Questions asked by Turkish preschoolers from middle-SES and low-SES families

Research with preschoolers growing up in the US and UK highlights the importance of young children's questions as a tool for learning from knowledgeable others; however, studies on this topic in different sociocultural contexts are scarce. The present study addressed this gap by examining questions of preschoolers growing up in middle-SES and low-SES Turkish families. We presented a total of 105 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (55 middle-SES and 50 low-SES) with pictures of unfamiliar animals and objects in an experimental context to examine what type of questions children asked, and whether the quantity and type of their questions differed depending on the type of answers they received in an informative vs. a non-informative answer condition. We found that Turkish preschoolers asked many questions to gather information about these unfamiliar items, asking more fact-seeking than explanation-seeking questions. They were also more likely to ask information-seeking questions when they received informative answers than non-informative answers to their questions. We found significant SES differences in that children from middle-SES families asked more information-seeking questions than children from low-SES families; and this difference was particularly pronounced for fact-seeking questions. While Turkish children asked some explanation-seeking questions (22% middle-SES, and 10% low-SES), they were less frequent when compared to previous studies with Western samples (26-30% middle-SES). These results suggest that children's questions show differences by socioeconomic and possibly by cultural background, at least in this early period of development.