Cultural Approaches to Parenting and Infancy

Abstract

This volume in the Studies in Parenting series addresses three significant questions revolving around mothers' parenting practices and their young infants' behaviors in intra-cultural and cross-cultural contexts. The three questions concerned, first, base rates of maternal parenting practices and infant behaviors; second, whether and how maternal parenting practices and infant behaviors, respectively, are organized; and, third, whether and how maternal parenting practices and infant behaviors are associated with one another. To broaden the scope of answers, the three questions were addressed, and answers compared, in each of two contrasting cultural groups in each five countries around the world: one from South America, two from Europe, one from the Middle East, and one from North America. Specifically, the two respective cultures and the five countries were urban and rural Argentina, monolingual and bilingual Belgium, city and kibbutz Israel, industrialized and agrarian Italy, and metropolitan and Appalachian United States (Figure 1.1). Thus, this Study in Parenting aimed to learn more about parenting, infancy, and culture by microanalyzing and assessing specific maternal parenting practices and infant behaviors in diverse cultural and national contexts.