Professor Thomas S. Weisner Anthro M236/Psychiatry M214. Winter, 2006

THE PSYCHOCULTURAL STUDY OF SOCIALIZATION

Time and Place

Thursday 9-12 (first meeting, Thursday, January 12) Haines Hall 310 Phone: 794-3632 fax: 794-6297 email: tweisner@ucla.edu CLASS URL:

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/06W/anthrom236p-1/

INSTRUCTOR URL:

http://cultureandhealth.ucla.edu/tweisner/

This class website is linked from the following locations: http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/schedule/ http://my.ucla.edu/ http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/classes/

Office Hours: Thursday, 12 to 1, after class, in Haines Hall

304. (or at my NPI/Psychiatry Dept office: 1001 Westwood Blvd. (SW corner of Weyburn & Westwood, above the CVS building on the second floor --Rm. 2-208; directions on my email signature lines; email for appointment.)

Goals of this course

Children grow up in a wonderful and remarkable diversity of cultural communities around the world. Every cultural community provides developmental pathways for children. These pathways are shaped by cultural ecology and history, and by the goals of parents, communities, and children themselves. The proposal for consideration in our class is that the cultural pathways in which human development occurs are the single most important influences shaping development and developmental outcomes.

An important goal of the course is to read about how children grow up in a culturally pluralistic world. We will read studies, hear lectures, or see films of childhood and families in cultural communities in these countries: Kenya (Gusii; Abaluyia), Ivory Coast (Beng); Tanzania (Chagga), Botswana and Namibia (!Kung), Japan, China, Northern India, Brazil, and the United States. Studies in the United States include Mexican immigrants in California, Euro-Americans in California, Native Hawaiians, and working poor children and families in Milwaukee.

The cultural place in which development occurs is not the only influence on children’s development, by any means. A variety of mechanisms of the mind shape and are shaped by culture, and so influence development. These mechanisms include psychodynamic processes, shared memory and learning patterns, cognitive developmental stages, and sensitive periods in development such as those that accompany infant attachment, acquiring language, and processes of self and identity formation. There are also maturational, brain and neurological foundations of development shared by all infants and children everywhere. Our course, however, focuses on the role of cultural models of development and parenting shared by a community, and the cultural ecology of communities. We study how these models of childhood, parenting, and development are represented as schemas and scripts in the mind, and how emotions and sentiments become attached to these schemas. Schemas are associated with developmental goals parents have for children, and we discuss how children acquire these. We relate these cultural models to the ecology and institutions around families and children. We will also discuss policy and interventions for children and families; interventions also are cultural activities in a cultural context.

Understanding human development across cultures requires a wide-ranging set of conceptual tools and multiple methods. It requires a multivariate way of thinking about the world: recognizing that many interacting circumstances shape human development and family life, and that no one discipline or method or theory is likely to capture all these circumstances. The psychocultural and ecocultural perspective in our class discovers both universal features of parenting and development found across cultures, as well as the considerable differences between cultures.

Readings introduce a variety of theoretical approaches to understanding culture and development, including structural-functionalist approaches, ecocultural (culturalecological), evolutionary, biosocial, enculturative, feminist, critical theories, and others. Although we consider various theories, the course does emphasize a particular approach: an ecocultural model of development. Ecocultural theory focuses on the influence of family and community adaptation on development. In ecocultural theory, socialization and culture acquisition are viewed as adaptive projects with a goal of creating a culturally meaningful daily routine of family and community life for children and parents. Children experience their cultural world through active participation in family and community routines and activities. This daily routine consists of activity settings and cultural practices. The family routine can be examined for its ecological fit in a particular cultural ecology, its meaningfulness and value for the family, its balancing of competing interests among family and community members, and its predictability and stability for children. Ecological fit, meaning, balancing of interests and conflict, and stability jointly define the sustainability of a family daily routine in a particular cultural place. Ecocultural theory is based on the idea that children's engagement in their everyday routines of life is the single most powerful influence in a child's development, and that children’s development is better if children are engaged in sustainable routines. We compare children’s developmental pathways with both a local contextual perspective (local rationality, ecology, and daily routines) and a comparative one.

