Inter- and intra-cultural variation in learning-through-participation among Hadza and BaYaka forager children and adolescents from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo

Lew‐Levy, Sheina; Crittenden, Alyssa N.; Boyette, Adam H.; Mabulla, Ibrahim A.; Hewlett, Barry S.; Lamb, Michael E.

doi:10.1080/14330237.2019.1647957

Cited by 51 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Infants also accompany their parents, and especially mothers, on foraging expeditions (B. S. Hewlett et al 2011;Lye 1997). When parents are working, infants are often placed high on the mother's back, where they can peer over her shoulder while she works (Lew-Levy et al 2019). Forager children are granted extensive personal autonomy (A. H. Boyette and Lew-Levy 2021;Endicott 2011;Gardner 1966;Lavi in press;Naveh 2016;Sonoda et al 2018), and many societies measure child development using milestones primarily grounded in cooperative behaviour such as sharing, the control of anger, and knowledge of kin relations (e.g.…”

Section: Ethnographic Research On Hunter-gatherer Childhoodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hunter-gatherer children in the past: an archaeological review

Milks¹,

Lew‐Levy²,

Lavi³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Theoretical engagement and methodological innovations geared towards identifying the presence and activities of children in archaeological contexts has increased in pace over the last decade. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature pertaining to the archaeology of hunter-gatherer children. The review summarises methods and findings from 72 archaeological publications in a number of research areas that show material culture relating to childhood, including children’s playthings and tools, learning to flintknap, and their involvement in the making of marks, art and footprints. By drawing on diverse evidence from all inhabited continents, we explore the implications of these data for our understanding of the cultural variability and patterning of hunter-gatherer children in the deep past. The paper closes by discussing potential improvements to archaeological and anthropological methodologies which would progress our understanding of children as active and engaged members of their societies.

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Section: Ethnographic Research On Hunter-gatherer Childhoodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hunter-gatherer children in the past: an archaeological review

Milks¹,

Lew‐Levy²,

Lavi³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…However, fathers' teaching nearly exceeded all other adults combined (15%) 66 . Recent work by Lew-Levy and colleagues has shown that older BaYaka children and adolescents www.nature.com/scientificreports/ commonly accompany adults (not necessarily their parents) to forage 71 , and those trips afford opportunities for learning and teaching 67,69 . In future work, we hope to include further observational data on specific domains of men's daytime direct care as well as family cosleeping, as these have been linked to lower or declining paternal T in multiple other settings 20,[22][23][24][25]72,73 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sharing and caring: Testosterone, fathering, and generosity among BaYaka foragers of the Congo Basin

Gettler

Lew‐Levy

Sarma

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Humans are rare among mammals in exhibiting paternal care and the capacity for broad hyper-cooperation, which were likely critical to the evolutionary emergence of human life history. In humans and other species, testosterone is often a mediator of life history trade-offs between mating/competition and parenting. There is also evidence that lower testosterone men may often engage in greater prosocial behavior compared to higher testosterone men. Given the evolutionary importance of paternal care and heightened cooperation to human life history, human fathers’ testosterone may be linked to these two behavioral domains, but they have not been studied together. We conducted research among highly egalitarian Congolese BaYaka foragers and compared them with their more hierarchical Bondongo fisher-farmer neighbors. Testing whether BaYaka men’s testosterone was linked to locally-valued fathering roles, we found that fathers who were seen as better community sharers had lower testosterone than less generous men. BaYaka fathers who were better providers also tended to have lower testosterone. In both BaYaka and Bondongo communities, men in marriages with greater conflict had higher testosterone. The current findings from BaYaka fathers point to testosterone as a psychobiological correlate of cooperative behavior under ecological conditions with evolutionarily-relevant features in which mutual aid and sharing of resources help ensure survival and community health.

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“…The second author conducted unstructured interviews with all adult camp members to understand how they learned to participate in subsistence activities (Lew‐Levy, Crittenden, et al. 2019). These interviews explored how adults had learned to perform the subsistence skills in their cultural repertoire (e.g., how did you learn to trap?).…”

Section: Task Assignment and Avoidance Among The Bayakamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2019; Lancy 2012; Morelli, Rogoff, and Angelillo 2003), and among BaYaka foragers specifically (Boyette 2016b; Lew‐Levy and Boyette 2018; Lew‐Levy, Crittenden, et al. 2019), engage in more economically productive work as they grow older. Furthermore, our results indicate sensitivity on the part of other members of the community to children's developmental level in terms of specific tasks.…”

Section: Autonomy Cooperation and The Contexts Of Socializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Socialization, Autonomy, and Cooperation: Insights from Task Assignment Among the Egalitarian BaYaka

Boyette

Lew‐Levy

2020

Ethos

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Across diverse societies, task assignment is a socialization practice that gradually builds children's instrumental skills and integrates them into the flow of daily activities in their community. However, psychosocial tensions can arise when cooperation is demanded from children. Through their compliance or noncompliance, they learn cultural norms and values related to autonomy and obligations to others. Here, we investigate task assignment among BaYaka foragers of the Republic of the Congo, among whom individual autonomy is a foundational cultural schema. Our analysis is based on systematic observations, participant observation, and informal interviews with adults about their perspectives on children's learning and noncompliance, as well as their own learning experiences growing up. We find that children are assigned fewer tasks as they age. However, children's rate of noncompliance remains steady across childhood, indicating an early internalization of a core value for autonomy. Despite demonstrating some frustration with children's noncompliance, adults endorse their autonomy and remember task assignment being critical to their own learning as children. We argue that cross‐cultural variation in children's compliance with task assignments must be understood within a larger framework of socialization as constituted by many integrated and bidirectional processes embedded in a social, ecological, and cultural context. Abstract (French) Dans les diverses sociétés, l'attribution de tâches est une pratique de socialisation précieuse, qui permet de développer progressivement les compétences instrumentales des enfants et les intégrer dans le flux des activités quotidiennes de leur communauté. Dans cet article, nous concentrons notre analyse sur les aspects psychologiques et sociaux de l'attribution de tâches en tant que moments de tension psychosociale où la coopération est demandée aux enfants. En se conformant, ou en ne se conformant pas à ces demandes, ils apprennent les normes et valeurs culturelles liées aux droits individuels à l'autonomie en tension avec la responsabilité d'obéir. Dans le cadre d'une étude de cas, nous étudions les tâches assignées aux enfants parmi les chasseurs‐cueilleurs BaYaka de la République du Congo, parmi lesquels l'autonomie individuelle constitue un schéma culturel fondamental. Les observations comportementales quantitatives et systématiques des tâches assignées aux enfants BaYaka sont contextualisées à l'aide d'une recherche qualitative basée sur l'observation‐participante et des entretiens informels. Des entretiens ont été menés avec des adultes sur leurs perspectives concernant l'apprentissage et le non‐respect des tâches par les enfants, ainsi que sur leurs propres expériences d'apprentissage au cours de leur croissance. Nous avons constaté que les enfants se voient attribuer quantitativement moins de tâches au fur et à mesure qu'ils vieillissent. Cependant, le taux de non‐conformité des enfants reste stable tout au long de l'enfance, ce qui indique une intériorisation pr...

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Inter- and intra-cultural variation in learning-through-participation among Hadza and BaYaka forager children and adolescents from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo

Cited by 51 publications

References 29 publications

Hunter-gatherer children in the past: an archaeological review

Hunter-gatherer children in the past: an archaeological review

Sharing and caring: Testosterone, fathering, and generosity among BaYaka foragers of the Congo Basin

Socialization, Autonomy, and Cooperation: Insights from Task Assignment Among the Egalitarian BaYaka

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