Chilean children's essentialist reasoning about poverty

Abstract

Two studies are reported that examine the hypothesis that children construct representations of poverty based on a theory of causal essentialism. One hundred and twenty Chilean kindergartners, half from low socio-economic status (SES) schools and the other half from high-SES schools, participated in the study. The results showed children's tendency towards an essentialist reasoning about poverty. All children in the study privileged internal features over external ones when deciding who is poor, and also used wealth category as a preferred clue to make inferences about people's attributes. However, only high-SES children's answers were consistent with the belief that poverty is inherited and resistant to growth. Implications of these findings for theory and practice, as well as remaining questions, are addressed.