Infants change their behaviours in accordance with the objects they are exploring. They also tailor their exploratory actions to the physical context. This selectivity of exploratory actions represents a foundational cognitive skill that underlies higher-level cognitive processes. The present study compared the development of selective exploratory behaviours in high and low socio-economic status (SES) infants. Sixty-one 6-8- and 10-12-month-old infants were presented with rigid and flexible cubes on a tray that was half rigid and half flexible. There were SES effects for each category of exploratory behaviours: object only, surface only and object-surface interactions. Low-SES infants engaged in comparable amounts of exploratory behaviours with high-SES infants, but they exhibited behaviours less conducive to information uptake, compared with high-SES infants. The results suggest difficulty for low-SES infants in transitioning to more mature exploration strategies.