Conservation studies in Papua New Guinea: A review

Among the most widely used measures of cognitive development are Piaget's tests of conservation. In general, children in Western cultures achieve conservation between the ages of about 7 and 11 years. In recent years considerable attention has been focussed on the performance of non‐Western children. In Papua New Guinea the education system is based on the Western pattern and the assumptions underlying Western education have been adopted. These assumptions include many about the level of cognitive development achieved at various ages. The published research on conservation in Papua New Guinea is reviewed, and it is concluded that the performance of children in P.N.G. on conservation tasks is well below that of Europeans of the same age. Suggestions are presented for the development of more adequate standardised procedures for cross‐cultural research in the area.