Development In Cultural Context Research Articles

‘Supervising children to be good people’: Parents and children's views of child supervision in Laos

AbstractResearchers have paid little attention to child supervision in Laos, an ethnically‐diverse country with a community‐informal child protection system, and where many young children are regularly home alone or with another child. To explore what constitutes (in)adequate child supervision and its perceived effects, we conducted individual interviews with community leaders and professionals (n = 23) and focus group discussions with parents/adult caregivers (n = 74) and 12–17 year‐old children (n = 51) in six rural villages in Saravane and Borikhamxay provinces. Adults and children in both provinces described similar understandings and support systems of child supervision. Mothers are the main caregivers of young children, and literate fathers contribute to supervising school‐age children. Grandparents, older siblings and other relatives, teachers, and village authorities contribute substantively to child supervision. The main aims of supervision are child safety, socialization and moral development in cultural context. Parental unavailability due to employment, farming and migration; limited infrastructure; and lack of material resources are the main barriers to adequate supervision and may result in injuries, school dropout, teenage pregnancy and illicit drug use. Understanding the determinants, consequences, and patterns of child supervision across cultural and socio‐economic groups is needed to inform culturally acceptable strategies to support children and families.

Augustine Bame Nsamenang (1951-2018).

Presents an obituary for Augustine Bame Nsamenang (1951-2018). A teacher, scholar, innovator, and activist, Bame devoted his academic life to having African voices and perspectives heard in the child development and early childhood education, care, and development literature. In his international volume Human Development in Cultural Context: A Third World Perspective (1992), Bame made the case that "the exclusion of Third World ecologies . . . limits the evolution of a truly international psychology." Bame was ever engaged internationally. For example, in 2010 he was European Union visiting scholar at Oslo University College, Norway, and in 2014 he was visiting professor at the Aga Khan University Institute of Educational Development, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In 2015, Bame was nominated the president-elect for the Pan African Psychology Union. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Personal identity development in cultural context: The socialization of master narratives about the gendered life course

The present studies focused on the role and socialization of biographical master narratives – cultural narratives that prescribe the types and ordering of events that should occur in one’s personal life identity narrative – by focusing on adolescent and emerging adult gender identity development. We employed a combined explanatory and triangulation mixed methods design. Study 1a (n = 414) was a survey study examining the expected biographical master narrative events for men and women, and the content of master narrative deviation and conformity in an emerging adult sample. In Study 1b (n = 14) we interviewed participants from Study 1a about their conformity and deviation narratives, as well as their socialization experiences regarding gendered biographical master narratives. In Study 2 mothers and adolescents (n = 11 pairs), engaged in conversation about expected life course events, as well as a follow-up interview about their conversation. We first found that there are more gender differences in the personal experiences of conformity to and deviation from master narratives compared to the expectations of the life course (Study 1a). Second, deviating is related to more engagement in identity processes (Study 1a). Third, emerging adults report contradictions in retrospective reports of socialization messages regarding expectations (Study 1b), a finding confirmed in a discourse analysis of mothers and their adolescents (Study 2). Overall, across the studies, we see that (a) adolescents and emerging adults are engaged in a delicate balance of negotiating between various cultural and familial messages, as well as personal experiences, about gender identity particularly in regards to gender equality and, (b) there is a complex relation between socialization messages about gender equality that may make some biographical master narratives about the expected life course events for men and women more resistant to change.

Learning “Merit” in a Chinese Preschool: Bringing the Anthropological Perspective to Understanding Moral Development

ABSTRACTMoral development in early childhood has recently raised heightened interest across social sciences. Integrating controlled methods into ethnographic fieldwork, this article investigates how Chinese preschool children develop their understanding of “merit,” an important fairness principle in resource allocation, through socialization of biaoxian hao. Whereas the experimental data taps into distributing reward based on how much one contributes to collective work, a standard attribute of “merit” in psychology literature, ethnographic analysis reveals how children's understanding of merit is mediated by the cultural discourse of biaoxian hao, a significant moral framework in contemporary China that refers to self‐presentation in authority‐evaluation contexts, with a hierarchical dimension. Ethnography further demonstrates the developmental trajectory of learning biaoxian hao and the powerful disciplinary mechanism of overt social comparison and moral evaluation. By showing how two basic moral concerns, sensitivity to fairness and inclination to impress authority, intersect in early development in cultural contexts, this mixed‐methods research provides a direction for cultural anthropology to contribute to the interdisciplinary study of moral development. [merit, fairness, biaoxian, moral development, China]

Studying cognitive development in cultural context: A multi-level analysis approach

I discuss a multi-level analysis approach in the study of cognitive development in cultural context. In this approach, culture is conceived of as a system and a process of symbolic mediation, where values, norms, and beliefs manifest in and through customs, rituals, and practices in directing and regulating both intrapersonal and interpersonal psychological functions. To capture the dynamic process in which cognitive development unfolds in cultural context, this approach examines the influence of culture on the developing cognitive skills between groups – group level analysis, between the child and socialization agents – dyadic level analysis, at the level of the child – individual level analysis, and within the child – situation level analysis. The temporal level analysis further situates cognitive development in historical time. By utilizing different analytical and methodological strategies, the multi-level analysis approach provides converging evidence for the development of cognitive skills in cultural context. Important challenges in this approach include the development of a “big picture” to guide the investigation, methodological training for research assistants, and difficulties in collecting, managing, and analyzing diverse datasets. I discuss the conceptual and methodological issues by using our work on the development of episodic thinking as an example.

