EARLY EXPERIENCE AND THE SOCIALIZATION OF COGNITIVE MODES IN CHILDREN.

This paper deals with the question what is cultural deprivation and how does it act to shape and depress the resources of the human-mind? The arguments presented are first, that the behavior which leads to social, educational, and economic poverty is socialized in early childhood, second, that the central quality revolved in the effects of cultural deprivation is a lack of cognitive meaning m the mother-child communication system, and, third, that the growth of cognitive processes is fostered in famly control systems which offer and permit a wide range of alternatives of action and thought and that such growth is constricted by systems of control which offer predetermined solutions and few alternatives for consideration and choice The research group was composed of 160 Negro mothers and their 4-year-old chddren selected from four different social status levels The data are presented to show social status differences among the four groups with respect to cognitive functioning and linguistic codes and to offer examples of relations between maternal and child behavior that are congruent with the general lines of argument laid out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]