Poverty, affluence and the Socratic method: Parents' questions versus statements within collaborative problem-solving

doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2015.11.003

Language & Communication

Volume 47, March 2016, Pages 23-29

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2015.11.003 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Vygotskian theory – Scaffolding language, particularly questions that support children's internalization of language as a thinking tool.
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The effects of Socioeconomic Status on parents' mindfully rich language to children, during collaborative problem solving discourse.
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Discussion of suppressive effects of poverty instructive questions. Focus on questions as a more effortful dialectical approach to instruction.
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SES differences in parents' use of question vs. statements, using correlational and comparative statistics controlling for child variables.
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Results and discussion: SES differences and parenting stress as a facet of poverty that impacts parent-child discourse.

Abstract

Parents' rhetorical questions to preschoolers are ubiquitous within collaborative problem-solving, and central to Vygotskian pedagogy. This perspective privileges questions as a discourse structure, important for emergent metacognitive self-regulation. Few studies investigate effects of poverty on parents' collaborative talk, particularly frequency of questions relative to statements, or factors such as parenting-stress and children's language ability. Analyses of 25 parents' scaffolding language during a construction task revealed suppressed questioning among low-SES parents, and among only those High-SES parents reporting high parenting stress. Correlations controlling for child age and language ability revealed associations between parenting stress and less frequent questioning as a discourse style. Discussion focuses on the question of how exposure to rhetorical questions helps children internalize language as a thinking tool.

Section snippets

How may socioeconomic status affect parents' questions?

There is an extensive literature on family characteristics associated with parent–child talk during collaborative activity (e.g. Huston et al., 1997, Sun and Rao, 2012), particularly how low SES predicts fewer routinized questions that require children to reflect on what they know, and how to articulate this awareness (Freund, 1990, Hall et al., 1988, Neitzel and Stright, 2003). However, these studies do not compare questions as a grammatical structure against statement forms. Though a very

Participants

Our participants consisted of twenty-five parent-child dyads that were recruited from private preschools (11 high SES dyads), and low-income Head Start centers (14 low SES dyads). A total of 17 boys and 8 girls participated (mean age = 4.43, SD = .92, range = 3.18–6.86. Among the participating parents, 18 were mothers and 7 were fathers. Parents and children were predominantly of White, Anglo-European descent, and ranged from lower working class to upper middle class. All families spoke English

Results

Parents' language data, although not perfectly normal, did not violate the standards needed for using parametric statistics. A Shapiro–Wilk test of normality for scaffolding questions overall was non-significant, but indicated that normality was marginal (W = .93, p > .10). These results suggest that the data sample did not violate assumptions for parametric statistics, but that results should be interpreted carefully. A median split, using total weighted family SES, was used establish high and

Discussion

Overall, the results of this study suggest some pervasive differences in how parents of low SES provide supporting language to their preschool children. Our findings are consistent with many previously published observations about the negative impact of poverty on parent–child discourse, but also reveal some nuanced aspects of socioeconomic status that go largely undocumented.

Although parents of low SES did not provide less on-task, supportive language overall while collaborating with their

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View full text

Poverty, affluence and the Socratic method: Parents' questions versus statements within collaborative problem-solving

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

How may socioeconomic status affect parents' questions?

Participants

Results

Discussion

J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry

Infant Behav. Dev.

Dev. Rev.

J. Exp. Child Psychol.

J. Appl. Dev. Psychol.

J. Commun. Disord.

Cogn. Dev.

Dev. Rev.

Early Child. Res. Q.

Parent Stress Index

Questioning as a component of scaffolding in predicting emotion knowledge in preschoolers

Early Child Dev. Care

Observing Interaction: an Introduction to Sequential Analysis

The Barratt Simplified Measure of Social Status (BSMSS) Measuring SES

Helping children and their parents ask better questions: an intervention study

J. Res. Child. Educ.

Effects of the use of introductory rhetorical questions versus statements on information processing

J. Personal. Soc. Psychol.

Children's questions: a mechanism for cognitive development: I. Introduction

Monogr. Soc. Res. Child. Dev.

Socioeconomic status, neighborhood disadvantage, and poverty-related stress: prospective effects on psychological syndromes among diverse low-income families

J. Econ. Psychol.

Maternal and child characteristics as antecedents of maternal mind-mindedness

Infant Ment. Health J.

Preschool talk: patterns of teacher-child interaction in early childhood classrooms

J. Res. Child. Educ.

Attention to language: lessons learned at the dinner table

Soc. Dev.

Adult and child development in the zone of proximal development: socratic dialogue in a playworld

Mind Cult. Act.

Maternal regulation of children's problem-solving behavior and its impact on children's performance

Child. Dev.

Collaborative problem solving and children's planning skills

Dev. Psychol.

Reminiscing in the early years: patterns of maternal elaborativeness and children's remembering

Int. J. Behav. Dev.