More sustainable routines, according to this theory, are better for children and should produce more well being in children and in families. Well being in ecocultural theory, consists of engaged participation in cultural activities deemed desirable by a cultural community, and the psychological experiences produced thereby. This is a universal developmental outcome, explicitly embedded in the cultural community the child develops in, worth considering across cultures. We also distinguish between well being and well becoming. Well becoming refers to what the present circumstances of a child and family may imply about some future developmental outcome (higher literacy test scores; completing high school; caring for elderly parents later in life). Well being is current. Developmental research usually focuses on well becoming – will current practices lead to “better” outcomes later?

The course is organized around consideration of some common human concerns about childhood and development: the tension between the individual and cultural community; trust and safety (including attachment); fear, threat and aggression; gender development; caretaking and provision of nurturance; schooling and skill acquisition; and change, interventions and policy.

The course focuses on topics of general importance in the social sciences as well, using comparative childhood research as the lens: human nature; the individual and culture; the nature of social order; gender differences; the self and identity; how cultural models motivate action; what constitutes deviance; culture change; and the role of cultural research in intervention and applied work. One of the exciting things about studying culture and development is that so many questions in this field are of general interest.

Readings emphasize contrasts and similarities between how the rest of the world conceives and manages human development, and how various North American cultures do so. We always consider the meaning of comparative and cross-cultural studies for our own life and contemporary culture. The readings each week include such comparative material. All of the readings and films refer to North American families and socialization practices as a contrast to studies of other cultural communities. Contested childhood, Child Care and Culture, The Afterlife is Where we Come From, Women, Family, and Child Care in India, and several papers and my own research include many direct comparisons with North American communities. I will also present material on my research with the Abaluyia of Kenya, Native Hawaiians, the Family Lifestyles Project (FLS), the CHILD Project, the New Hope project, and the Head Start study. The FLS is a longitudinal study of conventional and nonconventional families and children from California; the CHILD project is a longitudinal study of family adaptation among families with children with developmental delays in Los Angeles; the New Hope project is an ethnographic and survey study of economically poor families who participated in a program to assist parents in finding employment; and the Head Start study is an examination of efforts to enhance pre-literacy skills of children.

Class Format and schedule

The class is a structured seminar. I will lecture and organize class discussions in varied ways, and provide opportunities for email feedback.

Class requirements:

Email note. Before the second class meeting (Jan 19) email me one or two pages of notes and comments about the readings, class discussion, and how this course relates to your personal experiences, and professional and intellectual interests. This email note is your opportunity to get personal feedback from me on the readings, lectures or class discussions. What is puzzling to you about the course or the readings, surprising and exciting, contradicts or fits with what you have learned in other courses, makes you angry, happy or uneasy, fits or does not fit with your personal experience, influences what you might study or might be useful in your professional plans and related research? What would you like emphasized more (or less) in class discussions or lectures? How does this course fit with what you are learning or have learned in other courses in your own department or elsewhere? What ideas are you thinking of for your paper? No question is too “obvious” for you to ask: what does “culture” mean? Why aren’t all the readings focused on the often tragic current problems facing children and families? What about globalization and the media and their effects on children? Can I do my paper on children’s play? Etc. Whatever is engaging you about the class lectures, discussion, and readings can be what you write to me about in your email.

The content of your email note on Jan. 19 is not graded

(although referring to specific readings or class lectures and discussions is graded). It is your chance to think broadly, clarify confusions before you get too deep into the quarter, to think aloud about the readings, and relate the class readings, lectures, and discussion to your overall professional goals and personal life experiences. I will reply to your notes by the following week’s class on Jan. 26. This is the only required email note. However, if you have other questions during the quarter not covered in class, in questions during the break, or in office hours, you can always email me other times.

