Handbook of Cultural Developmental Science

Marc H. Bornstein, Marc H. Bornstein

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136648472
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

Researchers and theoreticians commonly acknowledge the profound impact of culture on all aspects of development. However, many in the field are often unaware of the latest cultural literatures or how development proceeds in places other than their home locations. This comprehensive handbook covers all domains of developmental science from a cultural point of view and in all regions of the globe. Part 1 covers domains of development across cultures, and Part 2 focuses on development in different places around the world. The Handbook documents child and caregiver characteristics associated with cultural variation, and it charts relations between cultural and developmental variations in physical, mental, emotional, and social development in children, parents, and cultural groups.

This contemporary and scholarly resource of culture in development covers theoretical, methodological, substantive, and ethnic issues as well as geographic approaches. Each chapter includes an introduction, historical and demographic considerations, theory, an overview of the most important classical and modern research studies, recommended future directions in theory and research, and a conclusion. The chapters focus on children from the prenatal stage through adolescence.

Interdisciplinary in nature, the Handbook will appeal to human development theoreticians, researchers, and students in psychology, education, and pediatrics. Ideal for those new to the field, readers will appreciate the plethora of cultural examples from all fields of child and human development and developmental examples from all fields of cultural study.

Part I Domains of Development Across Cultures

DOI: 10.4324/9780203805497-1

1 Culture

Jacqueline J. Goodnow

DOI: 10.4324/9780203805497-2

Introduction

This chapter reviews four ways of specifying cultural contexts, linking each to accounts of development and asking what new questions they open about the nature and course of development. This opening section briefly considers some background questions: What gives rise to interest in ways of specifying cultural contexts? What prompts the choice of four particular ways of doing so?

Sources of Interest in Ways of Specifying Cultural Contexts

As Bornstein (1980) points out in a review of the history of cultural developmental psychology, people who come from "other" places and are seen as "different" have always attracted interest, both among members of the general public and among social scientists. Long-standing also is curiosity about what might happen if circumstances were changed. To cite one of Bornstein's (1980) early examples, King James I wondered what form speech and language might take if infants were brought up in the company of only a deaf-mute nurse.

Over time, however, changes have occurred in the extent to which we are aware of differences. Changes have also occurred in the aims, the methods, and the settings chosen once interest turns to closer analyses or comparisons. Changes in awareness are the most widespread, occurring both within and outside the social sciences. More visible now to all of us are changes in population flow from one country to another and in population patterns within countries. Canada, for example, is seen by many as having become more "French," California as more "Hispanic," and Australia as more "multicultural" or at least less "Anglo." Coupled with that awareness has often been a sense of changing social needs. New immigrant groups or new commitments to changing other parts of the world, for example, bring the need to think about new services, ranging from health and education to legal or political structures, with questions raised about their possible design, reception, or impact. Interest in those questions is one of the reasons for developmental psychology being increasingly referred to as "developmental science." However, interest in those questions is not restricted to any one discipline or even to the social sciences in general.

For changes in aims and methods, focus for the moment on developmental psychology (see also van de Vijver, Hofer, and Chasiotis, Chapter 2, this volume). A first move was a shift away from interest only in "testing for generality," from asking whether what we are accustomed to seeing is perhaps "universal." As a check on universality, almost any other country could be chosen. Convenience could be the deciding factor, together with some preference for places where there appeared to be a difference in the way children were reared or schooled. That way of proceeding, however, tends to lock us into seeing nature and nurture as opposed opposites. It also tells us little about how any particular similarity or difference comes about.

A second change moved the held beyond choices based on nationality or country of origin. Turning to other nationalities or countries of origin has benefits. It is likely, for example, to make us more aware of the ways in which people may vary, and it can make us reflect on both what they do and what we ourselves do. How, for instance, do people make judgments and decisions about developmental status or schooling when they have no record of chronological age? What prompts our own addiction to knowing how old individuals are? Turning to other nationalities or countries of origin also highlights for us the extent to which some ways of thinking or acting are shared by members of a large social group, have a history, and are felt to be part of who one is—features that may transcend national boundaries.

Nationality, however, still takes us only part of the way toward understanding how any developmental effects come about—how settings give rise to similarities or differences and how contexts shape or construct the ways in which we see ourselves and the world around us. To move more directly toward that kind of understanding, we need to choose settings that allow us to focus on some particular links between features of contexts and aspects of development. What happens, we ask, when literacy has a pictorial or syllabary base rather than an alphabetic one; when children learn about the making of clothes or about biology by procedures that are strictly detailed or by methods that allow some experimentation and some encounters with error; or when most of the activities of children are in the company of adults rather than within groups that are strongly age-graded?

At this point, we may not need comparisons across nationalities. We may be able to focus on groups within a country In either case, any move toward closer description of a context or toward choosing two or more contexts for comparative purposes comes to be guided by a view of development as related to some particular aspects of contexts, such as the demands they make, the tools they provide, and the forms of participation they allow or encourage. However, those specific qualities or features may still take several forms. Which ways of specifying contexts should we consider?

