The Development of Class Awareness in Children

Class awareness on three dimensions (cognitive, behavioral, and evaluative) was tested among 216 children in grades one, four, and six of a public school system. On the cognitive test (perception of social differences), age and sex were found to be related to performance. On the behavioral test (recognition of behavioral correlates to cognitive cues), age, social class, and IQ are related to performance. The evaluative test (attachment of evaluations on the basis of cognitive cues), shows no significant results. Possible reasons for this are discussed. With the myriad of literature in social stratification, it is surprising that so little work has been done on the development of class awareness. Lasswell (1958, 1961; Lasswell and Parshall, 1961) suggested that most adults hold to popular conceptions of social classes which are comprised of sets of stereotypes, and he has found evidence to support this. There is also research suggesting that these stereotypes are well developed by the time a person reaches adolescence (Centers, 1950; Congatton, 1952; Himmelweit et al., 1952; Montague, 1954). However, little work has been done investigating the developmental process of acquiring the stereotypes-that is, little work has been done on the development of class awareness. Estvan (1952, 1958, 1965, 1966; Estvan and Estvan, 1959) has done extensive studies of what he calls children's social perception. He is interested in seeing how children view their social world, and in particular what they say about "life situations" presenting contrasts in rural and urban environment; in child and adult activities; and in upperand lowersocioeconomic background. With regard to social-status perception, Estvan finds increasing age to be related to increasing awareness of status symbols. He finds intelligence and rural-urban background of the child unrelated to perception of social status. There seem to be only two studies entirely focused on children's perceptions of social class. The first and most comprehensive is a work by Celia Stendler (1949). Stendler sampled children at four grade levels: first, fourth, sixth, and eighth. She stratified her sample by class position and sex, and tested class awareness in the children by several procedures. The major test was a picture test containing four sets of pictures illustrating homes, recreation, clothes, and jobs at three socioeconomic levels. Stendler found that the first-grade child is "not yet dealing with the problem of social class," but that as the child grows older he becomes increasingly able to rate the pictures as do adult raters, and able to give sophisticated reasons for his ratings. She also found that social class and intelligence are related to the ability to correctly rate the pictures. The only other study in this area was done in 1959 by Gustav Jahoda. Jahoda's testing procedure involved making "socially congruous" pictures by assembling puzzle-like drawings, with lower-middle class drawings fitting together as well as lower-lower or middle-middle drawings. Unlike Stendler, Jahoda found that even at the first-grade level children were perceiving class differences. He also partialed out the effects of intelligence from social class and concluded that the relation between performance scores and social class of the child was largely the result of intelligence. The general problem of class awareness to be investigated in this study involves three dimensions: a cognitive dimension; a behavioral dimension; and an evaluative dimension. The cognitive component of social class awareness involves the simple perception or recognition of social differences. The behavioral dimension involves recognition that behavioral * This research was supported by a National Science Foundation grant, GS2520.