The Development of Conservation Concepts in Children from Low-Income Families

Abstract

Summary This study sought to investigate the age when conservation of number, mass, and continuous quantity develop in young children (N = 144; age range 5.3 to 6.11 years) from low-income families. The data reaffirmed that conservation concepts follow an age-related developmental pattern with conservation of mass and continuous quantity emerging, in the majority of children, after the age of seven years. However, 82% of the six-year-olds sampled understood equivalency and reversibility applied to number conservation. In comparing the performance of children from low-income families with children from middle-income families on the same conservation tasks, significant differences were found favoring children from middle-income homes. These differences were significant on conservation of number, mass, and quantity in the six-year-old population. At the age of five, socioeconomic factors did not appear to exert an influence sufficient to differentiate the performance of the two income groups. No significant ...