Culture and early social interactions. The example of mother-infant object play in African and native French Families

Abstract

Data from cross-cultural studies on parental behaviour during early social interaction suggest that structural and universal features should be differentiated from culturally specific ones. No direct relations can be assumed to exist between specific forms of child rearing and development of skills in the child. However child rearing practices can have long term effects and affect social behaviours.As an illustration, we compare interactive styles of 40 French and African mothers living in Paris in an object play situation, with their 10 and 15 month-olds. French mothers' interactions with their children are illustrative of tight connections between verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Action is the basis or anchor point for verbal exchange; and this repetition or verbal redundancy yields discourse-on-actions which to a certain extent distances the action and allows for a generalization process to take place. In contrast, African mothers' interactions with their in/ants present less verbal scaffolding of non-verbal behaviour. This type of interaction allows for a greater «disjunction» or separation of non-verbal and verbal communication. African cultures do not assign the spoken word with the educational function of structuring and planning activities. However, the models generated by the school system correspond to other types of obligations which are strongly affected by temporal perspectives.One of the aims of cross-cultural research on parental behaviour and child development, as is the case in anthropology, is to go beyond inventories of disparities to arrive at universals of human behaviour. Universals are not always easy to detect. It is argued here that applying a linguistic model to parental behaviour differentiating pancultural structures from morphological variants may be a powerful tool in this regard. Ethnological accounts of child rearing practices first drew attention to the variety of forms of parent-child interactions. Across cultures the number of caregivers, amount of physical contact, presence of toys, and the social representation of the child all constitute variables which shape the context in which exchanges take place.The author would like to thank Connie Greenbaum for revising the English version. Special thanks are extended to the staff of the Hopital de la Croix Saint-Simon health centre (P.M.!.).

Firsthand Learning Through Intent Participation

“…Mothers from nonindustrial communities who have experience in Western schooling more often interact with children in school-like ways -with greater use of praise, language lessons, and assignment of divided tasks -than mothers with little or no schooling (Rabain-Jamin, 1989;Richman et al, 1992;Rogoff et al, 1993;Chavajay & Rogoff, 2002). Likewise, middleclass parents with experience of helping in a collaborative school are more likely to engage with children in ways that fit with intent participation Matusov & Rogoff, 2002).…”

Investigating the Coordinated Functioning of Multifaceted Cultural Practices in Human Development

“…For example, mothers from nonindustrial communities who have years of experience in Western schooling interact with their children in ways that resemble middle-class, schooled ways. They employ more praise, conversational peer status, language lessons, and assignment of divided tasks than mothers with little or no schooling [Chavajay and Rogoff, 2002;Rabain-Jamin, 1989;Richman, Miller, and LeVine, 1992;Rogoff et al, 1993]. The dynamic, historical process in these multifaceted patterns is ongoing, in middle-class European American communities as well.…”

Socialization and cognition in children between the age of 18 and 24 months

“…In fact, it is already known that maternal practice and interactive routines are relatively stable in families that have recently arrived in France (Rabain-Jamin, 1989). It would have been interesting to observe autochthonous and immigrant children from a socio-economically privileged background in the same kind of situation.…”

“…Comparative research, and especially intercultural comparisons, should therefore enable one to study the universality and cultural variability of maternal behaviour (Harkness, 1992), as well as the diversity of relational patterns that inhibit or facilitate the child's social and cognitive development (Maccoby, 1992). This is the viewpoint adopted by Rabain-Jamin (1989, 1994a in her research on the cultural context of early social interactions. These interactions are structured by a certain number of universals including behaviour and fundamental rules of expression.…”