NOTE: BE SURE THAT THE EMAIL ADDRESS YOU USE TO SEND ME YOUR NOTES IS ALSO YOUR RETURN ADDRESS. IF IT IS NOT YOUR RETURN ADDRESS – INDICATE WHAT ADDRESS YOU WANT YOUR COMMENTS RETURNED TO. BE SURE THAT YOUR RETURN ADDRESS MAILBOX HAS ENOUGH STORAGE SPACE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE TO RECEIVE REPLIES. MAKE THE SUBJECT LINE OF THE EMAIL SOMETHING I CAN EASILY RECOGNIZE AS BEING FROM YOU AND ABOUT THIS CLASS (“MARY JONES M236P NOTE”, NOT FOR EXAMPLE, JUST “NOTES” OR “DOC”).

Paper. You will also write one 10 to 15 page paper, due week 8 of classes (March 2nd, Thursday), in class. Your paper must use the course readings extensively, including the empirical data and relevant theories presented in the readings and in class. The paper of course also can make use of other materials and bring in your other interests. I will hand out a list of what the paper should include several weeks before the due date. The paper can also relate to your own research and professional interests in whatever field you are in. A goal for class papers is to take your own interests and apply a cross-cultural point of view to the topic(s) you decide to focus on for your paper, and use the empirical evidence from the readings.

At week 6 of the quarter, February 16th, you should turn in a proposed topic, proposed paper title, and one summary paragraph describing the paper you are thinking of writing. I will read all these at the class break that same day, and give you an idea if the topic is OK. You can still revise and change the paper topics thereafter, but this is a way to get some early feedback. You can also email me about your thoughts about the paper at any point during the quarter, or meet during office hours (12 – 1 after class). The paper itself is then due 2 weeks later, March 2, giving you time to use feedback on the topic.

“One-minute papers”. At the beginning or end of some classes, we will write short paragraphs about what we anticipate for the class that day at the beginning, and/or what were the key points from that class at the end. These are not tests. They help focus class discussion and give us some shared questions for class.

Class Participation. All students are expected to attend the seminar regularly and to have completed the readings in advance of the discussion. All students are also expected to have something to say each week: e.g., a simple factual or historical question about one of the readings, a point which reveals a methodological bias or assumption, a critique of one or more of the readings, a strong point of an article or book which merits our admiration, a clarification which will help everyone to understand the readings better, a question about the proposed universal parental concern that is the focus for that week, or other topics. If everyone comes thus prepared, you will learn from each other as well as from the readings and from me. You may not actually be able to present that question or point due to the large class size – but you may be asked to write it in a one-minute paper at the beginning or end of the class.

Class presentation. You will also prepare a 7 minute oral presentation of your paper to the class on either week 9 or 10 (March 9th or March 16th (the last two class meetings of the quarter). (The week you present your paper will be decided during the week prior to week 9, and emailed to all students.) These short talks should help you to summarize and present your work – and to a friendly and sympathetic group at that. Due to the large class size, these will have to be very brief summaries of your paper, 7 minutes or so, with some brief discussion following. You can present your talk with a paper handout to the class, Powerpoint, or just give a talk.

Course Requirements summary

  1. Active, informed seminar participation, and full attendance (NOTE: the class is from 9 AM to 11:50 AM; please be in class at 9).

  2. Your email note about the class, submitted via email before class on January 19th.

3. A 10 - 15-page paper due in class week 8, March 2nd.

4. Presenting a short talk based on your paper, about 7 minutes, to the class during week 9 or 10. (The week you present your paper will be decided before March 9th, and emailed to all students.)

Grading

The paper is 60% of your final grade. The other course requirements comprise the remaining 40%.

All students receive feedback in the form of comments on the email you write before class on Jan 19th, comments on the suggested paper topic, and feedback on the final paper. In addition, students have the option of not knowing their actual letter grade they might have during the course or on the paper. Many students actually find it somewhat liberating (and only mildly anxiety inducing) to just focus on the course content, and actual feedback given during the course, rather than on a letter grade. Of course, you can find out about your letter grade at any time --it is entirely up to you, and there is no stigma either way.

