Parent-child conversations in three urban middle-class contexts: Mothers and fathers reminisce with their daughters and sons in Costa Rica, Mexico, and Germany

Abstract

Abstract. The present study investigated culture- and gender-differences in mother- and father-child reminiscing with 3-year old daughters and sons in urban middle-class families from Costa Rica, Mexico, and Germany. Families of the three contexts were overall similarly elaborative and children contributed a similar amount of memory elaborations. However, context specific use of different elaborative elements related to specifi c elaborative styles. Compared to the Latin American families, conversations in German families were least socially oriented. Across contexts, parents talked more about social aspects with daughters than with sons. Costa Rican mothers and fathers were equally elaborative, whereas German and Mexican mothers were more elaborative than fathers. We found similarities but also specifi cities in parent-child conversations about the past across these contexts with similar educational backgrounds.Resumen. El presente estudio investigó diferencias según cultura y género en las conversaciones sobre el pasado de niños y niñas de 3 años de edad con sus progenitores en contextos urbanos en Costa Rica, México y Alemania. En los tres contextos, el nivel de elaboración general de las conversaciones fue similar y los niños produjeron una cantidad similar de recuerdos. Sin embargo, se encontraron diferencias culturales en algunos aspectos de elaboración. En comparación con las familias latinoamericanas, las conversaciones de las familias alemanas estaban orientadas socialmente en menor medida. En todos los contextos, los progenitores hablaron más acerca de aspectos sociales con las hijas que con los hijos. Padres y madres costarricenses evidenciaron niveles de elaboración similares, mientras que las madres alemanas y mexicanas mostraron niveles de elaboración mayores que los padres. Nuestros hallazgos indican la presencia de similitudes y diferencias en las conversaciones sobre el pasado en familias con niveles educativos similares provenientes de distintos contextos culturales.

Gender and parental involvement in parent‐child reminiscing in a Scandinavian sample

“…While mothers were consistent in their provision of elaborations, fathers were consistent in their provision of repetitions across positive and negative event types. Moreover, the present findings indicated that reminiscing about the positive events appeared to reflect a family‐specific style of talking about the past (see also Schröder, Keller & Kleis, 2013), while reminiscing about the negatively valenced events more readily activated individual, parent‐specific differences in the reminiscing style (cf. Reese & Fivush, 1993).…”

“…However, only relatively few studies have examined gender differences in parental reminiscing style (Noel, Pavlova, Lund et al ., 2019; Reese & Fivush, 1993; Reese, Haden & Fivush, 1996; Schröder, Keller & Kleis, 2013; van der Kaap‐Deeder, Soenens, Mouratidis, De Pauw, Krøjgaard & Vansteenkiste, 2020; Zaman & Fivush, 2013). While some studies have not found gender differences in the way parents structure reminiscing conversations (Haden, Haine & Fivush, 1997; Reese & Fivush, 1993; Reese et al ., 1996; in Costa Rica: Schröder, Keller & Kleis, 2013; Van der Kaap‐Deeder et al ., 2020), other studies have found mothers to be more elaborative than fathers (in Germany and Mexico: Schröder, Keller & Kleis, 2013). When parents have specifically been asked to reminisce about emotional past events (e.g., happy and sad, respectively) with their preschoolers, mothers have appeared to be more emotionally elaborative (i.e., including more emotional content) than fathers (Aznar & Tenenbaum, 2015; Fivush, Brotman, Buckner & Goodman, 2000; Zaman & Fivush, 2013).…”

Sociocultural developmental approaches to autobiographical memory

“…As predicted by sociocultural theory, mothers also vary by culture, with mothers from Western and/or industrialized cultures that value autonomy displaying higher levels of elaborative reminiscing than mothers from Eastern and/or traditional cultures that value relatedness (see Wang, , for a review). More fine‐grained analyses indicate that, within cultures, the extent to which mothers self‐report valuing autonomy versus relatedness predicts level of elaborative reminiscing (Schröder, Keller, Kärtner, et al, ; Schröder, Keller, & Kleis, ). Mothers who reminisce in more elaborative ways also self‐report that they reminisce in order to build a shared history and maintain emotional bonds with their children (Kulkofsky, Wang, & Koh, ).…”

Mother and child narrative elaborations during booksharing in low‐income Mexican‐American dyads

“…Some research shows that low‐income Latino mothers tend to elaborate less than do Black or European‐American mothers in certain contexts (Leyva, Reese, Grolnick, & Price, ), whereas other studies find that low‐income Latino caregivers elaborate just as much as their European‐American counterparts (Melzi, ). A recent study of middle‐class German, Costa Rican, and Mexican parents' narrative scaffolding during family reminiscing found that Latino parents did not differ from German mothers in amount of elaboration (Schröder, Keller, & Kleis, ). However, mothers from both Latino groups preferred to elaborate through the use of open‐ended questions as compared to the German mothers.…”