The personal intelligences of a groupof low and high-SES Turkish preschoolers

Abstract

The present study aimed to compare a group of low-and high-SES Turkish preschoolers on the measures of Gardner's (1983) personal intelligences: intra-personal intelligence and inter-personal intelligence. Thus, it small part of Project Spectrum (1988) assessment of the personal intelligences years were carried out. For this pl.<rpose, 24 high-SES preschoolers were compared on two kinds is a replica of a .tudy where the in the preschoo 1 and 24 low-SES of measurement included in the assessment of personal intelligences. First was the measurement of social anal ys is tapping children' s understanding of themselves, understanding of social roles, understanding and personal of peers, intelligence (which was the sum of the scores obtained from the first three). Second was the measurement of social roles where observation of children in social interaction provided their fit (or unfit) into some social roles. The appropriateness of the sample allowed also the comparison of the two age groups (four and five year olds) and the two gender groups (boys and girls) on the measures of personal intelligence. The t test analyses applied to see the difference of the two SES groups on the measures of social analysis demonstrated that low-SES preschoolers obtained significantly higher scores on understanding of peers compared to their high-SES counterparts. No significant sex difference appeared among t test analyses applied to see the differences between boys and girls on the measures of social analysis. Five year olds obtained significantly higher scores than four year oids in understanding of self and understanding of social roles. One-way analysis of variances applied to see the differences among the preschoolers from the four centers on the measures of social analysis showed that they were significantly different on the measures of understandlng of peers and personal intelligence. In both measures subj~cts from one of the high-SES centers were found to obtain the lowest scores. The chi square analyses applied to compare the SES, age and sex groups on the number of children who fit into a role showed that there was a significant sex difference on the frequency of role assignment, where a greater number of girls than boys fit into a role.