The paper is graded on the mastery system. The principle of the mastery system is that students should receive rapid and specific feedback on their strengths and weaknesses in a paper, and be able to use this feedback to redo and improve their work. Students can then benefit from feedback by re-doing the work, showing improvement, and thereby getting a higher grade. There is no risk for revising a paper and resubmitting: no one receives a lower grade after revising a paper. The paper can be redone and resubmitted up to and including Friday, March 24th, and you can revise more than once. Other details will be discussed in class. You will receive a sheet listing features I look for in the papers before the paper is due. Since the paper is due March 2nd, and returned at the beginning of week 9 (March 9th), you have 3 weeks from the time you submit the paper, to revise and resubmit the paper before the quarter is over, if you choose to. I will try and return overall comments on each paper to you prior to March 9th via email.

Readings

Required texts for all students (in book store)

Gottleib, Alma. 2004. The afterlife is where we come from. The culture of infancy in West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Howard, Mary, & Millard, Ann V. 1997. Hunger and shame. Poverty and child malnutrition on Mount Kilimanjaro. New York: Routledge.

LeVine, Robert A., 1994. Child care and culture. Lessons from Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shostak, Marjorie. 1981. Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Press.

Seymour, Susan C. 1999. Women, Family, and Child Care in India. A World in Transition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Holloway, Susan D. 2000. Contested childhood. Diversity and change in Japanese preschools. New York: Routledge.

The books should be purchased. Bring the books to class; quote from them in your notes, in class, and in your paper; mark them up; go from reading the text to joint discussion with peers and in class, and then back to the text. The books are also on reserve in the Young Library Graduate Reserve Room. For students needing to do some background reading, either in human development or in psychological anthropology, some references to general texts and readers are included with this course outline, and are on reserve in the Young Library. I will also hand out some articles in class, usually 1-2 weeks before they are to be discussed in class. If you have to miss a class, ask a fellow student to get you a copy of these articles!

Internet site

The class has a website and the course syllabus is posted there: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/05W/anthrom236p-1/

Background Reading (on reserve in Young Library):

Akhtar, Salman, & Kramer, Selma. 1998. The colors of childhood: Separation-individuation across cultural, racial, and ethnic differences. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Amoss, Pamela T., & Harrell, Stevan. 1981. Other ways of growing old. Anthropological perspectives. Stanford CA: Stanford UP.

Bornstein, Marc, Ed. 1991. Cultural approaches to parenting. Hillsdale, NJ: LEA Press.

Boyden, Jo, & Joanna de Berry, Eds. 2004. Children and youth on the front line. Ethnography, armed conflict and displacement. New York: Berghahn Books.

Briggs, Jean L. 1998. Inuit Morality Play. The emotional education of a three-Year-Old. New Haven: Yale UP.

Chavez, Leo R. 1998. Shadowed Lives. Undocumented Immigrants in American Society. Harcourt Brace: Fort Worth, TX.

Cole, Michael, and Sheila Cole. 1996. The Development of Children. New York: W.H. Freeman.

DeLoache, Judy, & Gottlieb, Alma, Eds. 2000. A world of babies. Imagined childcare guides for seven societies. New York: Cambridge UP.

Edwards, Carolyn, and Beatrice B. Whiting. 2004. Ngecha. A Kenyan village in a time of rapid social change. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

Einarsdottir, Jonina. 2004. Tired of weeping. Mother love, child death, and poverty in Guinea-Bissau, 2nd Edition. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Erchak, Gerald. 1992. The Anthropology of Self and Behavior. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rugers University Press.

Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. 1995. Children in the Middle East. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, Ed. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.

Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. 2002. Remembering childhood in the Middle East. Memoirs from a century of change. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.

Fischer, Kurt, and Arlyne Lagerson. 1984. Human Development. From Conception Through Adolescence. New York: Freeman.

