The developmental context of culture: Reflections on the contributions and legacy of Jerome Kagan.

Although the path of Kagan's career led him inexorably toward biology, in the few years between his first benchmark publication on infancy and his later focus on temperament, he turned to other cultures in order to evaluate emerging insights about early development, namely, that major developmental transitions in behavior are maturational products. These forays contributed profoundly to our current understanding of culture and human development and inspired several of his students to focus their own careers on human development in culture, or, turned around, what we might call the developmental context of culture. Drawing largely on Kagan's own writings, this essay attempts to understand what the cross-cultural work meant to him and its lasting influence on his students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Culture and the organization of infant sleep: A study in the Netherlands and the U.S.A.

This study investigates differences in the amount and structure of infant sleep in two cultural places with previously documented, divergent parental beliefs and practices. Eight-month-old infants (n = 24 per site) were recruited from towns in the Netherlands and the eastern U.S.A. To evaluate sleep, infants' physical activity was recorded at home for 24 h using a miniature actigraph, while parents kept a diary of infant activities. Measures derived from actigraphy include total sleep, longest sleep episode, longest wake episode, number of sleep episodes, and percent of sleep during nighttime, as well as time in the stages of Quiet and Active Sleep. Measures based on the parental diaries include most of these aspects as well, except those related to sleep stages. Results based on the more precise actigraphy method indicate that (1) the Dutch infants averaged 13.65 h of sleep per 24 h, 1.67 h more than the U.S. infants; this difference was mostly due to daytime sleep; (2) The Dutch infants' longest wake episode averaged less than that of the U.S. infants, while their longest sleep episode appeared slightly longer. (3) The Dutch infants, compared to the U.S. sample, spent more time in the Quiet, rather than the Active phase of sleep; (4) They began their Quiet sleep earlier in the evening than did their U.S. counterparts. Measures derived from parental diaries are largely in agreement with the actigraph findings. These results are consistent with reported and observed practices and beliefs in the two communities. The pattern of differences - less apparent maturity among the Dutch in the amount of sleep, but greater apparent maturity in the structure of sleep -- illustrates that behavioral and neurological maturity can be assessed only in the context of the developing child's adaptation to the specific demands and affordances of the culturally structured developmental niche.

Research on parental burnout across cultures: Steps toward global understanding.

In this commentary we first examine psychometric issues in the ambitious enterprise of cross-cultural application of the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA). The present reports span a wide range of cultural places. Overall, the PBA presents good face validity and a strong replication of factor structure; future multi-group confirmatory factor analysis will enable quantitative comparisons not currently possible. Content validity is not fully addressed in these reports, so nuanced differences in the nature of parental burnout remain an interesting possibility. Variation the PBA's correlations with other measures, such as education and household type, suggests cultural mediation in the causes and dynamics of parental burnout. In the second part of our commentary, we address more directly whether parental burnout is influenced by the sociocultural context in which it is manifest. We propose that future research will benefit from more precise description of the particular cultural community involved, including the settings, customs, and ethnotheories of parenting. Gaining a global understanding of parental burnout, in other words, rests on building firmer and more differentiated pictures at the local level. The papers in this volume nevertheless present an important step forward in what promises to be an exciting journey of discovery.

Culture and human development: Where did it go? And where is it going?

Culture and human development blossomed as a research enterprise in the last quarter of the 20th century; the energy and innovation of that enterprise are less evident now. Where did it go, and where is it going? In this essay, we examine the shifting fields of cross-cultural psychology, psychological anthropology, cultural psychology, indigenous psychology, and the surge of research on Individualism/Collectivism. Offering both academic and personal perspectives, we reflect on the importance of "culture" as a construct, and the value of focusing on individual development in that context. The way forward now, we suggest, is international and intercultural collaboration of scientists. The challenge for training new researchers from diverse backgrounds, however, is to equip them with the knowledge and insights gained from cross-cultural psychology, psychological anthropology, and their own cultures, rather than simply making the next generation of scholars into new representatives of Western theories of development.

Culture and the perceived organization of newborn behavior: A comparative study in Kenya and the United States.

The behavior of newborns is ambiguous. Cultural models-representations shared by members of a community-provide new parents and others with a cognitive and motivational structure to understand them. This study asks members of several cultural groups (total n = 100) to judge the "similarity" of behavioral items in the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). Data were obtained from NBAS experts, mothers, and undergraduates in Massachusetts, and mothers and high-school students in rural Kenya. Multidimensional scaling of their judgments reveals that NBAS experts were especially attentive to a dimension of State Control-exactly as the scale emphasizes. Kenyan mothers focused on a dimension of motor responsiveness-in accord with their concern and practices regarding motor development, and the Massachusetts mothers organized their judgments around cognitive competence-abilities emphasized in contemporary discussions of early development. The US students appear to be more similar to US mothers than did the Kenya students to the Kenyan mothers. Each adult group's representation reflects their cultural values and goals, and helps them understand the newborn child in local terms.