Ways of Specifying Cultural Contexts

Of the four ways of specifying social-cultural contexts selected for review in this chapter, three focus on ways of describing content. The first emphasizes the nature of ideologies, values, and norms—ways of viewing the world that are often summarized by the term "cultural models." The second emphasizes what people do—the practices, activities, or routines that mark a social group. The third emphasizes what is available to people in the form of paths, routes, or opportunities. Hie fourth cuts across these descriptions. Regardless of whether the focus is on values, practices, or paths, this kind of account emphasizes the extent to which a context is marked by homogeneity or heterogeneity—by uniformity or by competition and "contest" among diverse ways of thinking or acting.

These approaches do not exclude one another. Some analyses may combine them (see Bornstein, 2002). Other ways of grouping approaches (see Cooper & Denner, 1998; Goodnow, 1995) and of bringing out points of relevance to developmental topics and methods (see Goodnow, 1990b, 2002, 2006b; Rogoff, 2002) are also possible. This particular grouping into four approaches, however, helps meet several challenges.

One challenge comes from the varied descriptions now available for the nature of contexts. Currently at hand, for example, is a range of definitions of "culture," usually offered by people other than psychologists and often expressed in unfamiliar terms. We need to bring out how those descriptions often hang together, cutting across disciplines. We also need to find ways of cutting across descriptions of family, neighborhood, and cultural contexts. At the least, it is effortful to use different dimensions to describe each of these. It is also restricting to see each only as a surround for the others—for example, a neighborhood only as a surround for families or culture only as a surround for all other groups or settings.

A further challenge comes when we seek to link accounts of cultural contexts to accounts of development. One of the difficulties prompted by turning to "other" places is that analyses of cultural contexts may easily be seen as on the margins of what most developmental scientists see as important, to be exotica with no direct relevance to core developmental issues. To break down that marginalization, we need ways to bring out the parallels that often exist between descriptions of contexts and descriptions of development. We need also to explore the ways in which analyses of cultural contexts prompt new questions about development, alerting us to aspects we might easily miss or take so much for granted that no need is seen for closer attention or exploration. The four chosen ways of specifying cultural contexts help us move toward meeting those needs.

For each of the four accounts, a summary outline of the main proposals is given and then specific points of relevance to analyses of development are discussed. Each account draws on the fields of anthropology, psychology, and sociology, although these are not the only relevant fields. Analyses of cultural contexts and development, it has been pointed out, can benefit from attention to history (e.g., Cole, 2001), law (e.g., Shweder, Markus, Minow, and Kessel, 1998), and studies of literature and language (e.g., Cazden, 1993; Goodnow, 1997). Anthropology and sociology, however, are still the main sources for both descriptions of contexts and observations on the shape and the course of development.

Considered first are approaches that emphasize multiplicity and contest. That choice stems partly from this approach cutting across all other descriptions. It stems also from issues of novelty. This way of viewing context is perhaps the least familiar to developmental psychologists. However, it also offers the sharpest contrast to the assumptions we often hold about the significance of differences among groups or generations and about our own ways of thinking and acting.

Specification 1: Multiplicity and Context

Proposals about multiplicity usually start by noting that it is tempting to regard societies as monolithic. This region or country, for example, is "Islamic," and that one is "Christian;" this one is "modern," and that one "traditional." The reality is less one-eyed. In any society, for instance, there is usually more than one political position, one form of medicine or schooling, one way of arranging work, one source of news or entertainment, and one view of what children are like and how adults should behave toward them. The number of viewpoints or positions, however, is less important than the balance among them. One form, for example, may predominate. In Gramsci's (1971) terms, one form maybe "hegemonic," and another maybe "counter-hegemonic." In Salzman's (1981) terms, one may be "dominant," and another may be "recessive." For the description of any society, however, the general argument is that we would do well to assume heterogeneity and then to peg our description in terms of the forms that heterogeneity takes.

Interest in heterogeneity is not new among anthropologists. It appears, for example, in Whiting and Edwards' (1988) description of how societies differ. It is also central to Romney's analyses of differences among individuals (they may hold consensus values or be more on the margins) and of the way an individual's being "modal" influences the judgments of others (e.g., Romney, Weller, and Batchelder, 1986). Holding opinions that are "modal," for example, makes an individual more likely to be seen by others as trustworthy—in a sense, to be seen as a "solid citizen."

More marked in later anthropological analyses, however, is an accompanying emphasis on "contest." In one description, analyses have changed from regarding cultures as "integrated, stable sets of meanings to recognizing the presence of conflict, ambiguity, and change (Strauss, 1992, p. 1). Contest may be open, in the sense that one group or one set of interests seeks to discount, devalue, suppress, or take over another. Even when there is official tolerance, however, the reality is one of spread, resistance, and perhaps negotiation rather than side-by-side acceptance.

Accounts of cultural contexts in terms of multiplicity and contest are now to be found in many content areas. They appear, for example, in analyses of changes in film productions. Whenever the independents begin to reach more than some minimal share of the market, the large studios begin to pick up their themes and styles, in much the same way that formal medicine takes over some aspects of "alternative" therapies (Gledhill, 1988). They appear...