An investigation on how children from different socioeconomic status (SES) classify geometric shapes

Geometric shapes are one of the main topics in early childhood mathematics education. The studies about the development of early mathematical knowledge reveal that there are some socioeconomic differences in mathematics subjects such as numbers and operations. This study has been carried out to find out whether there is a similar difference in geometry. In the study, four shape-classification tasks were developed by researchers and administered to the children. The sample of the study consisted of 105 children coming from low, middle and high socioeconomic families. The result of the study underlined the statistically significant difference among the SES groups in the rectangle, square and circle classification tasks. No statistically significant difference; however, was found in the triangle classification task. Besides, visual responses were mostly observed in the children’s responses but a decrease in the rate of visual answers and an increase in the number of property answers were observed in line with the transition from low to high socioeconomic class.