Cumulative and proximal influences on the social environment and children's creative potential.

The influences of socioeconomic status (SES), maturation, school, and sex on creative potential were examined by administering the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking to 1,445 children. Comparisons of means indicated that scores increased with SES, sixth-grade children scored slightly higher than fifth-grade children, and girls in general earned higher scores than boys. Additionally, the school setting and in particular the classroom atmosphere seemed to be far more important to creative potential than has been previously acknowledged. Implications for the concept of creativity and the adequacy of tests as indicators of divergent thinking are discussed.

[1]  C. Jencks,et al.  Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America , 1977 .

[2]  B. J. Winer.  Statistical Principles in Experimental Design , 1992 .

[3]  A. Anastasi,et al.  Note on the Concepts of Creativity and Intelligence. , 1971 .

[4]  R. Case.  Social class differences in intellectual development: A Neo-Piagetian investigation. , 1975 .

[5]  S. Dudek,et al.  Mother‐child relationships and creativity , 1991 .

[6]  M. Runco,et al.  Exceptional giftedness in early adolescence and intrafamilial divergent thinking , 1986, Journal of youth and adolescence.

[7]  B. Bernstein,et al.  Social Class Differences in the Relevance of Language to Socialization , 1969 .

[8]  R. Eisenman,et al.  Creativity, Intelligence, and Achievement , 1968, Psychological reports.

[9]  Paul Kanzer.  The effectiveness of two classes of verbal reinforcers on the performance of middle and lower-class childern1 , 1962 .

[10]  A. Passow,et al.  Education in Depressed Areas , 1963 .

[11]  E. Kris,et al.  Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art , 1952 .

[12]  G. L. Haley,et al.  Creative response styles: the effects of socioeconomic status and problem-solving training , 1984 .

[13]  R. Odom.  Problem-solving strategies as a function of age and socioeconomic level. , 1967, Child development.

[14]  E. Zigler,et al.  Expectancy of success and the probability learning of middle-class lower-class, and retarded children. , 1968, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[15]  L. M. Laosa.  Maternal Teaching Strategies in Chicano Families of Varied Educational and Socioeconomic Levels. , 1978 .

[16]  V. John.  2. The Intellectual Development of Slum Children: Some Preliminary Findings , 1963 .

[17]  Mark A. Runco,et al.  The Reliability and Validity of Ideational Originality in the Divergent Thinking of Academically Gifted and Nongifted Children , 1985 .

[18]  S. B. Khan.  Learning and the Development of Verbal Ability , 1972 .

[19]  S. Tulkin.  Race, class, family, and school achievement. , 1968, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  G. Madaus,et al.  The Heritability of Jensen's Level I and II and Divergent Thinking , 1972 .

[21]  M. Deutsch,et al.  THE ROLE OF SOCIAL CLASS IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AND COGNITION. , 1965, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[22]  L. Shulman,et al.  Modes of thinking in young children , 1965 .

[23]  M. Kohn.  Social Class and Parent-Child Relationships: An Interpretation , 1963, American Journal of Sociology.

[24]  J. Guilford.  Some Misconceptions Regarding Measurement of Creative Talents , 1971 .

[25]  Sex differences in the original thinking of preschool and elementary school children , 1989 .

[26]  J. O. Undheim.  Ability structure in 10-11-year-old children and the theory of fluid and crystalized intelligence. , 1976 .

[27]  E. Paul Torrance,et al.  Are the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking Biased Against or in Favor of “Disadvantaged” Groups? , 1971 .

[28]  E. Paul Torrance,et al.  Rewarding Creative Behavior: Experiments in Classroom Creativity. , 1965 .

[29]  T. Moore.  Language and intelligence: a longitudinal study of the first eight years. II. Environmental correlates of mental growth. , 1968, Human development.

[30]  H. Walberg.  Social Environment as a Mediator of Classroom Learning. , 1969 .

[31]  Nathan Kogan.  Creativity and Sex Differences , 1974 .

[32]  V. Shipman,et al.  Early experience and the socialization of cognitive modes in children. , 1965 .

[33]  Harold H. Anderson,et al.  Creativity and Its Cultivation , 1961 .

[34]  Harold H. Anderson,et al.  Creativity and Its Cultivation , 1961 .

[35]  Robert H. Bruininks,et al.  Creativity, intelligence, and achievement among disadvantaged children , 1970 .

[36]  R. M. Milgram,et al.  Creativity as a Predictor of Teachers' Effectiveness , 1979 .

[37]  Herbert J. Walberg,et al.  Productive human capital: Learning, creativity, and eminence , 1992 .

[38]  Factors in Classroom Environment Variables. , 1976 .

[39]  E. Hong,et al.  Original thinking in preschool children: A validation of ideational fluency measures , 1991 .

[40]  M. Runco,et al.  Birth-Order and Divergent Thinking , 1987 .

[41]  S. Dudek,et al.  The creative thinking and ego functioning of children , 1989 .

[42]  W. D. Rohwer,et al.  Learning, Race, and School Success1 , 1971 .

[43]  A. Preston,et al.  PARENTS' ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS AND GRADE-SCHOOL CHILDREN'S ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS. , 1964, The Journal of genetic psychology.

[44]  W. D. Rohwer,et al.  Sentence effects and noun-pair learning: A developmental interaction during adolescence , 1973 .

[45]  E. Werner.  Sex differences in correlations between children's IQs and measures of parental ability, and enviromental ratings. , 1969 .

[46]  R. M. Milgram.  Creativity as Original Problem-Solving in Gifted and Nongifted Lower- and Middle-Class Children. , 1981 .

[47]  M. Runco,et al.  Family Size, Birth-Order, Age-Interval, and the Creativity of Children. , 1992 .

[48]  J. Lichtenwalner,et al.  The relationship of birth order and socioeconomic status to the creativity of preschool children. , 1969, Child development.

[49]  J. Brophy.  MOTHERS AS TEACHERS OF THEIR OWN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN: THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND TASK STRUCTURE ON TEACHING SPECIFICITY , 1970 .