Identity development in cultural context: The role of deviating from master narratives.

The great majority of research on identity and personality development has focused on individual processes of development, to the relative neglect of the cultural context of development. We employ a recently articulated framework for the examination of identity development in context, centered on the construct of master narratives, or culturally shared stories. Across four studies, we asked emerging and midlife adults (N = 512) to narrate personal experiences of deviations from these master narratives. Across three quantitative studies, we show that (a) those who elaborated their deviation experiences were more likely to be in structurally marginalized positions in society (e.g., ethnic or sexual minorities); (b) those who elaborated an empowering alternative to the master narrative were more likely to be engaged in identity processes; and (c) master narratives maintain their rigidity by the frequency of their use. In study 4, using qualitative analyses, we illustrate the rigidity of master narratives, as well as the degree to which they take shape in social and group experiences. These studies emphasize the importance of cultural context in considering personality and identity development.

Scientometric trend analyses of publications on the history of psychology: Is psychology becoming an unhistorical science?

Examines scientometrically the trends in and the recent situation of research on and the teaching of the history of psychology in the German-speaking countries and compares the findings with the situation in other countries (mainly the United States) by means of the psychology databases PSYNDEX and PsycINFO. Declines of publications on the history of psychology are described scientometrically for both research communities since the 1990s. Some impulses are suggested for the future of research on and the teaching of the history of psychology. These include (1) the necessity and significance of an intensified use of quantitative, unobtrusive scientometric methods in historiography in times of digital “big data”, (2) the necessity and possibilities to integrate qualitative and quantitative methodologies in historical research and teaching, (3) the reasonableness of interdisciplinary cooperation of specialist historians, scientometricians, and psychologists, (4) the meaningfulness and necessity to explore, investigate, and teach more intensively the past and the problem history of psychology as well as the understanding of the subject matter of psychology in its historical development in cultural contexts. The outlook on the future of such a more up-to-date research on and teaching of the history of psychology is—with some caution—positive.

Telemental Health Training, Team Building, and Workforce Development in Cultural Context: The Hawaii Experience.

The goal of the University of Hawaii (UH) child and adolescent psychiatry telemental health (TMH) program is to train child and adolescent psychiatry fellows to provide behavioral health services for the children of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands in the cultural context of their rural communities using interactive videoteleconferencing (IVTC). The training experience balances learning objectives with community service. Learning objectives include: Understanding mental health disparities in rural communities, leveraging community resources in ongoing treatment, providing culturally effective care, and improving health care access and delivery through TMH service research and evaluation. We describe the UH experience. Several UH faculty are experienced with IVTC technology. They are triple-board trained, are recognized for their research in program evaluation and mental health disparities, and are committed to serving Hawaii's rural communities. We demonstrate the role of TMH in linking children and their families living in rural communities with multiple mental health treatment providers. The service-learning curriculum and a unique collaboration with Mayo Clinic provide the opportunity to examine the role of TMH in global service, and training, education, and research. TMH provides direct services to patients and consultation on Hawaii Island and Maui County. The collaboration with the Mayo Clinic brings further consultation in complex diagnostics, pharmacogenomics, and cross-cultural psychiatry. A curriculum provides trainees experience with IVTC with the goal of potential recruitment to underserved rural communities. The TMH program at UH is unique in its team building and workforce development by joining multiple entities through IVTC and translating expertise from the Mayo Clinic to rural communities, and strengthening collaboration with local child and adolescent psychiatrists, and primary care and other mental health providers. The UH psychiatry program is a model program to develop an expert mental health workforce in cultural context for children living in rural communities.

Social Motives and Their Development in Cultural Context

This paper deals with differences in social motives between cultures and with respect to their development. First, social motives are described as complex functional systems. Then aggressiveness and achievement motivation are dealt with as examples. Assumptions about biological factors are discussed and cultural differences are reported. Based on cross-cultural research, variations in early mother-child relations and in cultural norms and values are discussed as main sources of individual and cultural differences. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol5/iss3/1

Differences between American and Chinese preschoolers in emotional responses to resistance to temptation and mishap contexts

Americans typically are more emotionally expressive than Chinese, even in early childhood (Camras et al. in Infancy 11:131–155, 2007; Markus and Kitayama in The self in social psychology. Psychology Press, New York, pp 339–371, 1999; Rothbaum and Rusk in Socioemotional development in cultural context. Guilford Press, New York, pp 99–127, 2011), probably because emotional expression, especially intense or negative expression, disrupts social harmony and is discouraged in Chinese children, but indicates individuality and is more accepted in American children. However, extant research has primarily focused on emotions elicited by relatively primitive stimuli. As highly socialized contexts have particular potential to reveal sociocultural impact on children’s emotional expressiveness, 35 Chinese and 39 American 3-year olds were compared in the current study on a range of emotional indices in two highly socialized, emotionally challenging situations—resistance to temptation and a “mishap” paradigm, in which children were led to believe they broke someone’s toy. American children were more emotionally expressive of happiness and sadness than Chinese children. However, Chinese children’s anger showed a cumulative pattern across contexts, in contrast to Americans’. Findings suggest that differences in emotional expressiveness between American and Chinese children are dimension-specific, emotion-specific, and context-specific. Implications for children’s individualized emotional well-being are discussed.

