Class awareness among rural children was investigated in three dimensions: cognitive, behavioral, and evaluative. Data were obtained from 378 white students in grades K-8 in 9 rural elementary schools in the Upper Cumberland region of middle Tennessee. Children's social class background (SES) was determined by their father's occupational strata (professional and business, white collar jobs, blue collar jobs and service workers) and their parental education level (college education, high school education, and below high school education). Picture-test with figures representing the upper, middle, and lower social classes was used. Figures were simple pen drawings of three men, three women, three male children, and three female children. There were also drawings of houses and automobiles representing the three social classes. Findings included: much of the development of social class awareness occurred between first and eighth grades; the accuracy in understanding of cognitive cues increased substantially between grades one and two; most of the developmental process of cognitive class awareness was completed by the fifth grade; both SES and parental education were found to be significantly related to class awareness on all three dimensions; and sex did not seem to be related with class awareness among rural children. (NQ)