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.It mighttherefore be suggested that curiosity Whys and challenging Whys areequivalent, differing only in the context in which they appear.Neverthe-less, when all Whys , whether classified as curiosity or challenging, arecombined, it was still the case that the middle-class girls asked more Why questions (nine per hour) than the working-class girls (five perhour). Passages of intellectual search were also more common in theconversation of middle-class children.There were forty-one of thesepassages in the home transcripts of thirteen of the middle-class girls,compared with sixteen in the home transcripts of four of the working-class girls.Further, on average the middle-class girls passages of intellec-tual search lasted for a longer period of time.How are these differences to be explained? It could be argued thatthey are related to the finding that the middle-class girls scored higheron IQ tests.This point will be discussed on page 128.Alternatively, theycould be the consequence of differences in the behaviour of the twogroups of mothers.Middle-class mothers might reinforce questioningby giving frequent and satisfying answers, while working-class mothersmight fail to reinforce questions by not answering them at all.Or a Working-class verbal deprivation: myth or reality? 123completely different learning process might be responsible, with themiddle-class mother modelling question-asking by asking a great manyquestions herself.Is there a social class difference in mothers answer?In order to look at the possibility that mothers of different social classgave different types of answers, we categorized mothers answers to Why questions as full , adequate , inadequate , and no answer.Acrude measure of a full answer was that it contained more than oneclause.More precisely, by full answers we meant answers in which anevent was explained in relation to a general principle, or a detailedexplanation of a process was given, or a specific issue was set in a widercontext.An example of a full answer to the question, Why is thatthere? (indicating the pointer on a sundial) might be, It tells the timeby the sun.The shadow of the pointer marks the hours.As the suncrosses the sky, the shadow moves. Or, to the question, Why haven twe got a fireplace? the mother might have answered, It was hard workcarrying the coal from the cellar to the sitting room, and the coal firemade the room very dirty, so we blocked up the fireplace.A surprisingly small proportion of Why questions (6 per centaltogether) received full answers.Life being short, and mothers havingmuch on their minds, they were much more likely to give what we called adequate answers (37 per cent altogether).These were answers whichwere focused on the question, but contained little by way of explanation e.g., It tells you the time ; We blocked it up.The third category ofanswers, definitely inadequate answers, were almost as frequent (32 percent).These were implicit or oblique or irrelevant answers, or answerswhich gave associated information but didn t answer the question e.g.,in these cases, I haven t seen one of those for a long time ; Your fatherhad enough.A quarter of all Why questions were not answered at all.Other possible ways of answering questions, for example, by saying Idon t know , were, in practice, extremely uncommon.There were significant social class differences in the frequency withwhich some types of answers were given.Middle-class mothers gave adequate answers to 44 per cent of their children s questions, comparedwith only 27 per cent from the working-class mothers.Both groups ofmothers gave an almost identical, very low, proportion of full answers(6 per cent), and both gave a similar proportion of inadequate answers. 124 Working-class verbal deprivation: myth or reality?Working-class mothers were, however, more likely than the middle-classmothers to ignore their children s questions (34 per cent compared with28 per cent).It is easy to suggest reasons for these differences.Sometimes children squestions are very difficult to answer.The adult must be in possessionof, and confident enough to offer, the relevant information, and also beable to convey it in terms which the child can understand.Among thequestions of this kind which we recorded were Why is this a roundchair? Why doesn t the battery work? Why they hot cross buns? How do they make him [puppet on TV] talk? Why are there little ones[stars] as well as big ones? It seems possible that highly educatedmothers could tackle these questions with more confidence than thoseless well educated.However, only a small minority of Why questionsfell into this category.A more important factor may be a social class difference in attitudestowards children s questions.When we interviewed the mothers someweeks after the recording, one question which we put to them was, Children do keep asking questions at this age [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.It mighttherefore be suggested that curiosity Whys and challenging Whys areequivalent, differing only in the context in which they appear.Neverthe-less, when all Whys , whether classified as curiosity or challenging, arecombined, it was still the case that the middle-class girls asked more Why questions (nine per hour) than the working-class girls (five perhour). Passages of intellectual search were also more common in theconversation of middle-class children.There were forty-one of thesepassages in the home transcripts of thirteen of the middle-class girls,compared with sixteen in the home transcripts of four of the working-class girls.Further, on average the middle-class girls passages of intellec-tual search lasted for a longer period of time.How are these differences to be explained? It could be argued thatthey are related to the finding that the middle-class girls scored higheron IQ tests.This point will be discussed on page 128.Alternatively, theycould be the consequence of differences in the behaviour of the twogroups of mothers.Middle-class mothers might reinforce questioningby giving frequent and satisfying answers, while working-class mothersmight fail to reinforce questions by not answering them at all.Or a Working-class verbal deprivation: myth or reality? 123completely different learning process might be responsible, with themiddle-class mother modelling question-asking by asking a great manyquestions herself.Is there a social class difference in mothers answer?In order to look at the possibility that mothers of different social classgave different types of answers, we categorized mothers answers to Why questions as full , adequate , inadequate , and no answer.Acrude measure of a full answer was that it contained more than oneclause.More precisely, by full answers we meant answers in which anevent was explained in relation to a general principle, or a detailedexplanation of a process was given, or a specific issue was set in a widercontext.An example of a full answer to the question, Why is thatthere? (indicating the pointer on a sundial) might be, It tells the timeby the sun.The shadow of the pointer marks the hours.As the suncrosses the sky, the shadow moves. Or, to the question, Why haven twe got a fireplace? the mother might have answered, It was hard workcarrying the coal from the cellar to the sitting room, and the coal firemade the room very dirty, so we blocked up the fireplace.A surprisingly small proportion of Why questions (6 per centaltogether) received full answers.Life being short, and mothers havingmuch on their minds, they were much more likely to give what we called adequate answers (37 per cent altogether).These were answers whichwere focused on the question, but contained little by way of explanation e.g., It tells you the time ; We blocked it up.The third category ofanswers, definitely inadequate answers, were almost as frequent (32 percent).These were implicit or oblique or irrelevant answers, or answerswhich gave associated information but didn t answer the question e.g.,in these cases, I haven t seen one of those for a long time ; Your fatherhad enough.A quarter of all Why questions were not answered at all.Other possible ways of answering questions, for example, by saying Idon t know , were, in practice, extremely uncommon.There were significant social class differences in the frequency withwhich some types of answers were given.Middle-class mothers gave adequate answers to 44 per cent of their children s questions, comparedwith only 27 per cent from the working-class mothers.Both groups ofmothers gave an almost identical, very low, proportion of full answers(6 per cent), and both gave a similar proportion of inadequate answers. 124 Working-class verbal deprivation: myth or reality?Working-class mothers were, however, more likely than the middle-classmothers to ignore their children s questions (34 per cent compared with28 per cent).It is easy to suggest reasons for these differences.Sometimes children squestions are very difficult to answer.The adult must be in possessionof, and confident enough to offer, the relevant information, and also beable to convey it in terms which the child can understand.Among thequestions of this kind which we recorded were Why is this a roundchair? Why doesn t the battery work? Why they hot cross buns? How do they make him [puppet on TV] talk? Why are there little ones[stars] as well as big ones? It seems possible that highly educatedmothers could tackle these questions with more confidence than thoseless well educated.However, only a small minority of Why questionsfell into this category.A more important factor may be a social class difference in attitudestowards children s questions.When we interviewed the mothers someweeks after the recording, one question which we put to them was, Children do keep asking questions at this age [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]