KULTURELLE HORISONTER PÅ BØRNS UDVIKLING OG SOCIALISERING

Abstract

Pia Løvschal Nielsen: Cultural Aspects of
 Child Development and Socialisation
 Using ethnographic material from a
 Hutterite colony in Western Canada, the
 article shows how adult interpretations of
 child development and socialisation influence
 the organisation of children’s daily
 routines and thus their access to social and
 cultural knowledge. In this colony, adults are
 thought to occupy a central position in
 children’s social and cultural learning
 processes. At the same time, adults and
 children are seen as two exclusive categories
 with separate spheres of action. Daily
 routines, grounded in this cultural construction,
 actively exclude children from
 adult practices, minimising their daily
 participation in adult spheres of action and
 allowing few opportunities for direct observation
 of adult models. The author discusses
 how children’s cultural and social
 learning takes place through exclusion from,
 rather than participation in, adult practices.
 Hutterite children’s intense involvement in
 an annual community event indicates that
 children actively create and participate in
 their own social field gaining social and
 cultural knowledge through this process
 rather than through engagement with adults.
 The author argues that children’s cultural
 learning processes are far more active and
 situational than proposed by theories of
 development and intemalisation which
 identify adults as focal to children’s
 development and intemalization of cultural
 codes for agency.