1. H714: Child rearing, Language and Culture Instructor: Meredith Rowe TF: Nell O’Donnell-Weber TF: Laura Mesite  We have a course website: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/8652

2. Introductions  Include your Name Program Hometown Reason for taking this course

3. Quick Activity  Take a post-it note and write down what you believe is the primary goal of child rearing in your home community  E.g., in certain communities the primary goal may be preparing girls for motherhood and boys for skilled labor  Post your note on the map near your hometown (or wherever you lived during your childhood)  After everyone has posted their note, we will do a 2 minute gallery walk to look at the responses  We will discuss our reactions as a whole class

6. The need for a cultural approach  Most research on human development based on middle- class communities in Europe and North America  This research/theory assumed to generalize to all  Much emphasis on at what ages children reach certain milestones, or develop certain skills  A cultural approach notes that different communities may have different expectations, lead to different pathways of development.

7. When (at what age) does children’s intellectual development permit them to be responsible for others? When can they be trusted to take care of an infant?  Turn to a partner and discuss!

8. It Depends! When (at what age) does children’s intellectual development permit them to be responsible for others? When can they be trusted to take care of an infant?  Middle class American = 10 yrs  United Kingdom = 14 years  Mayan Guatemalan = 5-7 yrs  Kwara’ae of Oceania = 3-4 yrs

9. It Depends! 55 cultures represented

10. What does it depend on?  Circumstances that are routine in their community  Cultural practices they are used to  Cultural meanings given to events  The social and institutional supports provided in their communities for learning and carrying out specific roles in the activities

11. How does culture matter in human development? Go beyond “it depends” to identify cultural regularities/patterns that matter in different communities (e.g. Rogoff)  Strategies for managing survival (infant mortality prevalence, etc.)  Influences infant care and attachment, family roles, stages and goals of development, children’s responsibilities, cooperation and competition, intellectual priorities  Hierarchical organization of human relations (vertical vs. horizontal)  Influences cultural differences in sleeping arrangements, discipline, cooperation, gender roles, moral development, segregation of children, peer relations, forms of learning

12. Diverse goals of human development Other factors/regularities/patterns that may affect goals at community level:  How relevant are literacy skills?  Is society structured around Western schooling and bureaucratic system?  How much priority is given to social relationships vs. schooling?  Physical/public health issues

13. (Arnett, 2008)

15. WEIRD (Henrich et al., 2010)  Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic  Members of WEIRD societies are particularly unusual and among the least generalizable populations of humans  NO grounds for claiming that behaviors based on WEIRD subjects are universal

16. (Henrich et al., 2010)

17. Human development as a cultural process Interdisciplinary approach involving psychology, anthropology, history, sociolinguistics, education, sociology,  What do we mean by cultural processes?  How do we come to understand our own an others’ cultural practices and traditions?  How can we think about the ways that individuals participate in and contribute to cultural processes?

18. Human development as a cultural process Humans develop through their changing participation in the socio-cultural activities of their communities (which also change)  Culture isn’t just what other people do  Understanding one’s own cultural heritage, as well as other cultural communities, requires taking the perspective of people of contrasting backgrounds  Cultural practices fit together and are connected, multifaceted  Cultural communities continue to change, as do individuals  There is not likely to be “one best way” – we need to move beyond our assumptions…

19. Moving beyond assumptions  Culture shock as an example  Need to suspend judgment – separate “understanding of the patterns” from “judgments of their value”  Beyond ethnocentrism and deficit models Ethnocentrism involves making judgments that another cultural community’s ways are immoral, unwise, or inappropriate based on one’s own cultural background without taking into consideration the meaning and circumstances of events in that community. Leads to deficit model where variations in communities seen as different from normal or deficits that need intervention.

20. Challenging Expert Knowledge (LeVine, 2004)  What can we learn from the Gusii case?  What do infants need?  Maternal sensitivity to infant signals  Maternal attention – gaze and speech  Compliance – commands, threats, and praise  Sibling care

21. Challenging Expert Knowledge (LeVine, 2004)  What can we learn from the Gusii case?  Discuss this in groups of 5-6.  What do infants need?  Maternal sensitivity to infant signals  Maternal attention – gaze and speech  Compliance – commands, threats, and praise  Sibling care  What is role of the study of child development?  Advocacy movement for humane treatment of children?  Suboptimal vs. optimal; appropriate vs. inappropriate practice

22. VygotskyBrunerRogoffTomasello Huda AkefJessica GhofraniEmma McCarthyMaung Nyeu Fangyue BaoTeresa GonczyJenna MendesAndrena Mason Bowen ChenSuning HangYuanyuan MiRachel Romeo Jiawei ChengJose La Rosa Villacorta Xin MinChristina Simpson Tasha ChuZhiting LeowNatalie NihillCarolyn Sparkes Marina EbertMolly Lockwood Arinzechukwu Nwosu Kathryn Strong Asmaa ElsayedChrista Matrone Yoonah ParkBrianna Swenson Abigail EmmertTimothy Matthews Dana LampeKaitlyn Toole Samantha Turner Ying WangSihan YangAndy Zhang Liwen ZhangXinyi ZhangJoseph Borkowski Ageliki Nicolopoulou