Who is a thinker? With age, higher SES American children increasingly associate social status with divisions in labour

Abstract

AbstractThis exploratory report investigates how children, aged 6‐ to 12‐years, reason about divisions in labour. It focuses on understanding when in development children might associate higher status groups with intellectual as opposed to physical labour. It explores this question by introducing a sample of mostly mid/high‐SES American children to a novel factory setting and then asking them who is likely to have one of two jobs: a ‘builder’ (physical labour), or ‘thinker’ (intellectual labour) job. Older children were more likely than younger children to associate an individual's higher social status with intellectual labour work as opposed to physical labour work. Children also explained their reasoning, and with age their explanations focused more on social factors like the role of access to ‘choices’ or opportunities in shaping the nature of others' work.