This illuminating volume offers a multifaceted view of parents' cultural belief systems: their origins in culturally constructed parental experience, their expressions in parental practices, and their consequences for childrens' well-being and growth. Discussing issues with implications beyond the study of parenthood, the book shows how the analysis of child outcomes related to parents' cultural belief systems (or parental ethnotheories) can provide valuable insights into the nature and meaning of family and self in society and, in some cases, a basis for culturally sensitive therapeutic interventions. Table of Contents
1. Introduction, Harkness and Super
I. Theoretical Perspectives
2. Parents' Free Descriptions of Child Characteristics: A Cross-Cultural Search for the Developmental Antecendents of the Big Five, Kohnstamm, Halverson, Havill, and Mervielde
3. Processes of Generalization in Parental Reasoning, Valsiner and Litvinovic
4. The Answer Depends on the Question: A Conceptual and Methodological Analysis of a Parent Belief Behavior Interview Regarding Children's Learning, Sigel and Kim
II. The Nature and Origins of Parents' Cultural Belief Systems
5. Essential Contrasts: Differences in Parental Ideas About Learners and Teaching in Tahiti and Nepal, Levy
6. How do Children Develop Knowledge?: Beliefs of Tansanian and American Mothers, McGillicuddy-De Lisi and Subramanian
7. Japanese Mothers' Ideas about Infants and Temperament, Shwalb, Shwalb, and Shoji
8. Scenes from a Marriage: Equality Ideology in Swedish Family Policy, Maternal Ethnotheories, and Practice, Welles-Nystrom
III. Intracultural Variation: The Role of Education and "Experts"
9. Parents' and Adolescents' Ideas on Children: Origins and Transmission of Intracultural Diversity, Palacios and Moreno
10. Education and Mother Infant Interaction: A Mexican Case Study, LeVine, Miller, Richman, and LeVine
11. The Contrasting Developmental Timetables of Parents and Preschool Teachers in Two Cultural Communities, Edwards, Gandini, and Giovaninni
12. Ask the Doctor: The Negotiation of Cultural Models in American Parent Pediatrician Discourse, Harkness, Super, Keefer, Raghavan, and Kipp
IV. The Instantiation of Parents' Cultural Belief Systems in Practices
13. From Household Practices to Parents' Ideas About Work and Interpersonal Relationships, Goodnow
14. How Mayan Parental Theories Come Into Play, Gaskins
15. Parental Theories in the Management of Young Children's Sleep in Japan, Italy, and the United States, Wolf, Lozoff, Latz, and Pauladetto
16. Maternal Beliefs and Infant-Care Practices in Italy and the United States, New and Richman
V. The Consequences of Parents' Cultural Belief Systems for Children's Health and Development
17. My Child is My Crown: Yoruba Parental Theories and Practices in Early Childhood, Zeitlin
18. Growth Consequences of Low-Income Nicaraguan Mothers' Theories About Feeding 1- Year-Olds, Engle, Zeitlin, and Medrano
19. The "Three R's" of Dutch Childrearing and the Socialization of Infant Arousal, Super, Harkness, van Tijen, van der Flugt, Fintelman, and Dijkstra
20. Imagining and Engaging One's Children: Lessons From Poor, Rural New England Mothers, Bond, Belenky, Weinstock, and Cook
21. American Cultural Models of Early Influence and Parent Recognition of Developmental Delays: Is Earlier Always Better Than Later?, Weisner, Matheson, and Bernheimer from the publisher's website |
