Conceptions naïves de la mort des végétaux entre six et dix ans

This paper presents results of a study about the knowledge of plants’ death from 40 children of six and ten year-old. Three kinds of measures were available: questions about plants’ death according to typicality, free questions on causes of death and attributions of several kinds of explanations (intentional, teleological, vitalistic and essentialist). Results validated almost all our hypotheses, because typicality appeared to have an influence on the generalisation of death, and young children had more a vitalistic thinking more linked to feeding then essentialism which is more abstract. Such a way of reasoning was most frequent in older children. This kind of study belongs to a current theoretical approach of conceptual development.