ABSTRACT
I should like to consider what we know about the education of the very young, about what may be formative influences during infancy and early childhood upon later intellectual competence and how these influences may be more compassionately deployed. Our focus will be upon the manner in which social and cultural background affects upbringing and thereby affects intellectual functioning. And within that wide compass, we shall limit ourselves further by concentrating principally upon the impact of poverty and dispossession.
