Social Class Effects on Northeastern Brazilian Children's Conceptions of Areas of Personal Choice and Social Regulation

2 studies examined middle- and lower-class Brazilian children's concepts of personal choice and social regulation. In Study 1, interviews of 40 middle- and lower-class children (9 and 15 years old) revealed that children across classes distinguished moral from conventional issues on the bases of rule contingency and act generalizability criteria. Lower-class children, however, were less likely to view conventions as rule contingent and more likely to generalize conventional acts. In Study 2, interviews of 240 middle- and lower-class children (ages 8, 12, 16 years) found that across classes, children distinguished prudential issues from matters they treated as personal. Prudential issues were seen as subject to parental authority. Middle-class children were more likely to treat personal issues as matters of choice. With age, lower-class children increasingly tended to treat personal items as matters of choice, and by adolescence there were no class differences. Findings show that Brazilian children maintain a heterogeneous orientation to rules and authority which includes a domain of personal choice. Class differences indicate that hierarchical social structures affect children's sense of autonomy. However, developmental effects indicate that a domain of personal choice emerges among children across social classes.