ABSTRACT
This chapter describes El Progreso, its physical layout, its history, and its people. It has presented a picture of a community most of whose members have left their homes in the countryside and the towns of the country and who have come to Guatemala City in search of a better life. The chapter also presents the patterns of interaction between caregivers, largely mothers, and the children of our sample, focusing on those which are hypothesized to stimulate mental development and, ultimately, school performance. The socioeconomic index itself was constructed by dividing the four variables into either three or four groups, depending upon their distributions. The general lack of significance of mother's education as a factor in home stimulation undoubtedly reflects the low levels of maternal educational attainment found in the sample and the resulting restriction of variance in this indicator.
