Adolescent representations of socio‐economic status

Abstract

The development of beliefs about the nature, causes and fairness of occupational prestige and income differentials, in subjects aged 10 to 16 years, was studied in relation to age and social class. Slight but stable age and class differences were found in perceptions of socio‐economic inequality and the kind of explanations postulated for inequality. Open‐ended questions produced a wide variety of explanations for prestige and income differentials but the reasons most commonly employed by all age and class groups were the ‘importance’ or ‘social contribution’ of the job, the ‘effort exerted’ doing the job and the ‘education’ or ‘training’ needed. Strong and stable class effects and some age effects were found in the use of references to ‘education’ or ‘training’. Judgements of the fairness of inequality were subject to class effects but largely unaffected by age. The results are discussed in relation to cognitive developmental theory and the role of social influence and socially transmitted information in the construction of socio‐economic beliefs.

Occupational hierarchy as a device to study Mexican children’s and adolescents’ ideas about consumption and saving in adults

“…Nevertheless by 16, subjects stop considering altruistic actions in physicians and teachers, perhaps because they notice that these occupations have activities that are not altruistic but form part of institutional relations with students and patients. However the fact that children spoke about this type of altruism for the teacher and the physician with money won at a raZe shows that they are establishing occupational diVerences that are not just based on earnings or prestige, as has been the case for most studies on children's understanding of occupational hierarchies (Dickinson, 1990). They seem to be considering another type of social status or esteem for these occupations based on having altruistic traits.…”

“…Young children believe in magical means to obtain money (Berti & Bombi, 1988;Burris, 1983) but from the age of 8 and through the Wrst years of elementary school, they connect income to work, initially considering rich those people who work "harder", "longer" or "better" (Furby, 1980;Siegal, 1981). Older subjects between 12 and 16 years of age understand that diVerences in income also relate to societal factors such as socio-economic status, in terms of fairness of occupational prestige and income diVerentials (Dickinson, 1990;Emler & Dickinson, 1996).…”

Mexican Children's and Adolescents' Development of Occupational Hierarchy Related to Consumption and Saving

“…Nevertheless the fact that subjects spoke about this type of altruism for the teacher and the physician with money won in a raffle lets us to know that they are establishing occupational differences that are not based mainly on earnings or prestige, as has been the case for must of studies on children's development of occupational hierarchy (Dickinson, 1990).They seem to be considering another type of social status or esteem for these occupations based on having altruistic traits. We found no evidence of similar results in earlier studies.…”

“…Some of the studies concerned with children's awareness of social inequalities and social distribution of wealth have been concerned with determining the age at which children share adult knowledge of social class (Jahoda, 1959), their conceptions of social inequalities and social mobility (Connell, 1977;Leahy, 1981), an understanding of socioeconomic status in terms of fairness of occupational prestige and income differentials (Dickinson, 1990) as well as the development of children's'role categorization and social organization, . Understanding of social structure and the social roles it contains, beliefs about the ways in which people and positions are ordered in terms of status, prestige, wealth or power, are closely related to occupation and income.…”

“…Young children believe in magical or chance means of obtaining money, (Burris, 1983;Berti & Bombi, 1988) but from the age of 8 and through the first years of elementary school they connect income to work, initially considering'rich'those people who work 'harder' or 'longer' or 'better' (Furby, 1979;Siegal, 1981;. Older children between 12 and 16 years of age understand that differences in income also relate to social factors such as socioeconomic status in terms of fairness of occupational prestige and income differentials (Dickinson, 1990;. Jahoda (1959) found that Scottish children describing pictures of, for example, a workman, painter, plumber, gentleman, doctor, etc, were sensitive as young as 6 to such visual and concrete cues to socio-economic status as clothing and housing, and to stereotypes of working class and middle class in occupational terms.…”