Development of infants and toddlers in ethnoracial families.

Culture is often defined as the shared language, values, norms, traditions, customs, history, arts, folklore, and institutions of a group of people. Despite what is shared, every ethnoracial and cultural group in the United States is itself richly diverse. A number of analyses of the literature on child development have drawn attention to the lack of focused consideration to the study of child development in cultural context. During the past two decades, many important volumes on African American, Latino American, and Asian American families have been published, but few of these volumes have specifically addressed issues related to the earliest years (Fitzgerald et al., 1999; Ramsey, 2008). Findings on how within-group variation exerts its influence on early development (Garcia-Coll et al., 1996) are even more poorly represented in the core knowledge base of human development (Fitzgerald, 1999). In contemporary American society, increasing numbers of children are reared in multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic families. In such families, does one cultural tradition prevail, or are efforts made to blend cultural traditions? Race and culture are linked at macro levels, but within a particular ethnic group there is rich cultural diversity. What effects do racially and culturally diverse family structures and processes have on child development during the earliest years (Hill & Tyson, 2008)? What role do grandparents and other extended kin play in the promotion and maintenance of respective cultural traditions? How do conflicts linked to grandparental ethnoracial diversity influence the quality of parent–child relationships and the

The Differential Impact on Children of Inter- and Intra-Community Violence in Northern Ireland.

This study explores distinctions in Northern Ireland between inter-community (i.e. sectarian) and intra-community (i.e. nonsectarian) violence and their respective impacts on children, and considers these forms of violence in relation to children's processes of emotional security about community conflict. Preliminary work was based on focus groups with mothers in Belfast, followed by a quantitative study involving mothers in Derry/Londonderry. Support emerged for a conceptually-based distinction between sectarian and nonsectarian violence and differential prediction of children's adjustment problems, which was more closely linked with sectarian than nonsectarian community violence. Pertinent to explanatory mechanisms, community violence, especially sectarian, related to mothers' perceptions of children's emotional insecurity about community. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions for understanding community violence and child development in cultural context.

Child Development in Cultural Contexts: Implications of Cultural Psychology for Early Childhood Teacher Education

In this article we argue that early childhood educators, under the influence of last century’s grand universal theories of child development, have not been attentive enough to the centrality of culture in children’s development. We discuss how the exploration of contemporary developmental perspectives is critical to the field and illustrate cultural views of child development based on cultural psychology. The goal of cultural psychology is to study the co-creation of human beings and cultures by focusing on both mentalities and practices, on both culture and biology. Using this lens, we explore the implications that cultural psychology holds for early childhood educators.

Learning How to Believe: Epistemic Development in Cultural Context

Abstract Over the last decade, researchers have become increasingly interested in students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and how these beliefs develop. Although initial psychological accounts portrayed epistemic development as a domain-independent process of cognitive maturation, recent studies have found trajectories of epistemic development to vary considerably across contexts. However, few studies have focused on cultural context. This article examines the role community values and practices play in fostering particular epistemological orientations by comparing the epistemological beliefs of 5th, 8th, and 12th graders (N = 200) from General and Religious schools in Israel regarding 2 controversies: belief in God and punishment of children. In both controversies, older participants were less likely than younger participants to consider the controversy rationally decidable. However, this shift emerged earlier in the God controversy than in the punishment controversy. In the God controversy, Gene...

Learning How to Believe: Epistemic Development in Cultural Context

Learning How to Believe: Epistemic Development in Cultural Context

Diversity and developmentally appropriate practices: challenges for early childhood education

The Politics of Developmentally Appropriate Practice Inclusive Policy, Practice and Theory for Young Children with Developmental Differences Culture, Child Development and Developmentally Appropriate Practice Research in Parent-Child Interaction Expanding the Perceptions of Developmentally Appropriate Practice Understanding Development in Cultural Context The Movement of African-American Children Through Sociocultural Contexts.

Book Review : A. Bame Nsamenang, Human development in cultural context. A third world perspective. Vol. 16, Cross-Cultural Research and Methodology Series. Newbury Park/London: Sage Publications, 1992 pp. 258

Book Review : A. Bame Nsamenang, Human development in cultural context. A third world perspective. Vol. 16, Cross-Cultural Research and Methodology Series. Newbury Park/London: Sage Publications, 1992 pp. 258