Categorisation as an Intellectual Operation in Children at the Beginning of their School Years in the Context of Different Social-Cultural Environments

Studies in the field of intercultural psychology focussing on the question of how social and cultural environments affect cognitive processes usually compare very different cultures in geographical localities distant from each other. They find that members of Western culture usually prioritise an analytical mode of thinking and are more context-independent, while members of Eastern culture tend to prefer holistic modes of thing and for them the relationships between objects and their context are more important. The aim of this study is to test whether similar differences can also be found between children from different cultural environments within the Czech Republic. Specifically, the analysis is directed towards the categorisation abilities of children at the beginning of primary school and involves a comparison between Roma children from a socially under-privileged environment and children from ordinary backgrounds. The first part of the study sets out the theoretical starting-points, the second part presents the research instrument used, and the third part presents the data obtained by testing almost three hundred children. The results are not clearcut. They do not confirm a preference for contextually conditioned categorisation or preference for colour conditioned categorisations among Roma children from socially under-privileged environments.

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