Interdisciplinary Social Research

Children coming from low SES find it difficult to gain access to a wide range of development, especially socioemotional development. The aim of the present study was to explore the socioemotional development of children coming from low SES. Through a qualitative case study, data was collected using semi-structured face-to-face interviews with two preschool teachers teaching children from low SES families in a government school in Selangor-located Petaling Perdana, Malaysia. In addition, document analysis was conducted on the selected children’s progress portfolios to gain a nuanced understanding of the research. The findings of the study showed that the preschoolers’ socioeconomic factors influence their socio emotional development. It was found that children with low SES exhibit characteristics such as (i) restlessness, (ii) being anti-social, (iii) love to work on their own, (iv) self-loathing, (v) irritability, (vi) sadness/frequent crying, vii) (high level of truancy, and (viii) lack of attention. These findings suggest that low family SES affects the socioemotional development of preschool children. This could be explained by the fact that inadequate financial resources cause a lack of other essential resources for the healthy growth of the children, specifically their socioeconomic development. The results suggests that parents, guardians, and preschool teachers need to work together to ensure that these children would go through a holistic developmental phase for their future well-being. Also, parents or guardians need not be ashamed of informing the teachers about their income status as the government do provide multiple platforms to assist economically disadvantaged groups.