PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 740004

Schooling, environment, and cognitive development: a cross-cultural study.

H W Stevenson·T Parker·A Wilkinson·B Bonnevaux·M Gonzalez
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of schooling and general environmental conditions on the development of memory and cognitive skills in young children. The subjects were 824 5- and 6-year-old children living in jungle villages and in slum settlements of Lima, Peru. Half of the children in both the jungle and city were Mestizo, and half were Quechua Indians. Some 6-year-olds of each cultural group and in each location attended school; others did not. Memory tasks were presented in different modes of representation, that is, verbal, pictorial, and enactive; and cognitive tasks in "concrete" and "abstract" versions. A sample of parents in each group was interviewed concerning environmental conditions. In addition, samples of upper-middle-class children in Lima and poor children in Detroit were tested to assess the generality of the findings. Attendance at school was related to improvement in performance on all tasks. Improvement was equivalent for both locations, both cultural groups, and each social class. Attendance at school also was accompanied by reduced within-group variability on some tasks and by greater differentiation of cognitive processes within children. Location and cultural group interacted differentially by task according to a complex pattern of relations. There were no indications that the organization of memory or cognitive processes differed as a function of social class, age, location, or cultural group. The results were interpreted in terms of children's opportunities to acquire specific memory and cognitive skills from schooling and from their general experience in a particular environment.

Explore related subjects

Age FactorsChildChild DevelopmentChild, PreschoolCognitionCross-Cultural ComparisonEducationEducational StatusHispanic or LatinoHumansIndians, South AmericanMemoryMethodsMexicoMichiganPeruPsychological TestsSocial ClassSocial EnvironmentComparative StudyJournal Article

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

H W Stevenson, T Parker, A Wilkinson, B Bonnevaux, M Gonzalez. 1978. Schooling, environment, and cognitive development: a cross-cultural study.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/740004/

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed1992

Sex differences in osteoporosis in older adults with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the association of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) with bone mineral density (BMD). DESIGN: A survey of men and women from an established epidemiologic cohort who were separately screened for diabetes by oral glucose tolerance test between 1984 and 1987 and for osteopenia by BMD measured in 1988-1989. SETTING: A community-based population of older adults, Rancho Bernardo, Calif. PARTICIPANTS: The first 627 consecutively seen white men and women aged 55 to 88 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Bone density measured by single photon absorptiometry at the ultradistal wrist and midradius and by dual x-ray absorptiometry at the femoral neck and lumbar spine. MAIN RESULTS: Among the 236 men and 391 women, whose average age was 72 years, 41 men and 39 women had NIDDM, 56 men and 110 women had impaired glucose tolerance, and 139 men and 242 women had normal glucose tolerance. Men with diabetes had BMD levels similar to those men with normal glucose tolerance, whereas women with diabetes had significantly higher BMD levels at all sites than women with normal glucose tolerance. The increased bone density in diabetic women was unexplained by age, obesity, cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, regular physical activity, and the use of diuretics and estrogen. The multiply adjusted mean BMD in women with NIDDM compared with normoglycemic women was 0.600 g/cm2 vs 0.548 g/cm2 at the midradius; 0.265 g/cm2 vs 0.230 g/cm2 at the ultradistal wrist; 0.654 g/cm2 vs 0.610 g/cm2 at the femoral neck; and 0.962 g/cm2 vs 0.859 g/cm2 at the spine. The sex differences were unexplained by survivor bias, prior obesity, or duration of diabetes. Differences were seen in women (but not men) whose diabetes was first detected at the screening evaluation, ie, before drug or dietary treatment. Similarly, in women (but not men) without diabetes increasing BMD levels at all four sites were associated with increasing postchallenge glucose levels independent of age and body mass index. CONCLUSIONS: Older women with NIDDM or hyperglycemia had better BMD than women with normal glucose tolerance, independent of differences in obesity and many other risk factors. No differences in bone density by diabetic status were observed in men. We hypothesize that the sex differences may be explained by the greater androgenicity reported in women with hyperglycemic and hyperinsulinemic conditions.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1992

Suppression of the onset of myelination extends the permissive period for the functional repair of embryonic spinal cord.

In an embryonic chicken, transection of the thoracic spinal cord prior to embryonic day (E) 13 (of the 21-day developmental period) results in complete neuroanatomical repair and functional locomotor recovery. Conversely, repair rapidly diminishes following a transection on E13-E14 and is nonexistent after an E15 transection. The myelination of fiber tracts within the spinal cord also begins on E13, coincident with the transition from permissive to restrictive repair periods. The onset of myelination can be delayed (dysmyelination) until later in development by the direct injection into the thoracic cord on E9-E12 of a monoclonal antibody to galactocerebroside, plus homologous complement. In such a dysmyelinated embryo, a subsequent transection of the thoracic cord as late as E15 resulted in complete neuroanatomical repair and functional recovery (i.e., extended the permissive period for repair).

Age Factors↗