Gardiner, Harry W., Mutter, Jay D., & Kosmitzki, Corrine. 1998. Lives across cultures. Cross-cultural human development. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Greenfield, Patricia M., & Cocking, Rodney R., Eds. 1994. Cross-cultural roots of minority child development. LEA Press: Hillsdale, NJ.

Greenfield, Patricia M. 2004. Weaving generations together. Evolving creativity in the Maya of Chiapas. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research.

Gregg, Gary S. 2005. The Middle East. A cultural psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Goldschmidt, W. 1990. The Human Career. London: Routledge, Kegan, Paul.

Harwood, Robin, Miller, Joan, & Irizarry, Nydia L. Culture and Attachment. Perceptions of the child in context. New York: Guilford Press.

Hewlett, Barry S., Ed. Father-child relations. Cultural and biosocial contexts. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Hwang, C. Philip, Lamb, Michael, & Sigel, Irving E., Eds. 1996. Images of childhood. LEA Press: Mahwah, NJ.

James, Allison, & Prout Alan, EDS. 1997. Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood, 2nd ed. London: Falmer Press.

Jenkins, Henry, Ed. 1998. The children’s culture reader. New York: NYU Press.

Johnson, Allen. 2003. Families of the forest. The Matsigenka Indians of the Peruvian Amazon. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Kagitcibasi, Cigdem. 1996. Family and human development across cultures. A view from the other side. LEA Press: Mahwah, NJ.

Katz, Cindi. Growing up global. 2004. Economic restructuring and children’s everyday lives. Minneapolic: Univ. of Minnesota Press.

Kerns, Virginia & Brown, Judith K. 1992. In her prime. New views of middle-aged women, 2nd ed. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.

Lamb, Michael E. Ed. 1999. Parenting and child development in “nontraditional” families. LEA Press: Mahwah, NJ.

LeVine, Robert, ed. 1982. (rev. ed.) Culture and Personality: Contemporary Readings. Chicago: Aldine.

McCrae, Robert R., & Juri Allik. 2002. The five-factor model of personality across cultures. New York: Kluwer.

Moore, Kristin Anderson, & Laura H. Lippman. 2005. What do children need to flourish? Conceptualizing and measuring indicators of positive development. New York: Springer.

Morton, Helen. 1996. Becoming Tongan : An Ethnography of Childhood.

Munroe, Robert and Ruth Monroe. 1975. Cross-Cultural Human Development. Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole.

Munroe, Munroe, and Whiting, eds. 1981. Handbook of Cross-Cultural Human Development. New York: Garland Publishing.

Mussen, Paul, J. Conger, and J. Kagan. 1982. Child Development and Personality. New York: Harper and Row.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, & Sargent, Carolyn, Eds. 1998. Small wars. The cultural politics of childhood. Berkeley: UC Press.

Serpell, Robert. 1993. The significance of schooling. Lifejourneys in an African society. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Seymour, Susan C. 1999. Women, family, and child care in India. A world in transition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Shwalb, David W. & Barbara J. 1996. Japanese childrearing. Two generations of scholarship. New York: The Guilford Press.

Shweder, Richard A., Ed. 1998. Welcome to middle age! (and other cultural fictions). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Shweder, Richard. 1991. Thinking Through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Shweder, Richard, and Robert A. LeVine. 1984. Cultural Theory. Essays on Mind, Self, & Emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Spindler, George, ed. 1978. The Making of Psychological Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stephens, Sharon, Ed. 1995. Children and the politics of culture. Princeton: Princeton UP.

Stigler, James, Richard Shweder,, and Gilbert Herdt. 1990. Cultural Psychology. New York: Cambridge Press.

Strauss, Claudia, & Quinn, Naomi. 1997. A cognitive theory of cultural meaning. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP.

Valsiner, Jaan, Ed. 1989. Child development in cultural context. Toronto: Hogrefe and Huber

Weisner, Thomas, Bradley, Candice, and Kilbride, Philip, Eds. 1997. African families and the crisis of social change. Greenwood Press.