Parents' Concepts of the Successful School Child in Seven Western Cultures.

Although children's school success is a parental goal in most cultures, there is wide cultural variation in the qualities that parents most wish their children to develop for that purpose. A questionnaire contained forty-one child qualities was administered to 757 parents in seven cultural communities in Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted separately within each sample and results revealed both similarities and differences across the seven samples. The factor structures showed considerable similarity: four domains of characteristics (Cognitive Qualities, Social Qualities, Negative temperament, and Good Characters) were identified in each sample as strongly influencing children's success in school. However, parents differed across the seven cultural communities in the importance they attributed to these factors. The results also reveal some culturally unique patterns in parents' concepts of the successful schoolchild; the seven samples were differentiated by distinctive associations of individual qualities around the four common domains. These results offer new insights for incorporating perspectives from other cultures into our own concepts of what qualities are most important for children's success in school, and how educators can be cognizant of differing cultural perspectives represented by the families whose children are their students.

Parents, Preschools, and the Developmental Niches of Young Children: A Study in Four Western Cultures.

Recent years have witnessed increasing attention to early childhood education and care as a foundation for children's successful development in school and beyond. The great majority of children in postindustrial societies now attend preschools or daycare, making this setting a major part of their culturally constructed developmental niches. Although an extensive literature demonstrates the importance of parental involvement or engagement in their children's schools, relationships between parents and their children's preschools have received scant attention in the research literature. This paper aims to address that gap through a mixed-methods cross-cultural study of parents and preschools in four Western countries: Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States. Following an introduction to national systems of preschool in each country, parents' involvement and ideas about the family-school relationship are presented, drawing from parental diaries and from semistructured interviews (n = 110). Results indicate areas of cross-cultural similarity but also some differences, especially between the U.S. sample and the three European samples. Discussion addresses the question of how preschools and parents can work together to create optimal developmental niches for their young children. The authors also suggest that parent-preschool relationships deserve greater attention by both researchers and program developers.

Cross-Cultural Research on Parents: Applications to the Care and Education of Children Introduction to the Issue.

The seven papers in this issue address a variety of challenges that parents in several different cultural places encounter as they do their best to ensure their children's safe, happy, and successful development from infancy through middle childhood: infant sleep, developmental agendas, temperament, preschools, academic success, and learning to be a parent in a new cultural environment. The authors use a varied of methods - qualitative and quantitative - to understand how parental figures in Botswana, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United States think about the needs of their children, their own role as parents, and the caretaking practices that follow. A final Commentary focuses on the power of parental ethnotheories in changing societies, and on the complexities and importance of cross-cultural research.

Developmental Continuity and Change in the Cultural Construction of the "Difficult Child": A Study in Six Western Cultures.

This study explores the cultural construction of "difficult" temperament in the first 2 years of life, as well as the logistical and thematic continuity across infancy and childhood in what mothers perceive as difficult. It extends earlier work regarding older children in six cultural sites: Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. In order to compare temperament profiles across sites, a "derived etic" version of standard temperament scales is constructed, and then examined in relation to mothers' global ratings of how "difficult" the child is to manage. Results are compared to the earlier report. Negative Mood and low Adaptability tend to be problematic in most sites in both age groups. High Activity and Intensity increase in their relevance to difficulty from the first 2 years to early childhood. In some sites, dispositions such as low Approach become less difficult to manage. Of particular note are culturally unique patterns of continuity that appear to be related to larger cultural themes. These results have implications for our theoretical understanding of parenting, as well as for educational and clinical practice.

Getting the Baby on a Schedule: Dutch and American Mothers' Ethnotheories and the Establishment of Diurnal Rhythms in Early Infancy.

One of the earliest challenges for infants and their parents is developing a diurnal sleep-wake cycle. Although the human biological rhythm is circadian by nature, its development varies across cultures, based in part on "zeitgebers" (German: literally "time-givers") or environmental cues. This study uses the developmental niche framework by Super and Harkness to address two different approaches to getting the baby on a schedule. 33 Dutch and 41 U.S. mothers were interviewed when their babies were 2 and 6 months old. A mixed-methods analysis including counts of themes and practices as well as the examination of actual quotes shows that Dutch mothers emphasized the importance of regularity in the baby's daily life and mentioned practices to establish regular schedules for the baby's sleeping, eating, and time outside more than American mothers did. The U.S. mothers, in contrast, discussed regularity less often and when they did, they emphasized that their baby should develop his or her own schedule. Furthermore, actual daily schedules, based on time allocation diaries kept by the mothers, revealed greater regularity among the Dutch babies. Discussion focuses on how culture shapes the development of diurnal rhythms, with implications for "best practices" for infant care.

