Culture and Development Flashcards
Rogoff
Cultural nature of human development!
- culture and context key to looking at a child’s development
Parental Ethnotheories
- parent belief systems about child rearing and development, affected by culture and personal histories
- parenting styles tend to differ not only from culture to culture but also within cultural groups from family to family
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological system
environment is composed of one’s immediate settings as well as the social and cultural contexts of relations among different settings, home, school and work place
- look at different relations among multiple settings in which children and families are involved
Parental Goals
- environment of infants and children are shaped by cultural values- becomes firmly established in personal preferences of individual
- culture and biology contribute to parenting and raising children
Universal goals of parents
- physical survival
- development of child’s behavioral capacity for economic self-maintenance in maturity
- development of child’s behavioral capacity for maximizing other cultural values (morality, prestige, wealth)
Culture is…
learning, transmitted across generations through socialization and learned through one’s own experiences and interactions
- shared norms for behavior, values and beliefs
- ever changing
- EVERYONE has a culture!
Cultural reciprocity
examine cultural differences, establish shared understanding and build a stronger working relationship with families
- mutual respect, collaboration, understanding
Harkness and Super
Developmental Niche!
- cultural structuring based on:
1) physical and social settings of child
2) child rearing beliefs
3) psychology of caregivers
Efe tribe
- nursing on demand, other women can nurse child, multiple care givers
Constant contact model
western, primary care giver, bonding period is key
culture shapes..
identity development!
Culture
children can’t be understood apart from their participation in their family and culture!!
Cultural Competency
- differences do not mean deficits
- use strategies of welcoming, allowing
- realize diversity is always life-enhancing
- use strategies of sense-making and appreciating
- Realize there are always three or more choices (use strategies of connecting and harmonizing)
Socialization
- process by which an individual becomes a member of a particular culture and takes on its beliefs, values and other behaviors in order to function with it
- multidirectional
- Vygotsky believed that socialization is achieved through guided participation
Levine and socialization
- Levine suggests that parental goals, values and beliefs across cultures are shaped by broad environmental factors that influence the choices culture make to optimize child and adult outcomes
- 3 universal goals: survival, economic and values/beliefs
(in cultures where survival is key they follow the pediatric model, whereas in environments were the risks to child mortality are reduced we find the pedagogical model (focus on teaching, socializing, behaviors, economic self-sufficiency, etc) - believed that variations are cultural, responsive to environmental pressures that characterize a particular context, characteristic of a generation or two, transmitted socially/ learned, cultural behaviors are rational and adaptive
- cultural behaviors are MEANING SYSTEMS
Parent Education Programs
- requires a true partnership that assumes shared power, shared expertise, acknowledged goals, respect for culture, respect and use of language, acknowledgement of differences in childrearing goals and an HONEST and ONGOING discussion
- work with families requires a deep understanding of WHO THEY ARE, WHO WE ARE and how we might build TOGETHER a world that is better for them and their children
bridging cultures
- learn about your own culture (making the familiar strange, very difficult to do)
- key step is to recognize how our own cultural values change the way we operate
invisible curriculum
- ways of acting within the classroom- key to school success but not always explicitly taught!
individualism
- US culture
- fostering independence
- individual achievement
- promoting self-expression, individual thinking and personal choice
- upward mobility
- individual ownership
collectivism
- representative of many immigrant cultures
- fostering interdependence and group success
- promoting adherence to norms, respect for elders, group consensus
- stable, hierarchical roles
- shared property, group ownership
collectivism vs individualism
- no society is ALL one or the other
- to generalize is to simplify, but this dualistic framework is not intended to stereotype cultural behavior
- human experience is far too complex to fit neatly into one conceptual scheme
- each strikes a balance
- each emphasizes different goals for development and learning though
- even within an ethnic group, members are extremely diverse
- change over time (but many child rearing values persist over several generations)
discipline
- individualistic focus: is my child succeeding? locust of control from within, encouraged to build own knowledge
- collectivistic focus: is my child well behaved? recognize place in community
skilled dialogue
- respect: differences do not make people wrong
- reciprocity: diversity is always life enhancing
- responsiveness: there is always a third choice
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory
- 5 nested contexts that are inter-related and interact and influence the child’s ecological niche
- each level has properties that may enable or threaten development
- direct effects: micro and meso
indirect effects: exo, macro and chrono
microsystems: face to face interactions in everyday life (HOME)
mesosystems: inter-related microsystems, family and church, child and school, family and peer group
exosystems: relationship between social settings (don’t always have to directly involve the child), parents work place
macrosystem: customs, laws, values, institutions and belief systems in the child’s culture
Garcia Coll et al.
- effects of social stratification on child outcomes
- how do factors such as race, social class, gender and ethnicity shape development?
- minority children in a socially stratified oppressive society
- Famiy and kin networks act as protective factors against oppression
- Development must be understood beyond the family because of the role of other contexts
interactive model for minority children (garcia coll et al)
1) Social position variables (race, gender, ethnicity)
2) racism, prejudice, discrimination, oppression
3) segregation (residential, economic, social psychological)
4) promoting/inhibiting environments (schools, neighborhoods)
5) adaptive culture (traditions, history, migration)
6) child characteristics (age, health, status)
7) family (structure roles, values, beliefs, goals, class)
8) developmental competencies (cognitive, social)
Super and Harkness
Developmental Niche
- framework for understanding how a child’s daily life is shaped by culture
- child is a unit of analysis within her sociocultural setting or context
- at the center of the niche is the child and her/his characteristics, (age, temperament, psychological dispositions)
- niche includes 3 components that interact, adapt and are mutually influential
1) physical and social settings of everyday life
2) Culturally regulated customs of childcare and childrearing
3) the psychology of caregivers or characteristics of the child’s parents
Identity Development and Culture
- refers to an individuals sense of uniqueness, knowing who one is
- multifaceted construction (may define oneself in terms of many social constructions, abilities, and family factors)
- identity construction is a developmental process
- through cultural practices, role prescriptions, values, beliefs and morals language and institutions - culture molds the individuals sense of self and belonging to a group
culture and development
- child over time abstracts the social, affect and cognitive rules of the culture through repetitions, continuities, and regularities of everyday experience
