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 involved in the effects of cultural deprivation is a lack of cognitive meaning in the mother-child communication system; and, third, that the growth of cognitive processes is fostered in family 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 children 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.