How Do Children Become Workers? Making Sense of Conflicting Accounts of Cultural Transmission in Anthropology and Psychology

Abstract

This article uses children's work as a lens to examine methodological concerns in the study of cultural transmission. At present, scholars remain divided between two positions with regards to the processes of cultural transmission. The first perspective places the burden of skill acquisition on the child who “picks up” skills and ideas through exploration, observation, imitation, play, interaction with peers, participation with others in carrying out routine tasks, and other voluntary, self‐initiated activities. A second position assigns great importance to parents as teachers who transmit essential skills and knowledge to their children. We illustrate that this debate may not be strictly empirical. Instead, these perspectives emerge from the contrasting methodologies that are largely associated with different disciplines: interviews in psychology and ethnography in anthropology. Drawing upon a review of the literature as well as a case study concerning the Asabano of Papua New Guinea, this article problematizes the sole reliance upon decontextualized self report data. Instead, we call for interviews to be situated within an ethnographic framework which not only involves observation, but also considers local models of cultural transmission, local communicative practices, and sociocultural change.

Evidence for the Adaptive Learning Function of Work and Work-Themed Play among Aka Forager and Ngandu Farmer Children from the Congo Basin

“…In sum, evidence suggests children can be productive contributors to subsistence. However, proficiency at essential subsistence skills among humans must be developed in a particular subsistence context, embedded in an environmental setting (Little and Lancy 2016 ). These factors may influence the degree to which populations rely on easy-to-extract, or hard-to-extract, resources.…”

Rethinking Urban-Rural Relations/Migrations in Central-Europe

“…Observational learning typically occurs in settings where children can observe and participate in the productive activities of adults on a daily basis. Moreover, ethnographic studies show that when the family is an economic unit, adults build on children's early willingness to cooperate, slowly raising their expectations and gradually assigning more work tasks to children (Chick 2010;Little and Lancy 2016).…”

Indigenous epistemologies of childhood in contexts of inequality: Three case studies from the “Global South”

“…Without ignoring the synergies that may exist in human development cross-culturally, in areas such as the transition between childhood and adulthood (Twum-Danso Imoh, 2019) our research challenges dominant narratives of child development which, based on linear and universal progress through stages, became internalised for many of those living in “Global South” settings, and even “colonized the world of early childhood education” (Viruru, 2005: 14). The indigenous groups discussed encounter other ways of cultural transmission and child rearing practices only when they are connected with education, religious, or other government institutions introduced by western ideologies and colonial processes (see Little and Lancy, 2016, for similar appraisals in other cultural contexts). In fact, the colonial enterprise imposed knowledges and practices in relation to “childhood” in settings where children cannot afford the “luxury of childhood” promoted through the “Global North” (Stephens, 2021).…”

“…The dialogue also shows how the researchers assumed that in order for learning to take place, an adult must teach by performing particular actions (apart from those he is carrying out when making the crafts). However, other forms of learning –one that requires active involvement (Little and Lancy, 2016; Szulc and Cohn, 2012)- are evidenced in the response. Precisely, in the Toba/Qom language, the verbs “teach” and “learn” have the same root ( -apaxaguen ) and are distinguished according to the prefix: a prefix is used that indicates that the participant is active (controls or initiates the action) for the case of teaching ( sapaxaguen = I teach) and a prefix that indicates that the participant is “half” active for the case of learning ( ñapaxaguen = learning).…”

“…Many anthropological studies of children in “Global South” settings have also shown how the introduction of Western-style institutions –such as schools and churches—and of capitalist modes of production permeated and re-signified childhoods (e.g. Little and Lancy, 2016; Katz, 2004), with indigenous communities being particularly impacted by such processes. However, where diversity has been accounted for, as when childhoods of the Global South are presented as disconnected examples of diversity, this philosophy of “each case is a case” (Fonseca, 1999: 10) overlooks the shared inequalities amongst them that are derived from their structural links with the “Global North”.…”