Elementary School Children's Reasoning About Social Class: A Mixed‐Methods Study

Abstract

The current study examined children's identification and reasoning about their subjective social status (SSS), their beliefs about social class groups (i.e., the poor, middle class, and rich), and the associations between the two. Study participants were 117 10- to 12-year-old children of diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds attending a laboratory elementary school in Southern California. Results indicated that children's SSS ratings correlated with indicators of family socioeconomic status and were informed by material possessions, lifestyle characteristics, and social and societal comparisons. Children rated the poor as having fewer positive attributes and more negative attributes than the middle class, and fewer positive attributes than the rich. Lower SSS children held less positive attitudes toward the poor than children with middle SSS ratings.

Children's and Adolescents’ Evaluations of Intergroup Exclusion in Interracial and Interwealth Peer Contexts

“…The low‐wealth group was associated with a small stack of dollar bills, a worn down house, a rusty car, and a picture of an old swing set in a backyard. These depictions of wealth are similar to previous studies on children's understanding of wealth (Elenbaas & Killen, ; Mistry et al., ).…”

“…Furthermore, children referenced negative stereotypes about wealthy peers being snobby, mean, or rude when explaining their perceptions. These findings reveal children's negative perceptions about high‐wealth individuals in peer contexts, alongside recent research highlighting negative stereotypes about competence directed at low‐wealth groups (Mistry et al., ; Shutts et al., ; Sigelman, ). One possibility is that children often visualize the extreme end of the economic spectrum (such as “billionaires”) when describing rich individuals, while identifying themselves as middle class (Mistry et al., ).…”

How social-class stereotypes maintain inequality

“…However, older adolescents show more complex lay theories of both wealth and poverty; although they give credit to the hard work of the wealthy, they are more prone to consider societal/structural factors to explain poverty [18*]. Being low-SES does not seem to lessen children’s tendency to like wealthy people (or to dislike poor ones; [16,17]) and to mention individual factors as an explanation of wealth and poverty [18] (for a review of the psychological consequences for children experiencing economic disadvantage see [19*]).…”

How Unequal Is the United States? Adolescents’ Images of Social Stratification

“…Mistry et al. () adapted the ladder measure for a study with 10‐ to 12‐year‐olds. Children were told to imagine the ladder as a symbol of American society, with the top rung containing people with the most money and the bottom the least.…”