PARENTING AND INFANT ACTIVITY--A MULTICULTURE PERSPECTIVE

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Experiences in infancy are acknowledged to affect the course and outcome of social and mental development in childhood, and they are credited for some of the distinctiveness of culture. More specifically, cross- cultural developmental studies have historically shown that variations in childrearing styles typically have implications for children's later cognitive performance and interpersonal behavior. Home environments are thought to reflect larger cultural values, beliefs, and customs, and many social theorists have contended that the family generally, and the mother-infant relationship specifically, may be vital to development of the individual and basic to the organization of the culture. As a result, investigators have frequently studied infancy and mother-infant interaction in attempts to address questions about the origins and development of cultural identity. Of course, each society has evolved patterns of childrearing adjusted to its own special demands. For example, it is widely held that Japanese and Americans differ in prominent aspects of their psychological make-ups and that certain social and intellectual distinctions between members of these two cultures arise early in life. Previous study on the nature of infant development in Israeli kibbutzim determined that many decisive aspects of infant care -- particularly the close ties between infant and mother -- vary markedly from the typical American experience. Contemporary France, Italy, and America are relatively similar in terms of industrial level, educational attainment, and living standards, yet these societies differ considerably in terms of history, sociology, and culture. Within-culture comparisons are equally important: Studies of development in Belgium offer answers to the question of how being reared in monolingual versus bilingual environments affects cognition, communication, and socioemotional development. Argentina contrasts middle-class with extremely poor rearing conditions, all in a South American setting virtually unresearched. What differences exist in parenting and in infant activity within and across these cultures? A central purpose of this project is to identify similarities and differences in the childrearing ecologies of Argentine, Belgian, French, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, and U.S. American infants.