Grandmothers' Developmental Expectations for Early Childhood in Botswana.

Urban and rural grandmothers (n = 20) in Botswana participated in focus groups to learn their expectations for the acquisition of skills by preschool children. Their expectations for self-care, traditional politeness, and participation in household chores were dramatically earlier than developmental timetables reported for Western middle-class populations. There are some differences, however, in the urban and rural grandmothers' expectations. Rural grandmothers had earlier expectations for self-care skills and participation in household chores, and they had more specific expectations for mastering Setswana cultural customs. In addition, some urban grandmothers, who were generally more educated, described using more reciprocal communication, and they believed in playing with their grandchildren, whereas the rural grandmothers' communication was more instructional, and they insisted that children should play away from adults. Strikingly, there was no mention of school readiness goals or activities by either group, suggesting a "cultural misfit" between the standard early childhood curriculum, largely imported from the United States and other Western countries, and the cultural backgrounds of Batswana families. To create a more workable partnership between preschool teachers and grandparents-important caretakers of young children, both traditionally and currently-will require efforts to acknowledge and promote the values and expectations of both groups.

Chinese Mothers' Cultural Models of Children's Shyness: Ethnotheories and Socialization Strategies in the Context of Social Change.

Research by Xinyin Chen and others has documented that in past decades, shyness in Chinese children was associated with leadership, peer-acceptance, and academic achievement. In contemporary China, shyness predicts maladaptive youth outcomes. Although social, political, and economic transitions are presumed to be responsible for this shift, little is known about how societal change mediates parents' beliefs and the socialization of shy children. This qualitative study explored implicit parenting cognitions and attitudes about shyness in a Chinese urban middle-class group of mothers (N = 20). Thematic analyses revealed mothers' beliefs about the role of family socialization in the development/maintenance of shyness and the complexities between shyness and introversion. Mothers spoke of increased use of child-centered parenting practices and the promotion of assertive and self-assured traits. These findings highlight how Chinese parenting has contributed to the decline in the adaptive value of shyness, and inform the development of parenting interventions for shy Chinese children.

The emergence of separation protest is robust under conditions of severe developmental stress in rural Bangladesh.

The response of 185 infants to their mothers' departure was assessed in a rural area of Bangladesh. Despite their poor health and nutritional status, this group of infants showed the same peak in separation protest around the end of the first year that has been documented for healthier samples in several cultural contexts; correlational analysis suggests that the healthier infants were more likely to display protest. In addition, there was an earlier rise and decline in distress at maternal departure in the first half year of life, not seen in other reports. In this case, poor health appeared to dispose toward upset, indicating that the most fragile infants were least able to cope with the regulatory demands imposed by maternal departure. Overall, the results are evidence for a very strongly canalized transformation of cognitive and emotional functioning toward the end of the first year of life.

Children's activities and their meanings for parents: a mixed-methods study in six Western cultures.

Theoretical perspectives and research in sociology, anthropology, sociolinguistics, and cultural psychology converge in recognizing the significance of children's time spent in various activities, especially in the family context. Knowing how children's time is deployed, however, only gives us a partial answer to how children acquire competence; the other part must take into account the culturally constructed meanings of activities, from the perspective of those who organize and direct children's daily lives. In this article, we report on a study of children's routine daily activities and on the meanings that parents attribute to them in six Western middle-class cultural communities located in Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United States (N = 183). Using week-long time diaries kept by parents, we first demonstrate similarities as well as significant differences in children's daily routines across the cultural samples. We then present brief vignettes--"a day in the life" --of children from each sample. Parent interviews were coded for themes in the meanings attributed to various activities. Excerpts from parent interviews, focusing on four major activities (meals, family time, play, school- or developmentally related activities), are presented to illustrate how cultural meanings and themes are woven into parents' organization and understanding of their children's daily lives. The results of this mixed-method approach provide a more reliable and nuanced picture of children's and families' daily lives than could be derived from either method alone.

Globalization and its discontents: challenges to developmental theory and practice in Africa.

The three contributions to this Special Section on Culture and Human Development are summarized and critiqued. In considering the nature of contemporary psychological science, as well as applications to early childhood care and development, education to prevent HIV/AIDS, and formal academic education, the various authors are in general agreement on the limitations of current knowledge as it applies to African populations. There is also a common focus on the promise of scientific procedures that take seriously the importance of local understandings, institutions, and social settings.