Anthropology and Child Development

This unprecedented collection of articles is an introduction to the study of cultural variations in childhood across the world and to the theoretical frameworks for investigating and interpreting them.

• Presents a history of cross-cultural approaches to child-development
  
• Recent articles examine diverse contexts of childhood in ecological, semiotic, and sociolinguistic terms
  
• Includes ethnographic studies of childhood in the Pacific, Africa, Latin America, East Asia, Europe and North America
  
• Illuminates the process through which people become the bearers of culturally/historically specific identities
  
• Serves as an ideal text for anthropology courses focusing on childhood, as well as classes on development psychology

Acknowledgments x

Introduction 1
Robert A. LeVine and Rebecca S. New

Part I Discovering Diversity in Childhood: Early Works 9

Introduction 11

1 Plasticity in Child Development 18
Franz Boas

2 The Ethnography of Childhood 22
Margaret Mead

3 Childhood in the Trobriand Islands, Melanesia 28
Bronislaw Malinowski

4 Tallensi Childhood in Ghana 34
Meyer Fortes

5 Continuities and Discontinuities in Cultural Conditioning 42
Ruth Benedict

Part II Infant Care: Cultural Variation in Parental Goals and Practices 49

Introduction 51

6 The Comparative Study of Parenting 55
Robert A. LeVine, Suzanne Dixon, Sarah E. LeVine, Amy Richman, Constance Keefer, P. Herbert Liederman, and T. Berry Brazelton

7 Infant Care in the Kalahari Desert 66
Melvin J. Konner

8 Multiple Caregiving in the Ituri Forest 73
Edward Z. Tronick, Gilda A. Morelli, and Steve Winn

9 Fathers and Infants among Aka Pygmies 84
Barry S. Hewlett

10 Swaddling, Cradleboards and the Development of Children 100
James S. Chisholm

11 Talking and Playing with Babies: Ideologies of Child-Rearing 115
Catherine Snow, Akke De Blauw, and Ghislaine Van Roosmalen

12 Attachment in Anthropological Perspective 127
Robert A. LeVine and Karin Norman

13 An Experiment in Infant Care: Children of the Kibbutz 143
Melford E. Spiro with the assistance of Audrey G. Spiro

Part III Early Childhood: Language Acquisition, Socialization, and Enculturation 157

Introduction 159

14 The Acquisition of Communicative Style in Japanese 165
Patricia M. Clancy

15 Why African Children Are So Hard to Test 182
Sara Harkness and Charles M. Super

16 Autonomy and Aggression in the Three-Year-Old: The Utku Eskimo Case 187
Jean L. Briggs

17 Narrating Transgressions in U.S. and Taiwan 198
Peggy J. Miller, Todd L. Sandel, Chung-Hui Liang, and Heidi Fung

18 Child’s Play in Italian Perspective 213
Rebecca S. New

19 Discussione and Friendship in Italian Peer Culture 227
William A. Corsaro and Thomas A. Rizzo

Part IV Middle and Later Childhood: Work, Play, Participation, and Learning 245

Introduction 247

20 Age and Responsibility 251
Barbara Rogoff, Martha Julia Sellers, Sergio Pirrotta, Nathan Fox, and Sheldon H. White

21 Child and Sibling Caregiving 264
Thomas S. Weisner and Ronald Gallimore

22 Altruistic and Egoistic Behavior of Children in Six Cultures 270
John W. M. Whiting and Beatrice Blyth Whiting

23 Children’s Daily Lives among the Yucatec Maya 280
Suzanne Gaskins

24 Children’s Work, Play, and Relationships among the Giriama of Kenya 289
Martha Wenger

Epilogue 307

Index 309

"I recommend this book as a good introduction to the study of child development that draws upon anthropology's unique ability to hone in on both the extraordinary complex phenomenon of individual childhood agency and the social constructions ilia1 lend 1.0 bind and limit our notions of children as social actors." (Journal of Anthropological Research, 2010)

“Not unexpectedly, LeVine and New – true scholars – have rendered a reader, a reference, and a stunningly prescient volume that should be savored and studied, not merely read. Of sweeping breadth across time and place and of unparalleled depth regarding the nature of children and childhood, Anthropology and Child Development challenges deeply held conventions while provoking invigorating ways of thinking and acting – an indispensable, intellectual compass for globalists, futurists, and all who care about children.”
Sharon Lynn Kagan, Columbia University

“The cutting-edge scholarship presented in this important and timely book richly documents that the nuances of cultural context constitute a fundamental basis for significant variation in the development of diverse children and adolescents.”
Richard Lerner, Tufts University“This is an artfully organized collection of seminal papers, a collection that pulls together research across stages of childhood; domains (of the development of emotion, thought, and language); theories; methods; and, of course, cultures. The collection also provides a sense of the historical development of the field, as a chronological reading of the papers, from a Boas essay published in 1911 to several papers published in the new millennium, reveals the changing concerns, concepts, and theories that have characterized work on culture and child development over the past 100 years.”
Joseph Tobin, Arizona State University

Robert A. LeVine is a professor emeritus of education and anthropology at Harvard University. He has been investigating child rearing and development for more than 50 years, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. His recent books include Childhood Socialization: Comparative Studies of Parents, Learning and Educational Change (2003), Japanese Frames of Mind: Cultural Perspectives on Human Development (2001), and Child Care and Culture: Lessons from Africa (1994).

Rebecca S. New is associate professor of education and research fellow at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She has spent three decades studying the cultural nature of child development and early education, most often in Italy and recently in Head Start programs serving immigrant populations. Publications include the four-volume Early Childhood Education: An International Encyclopedia (2007).

This unprecedented collection of articles is an introduction to the study of cultural variations in childhood across the world and to the theoretical frameworks for investigating and interpreting them. With a focus on the child’s participation in, and acquisition of, cultural practices, the readings include ethnographic studies of childhood among hunting-and-gathering, agricultural, and urban-industrial peoples in the Pacific, Africa, Latin America, East Asia, Europe, and North America. Introductions to each section provide the student with an historical and conceptual framework for understanding the significance of the particular studies and their implications for developmental theory and educational practice.

From the earliest analysis of cultural difference to the most recent articles examining ecological, semiotic, and sociolinguistic difference, Anthropology and Child Development illuminates the process through which people become the bearers of their historically and culturally specific identities.