AGE,
SEX
AND SOCIOECON0R;IIC FACTORS
IN CONCEPT IDENTIFICATION
VA
Hospital
and University
of
Oklahoma
College
of
Medicine,
Oklahoma
City
VLADIMIR
PISHKIN AND DIANE
J.
WILLIS
One of the central theoretical issues in the field of developmental psychology
deals with the question of how cultural deprivation acts to shape cognitive func-
tioning. The effects of impoverished home and school environments on the dis-
advantaged child are well documented by studies that compared social-class groups.
There is evidence that deprived children with lower socioeconmic status have
deficits in linguistic development (Bernstein, 1960, 1961a, 1961b; Deutsch,
RI.,
1967; John, 1963; King, 1967; Raph, 1965; Ryckman, 1967), mental ability (Lesser,
Fifer,
&
Clark, 1965), auditory and visual discrimination (Clark
&
Richards, 1966;
Deutsch,
M.,
1967; Katz
&
Deutsch, 1964; Katz
&
Deutsch, 1965), conceptual and
categorizing abilities (Deutsch, C., 1966; Deutsch,
M.,
1967; Klaus
&
Gray, 1968;
Kofsky, 1967; Ryckman, 1967), and on tests of intelligence (Coleman, 1966; Jensen,
1969; Karp
&
Sigel, 1965).
Several investigators have designed studies that required minimal compre-
hension of language in problem-solving behavior
of
lower-class
(IC)
children.
Odom (1967) investigated the effects of social class on the development of problem-
solving strategies in 5-, 6-, and 10-year olds.
He
administered a three-choice dis-
&mination problem in which one choice was rewarded according to a partial
schedule, while t,he other choices never were rewarded. Odom found that strategies
that reflected higher cognitive processes were more pronounced as age and socio-
economic level increased. Odom failed to stress, however, that LC children made
more correct responses than middle-class (MC) children; the results that favored
i
C children were differences in pattern responses and response changes, which
reflect higher cognitive processes. Kofsky (1967) studied disadvantaged 5-year-old
Negro children and found that practice in label pretraining of stimuli did not im-
prove their conceptual performance. However, Scholnicli, Osler, and Katzen-
ellenbogen (1968) found that disadvantaged Caucasian children between the ages of
5
and 9 years showed poorer discrimination learning of stimuli used in subsequent,
conceptual tasks than advantaged children, but performed no differently than these
children on a concept identification task that used the same st'imulus materials.
In general, the results of concept formation st.udies t,hat used
LC
children are
inconclusive since language, in actuality, seemed to be the factor under investigation.
Additional research is needed to investigate the ability of children from differenl,
social-class backgrounds to assimilate simple verbal instructions and to make use
of informational and corrective feedback to existing cognitive schemata. Concep-
tual tasks employed with LC children have been criticized because the materials and
procedures utilized favored
R.IC
children and the tasks used often required con-
siderable comprehension of language. The present study used a concept identifi-
cation (CI) task composed of geometric figures which, according to earlier research
(Pishltin, 1972), should be equally familiar to all children, particularly
if
they have
had kindergarten experience. Accordingly, the major purpose
of
this study was to
compare male and female kindergarten, first- and second-grade, 1,C and
RIC
child-
ren on CI performance.