males and females of lower- and middle-Class status. The middle-class black population was of insufficient size to include, however. Value preferences were…

Measured physical and cognitive development of 7- to 10-year-old Brazilian children in 3 social groups. Domestic servants' children were taller and heavier than children in slums, and shorter than middle-class children. Domestic servants' sons scored similar to slum-dwelling boys on cognitive measures. (BC)

In a study of academic attribution patterns, teachers were asked to suggest causes for the successes and failures of students whose backgrounds had been manipulated to provide various combinations of social class (middle, lower), race (White, Asian American), and gender. It was found that teachers cited causes internal to the student more often…

A social structural theory of social class differences as reflected in the nature of parent's work, is used to explore class-differentiated family background influences on school and achievement related outcomes of adolescents. Father's high or low job complexity is thought to be related to parental values for either self-direction or conformity,…