Children's developing understanding of economic inequality and their place within it

Abstract

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“Why do you think their dream fell apart?” parent–child discussions about the causes of economic hardship and inequality.

“…Breanne's emphasis on action and changing systemic conditions is consistent with a growing body of evidence that children Jenna's age can understand structural attributions (Dickinson et al, 2023) and that even young children are inclined to advocate for changing situations that they deem unfair (Elenbaas, 2019b).…”

“…Amanda thinks that Lucy, "just needs to know that there are some families that just don't have GRIFFIN, MISTRY, YOUNG, AND MONTAGUE the resources." There is research evidence that young children of similar age to Lucy (i.e., ages 5 and 6) often do not make structural attributions for economic difference (Dickinson et al, 2023). However, in a year or two Lucy should be able to produce attributions for economic difference and we do not yet know if hearing attributions now might help the development of a diverse array of attributions for the causes of economic inequality.…”

Connecting families: a qualitative study examining the experiences of parenting young children under financial strain in Ontario, Canada

“…Further, some participants believed their children were not aware of their family’s financial strain. While studies on this topic are scarce, existing literature reports the contrary; school-aged children in low-income households are aware of their family’s financial situation and have fears of being marginalized as a result [ 56 , 57 ], and there is evidence that children as young as 3 years have the cognitive capacity to recognize socioeconomic disadvantage and label themselves accordingly [ 58 ]. This suggests that an inconsistency exists between the lived experience of being a child in a low-income household and their parents’ perception of their experience.…”

Economic inequality and student outcomes: What we know and where to go from here.

“…Children are not shielded from economic contexts simply by virtue of their age; they encounter and encode structural and interpersonal cues of wealth and inequality in daily life (Diaz et al, 2023; Legaspi et al, 2023). There is evidence that by the age of 3, children can differentiate between rich and poor individuals based on appearance; by the age of 8, they possess a sophisticated enough understanding of economic stratification to be able to rank jobs by income; by the age of 14, they are aware of the structural forces at play within society, which enables them to connect inequality with economic and political systems (for reviews, see Dickinson et al, 2023; Elenbaas et al, 2020). Moreover, children are not blind to the types of motivations that energize and direct adult behavior.…”