Developing patterns of parenting in two cultural communities

Abstract

This paper is aimed at analyzing verbal and nonverbal strategies in terms of body contact, face-to-face contact, and discourse style during the first three months of life in two cultural communities that have been characterized as embodying different cultural models of parenting: German middle-class, and Nso farmer families. It can be demonstrated that the Nso mothers have significantly higher rates of body contact during the assessments of free-play interactions during the first 12 weeks than the German women. The German women on the other hand demonstrate the expected increase of face-to-face contact, whereas the Nso women demonstrate a significantly lower and stable pattern of face-to-face contact over the assessments. The German mothers use an agentic discourse style, whereas the Nso mothers use a relational discourse style. Moreover, body contact and a relational discourse style form one parenting strategy, whereas face-to-face contact and the agentic discourse style form another parenting strategy. The results demonstrate culture-specific parenting strategies that not only differ with respect to the amount of behaviors expressed, but also the developmental course of particular behaviors. It is also evident that socialization strategies are expressed in different behavioral channels. The role of sociodemographic variables is particularly discussed with respect to their impact for defining sociocultural environments.

Psychological autonomy and hierarchical relatedness as organizers of developmental pathways

“…During play episodes, 19-monthold German toddlers from middle-class families have the lead. Mothers follow their initiatives and play with what the toddlers start playing [37]. Children from Western middle-class families usually do not have any social obligations or responsibilities.…”

Autonomy and Relatedness Revisited: Cultural Manifestations of Universal Human Needs

“…Lower degrees of formal education are associated with extended households and having children earlier in life. Similarities in the level of formal education, together with age at the birth of the first child, number of children, and household size prove to form similar cultural milieus with sets of beliefs, attitudes, norms, and values across different countries and geographical areas (Greenfield, 2011; Keller, Borke, Lamm, Lohaus, & Yovsi, 2011). 1…”

Infant gaze following depends on communicative signals: An eye‐tracking study of 5‐ to 7‐month‐olds in Vanuatu

“…However, the socalled proximal parenting style, which relies more on physical modality of contact between caregivers and babies is typical of small-scale non-Western societies (Kärtner, Keller, & Yovsi, 2010;Keller et al, 2009Keller et al, , 2011Konner, 2005) Ni-Vanuatu caregivers were less likely than those in US to engage infants face-to-face, when introducing a novel object, and (at least in one of the two reported studies) they were more likely to engage infants through physical contact. Some argue that Western cultures promote a so-called distal parenting style, which relies on face-to-face contact and visual modality of the interactions.…”