Weisner, Thomas S., Ed. 2005. Discovering successful pathways in children's development: New methods in the study of childhood and family life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Werner, Emmy. 1979. Cross-Cultural Child Development. Brooks-Cole.

Wozniak, R.H. 1993. Worlds of Childhood Reader. New York: Harper/Collins.

Whiting, Beatrice, & Edwards, Carolyn P. 1988. Children of Different Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press.

Course Outline

Week 1 of quarter (January 12, Thursday): The Study of Socialization Across Cultures

Fundamental questions in socialization studies; what is "good" and "bad" socialization?; ethics and values regarding this topic; what is the anthropological approach to the study of childhood – a brief history; the ecocultural model in the study of socialization; the significance of these questions for the comparative study of humankind and for core questions in the social sciences generally; organization and outline of the course; comparisons of this course to other possible approaches.

Weisner, T.S. (2002). Ecocultural understanding of children’s developmental pathways. Human Development 45:275-281. (handed out in class)

Weisner, T. S. (2001). Childhood: Anthropological aspects. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Vol 3 (pp. 1697 – 1701). N. J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (editors). Pergamon, Oxford. (handed out in class)

LeVine, et al Child care and culture, introduction and chapter 1.

(Look through all the assigned books to get an overview of them, including chapters that might be relevant for each topic of the seminar. Think about a topic you might like to focus on for your paper.)

****************************** Week 2 of quarter (January 19): The Individual and Culture

Ecocultural pathways for children and individual agency in development. Ethnotheories of human development.

Film: !Nyae...[on the !Kung/San, or Ju/'hoansi; Patricia Draper, anthropological advisor]

Read Shostak, Marjorie. 1981. Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Press.

Read Howard & Millard, Chp. 1

1-2 page comments are due on my email a day or more

before this class to (tweisner@ucla.edu). NOTE: BE SURE THAT THE EMAIL ADDRESS YOU USE TO SEND ME YOUR NOTES IS ALSO YOUR RETURN ADDRESS. IF IT IS NOT YOUR RETURN ADDRESS – INDICATE WHAT ADDRESS YOU WANT YOUR COMMENTS RETURNED TO. BE SURE THAT YOUR RETURN ADDRESS MAILBOX HAS ENOUGH STORAGE SPACE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE TO RECEIVE REPLIES. MAKE THE SUBJECT LINE OF THE EMAIL SOMETHING I CAN EASILY RECOGNIZE AS BEING FROM YOU AND ABOUT THIS CLASS (“MARY JONES M236P EMAIL NOTE”, FOR EXAMPLE, NOT “NOTES” OR “DOC”). Week 3 (January 26): Trust, intimacy and attachment across cultures

Culture, trust and “attachment”. What is the cultural problem for which different modes of attachment and security are solutions? How did it evolve? What cultural meanings and varieties of attachments and contexts are found around the world?

Weisner, T.S. 2005. Attachment as a cultural and ecological problem with pluralistic solutions. Human Development 48 (12), pp. 89 – 94. [handed out in class]

LeVine, RA. & Karin Norman. 2001. The infant’s acquisition of culture: early attachment reexamined in anthropological perspective. In Carmella Moore & Holly Mathews, eds. The psychology of cultural experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., pp. 83 – 104. [handed out in class]

Read LeVine, et al Child care and culture.

Gottlieb, The Afterlife…., Chapter 6.

***************************************

Week 4 (February 2nd): Culture, Education, and Schools.

Formal schooling, non-formal teaching, and acculturation. Cultural influences on schools. How much of what children learn is not taught through verbal tuition? Culture and teaching. Home-school connections.

Read: Holloway, Susan D. 2000. Contested childhood. Diversity and change in Japanese preschools. New York: Routledge.

Video: "Preschool in Three Cultures"

Week 5 ( February 9th): Threat, fear and war: effects on children

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1990. Mother love and child death in Northeast Brazil. In J.W. Stigler, R.A. Shweder & G. Herdt (Eds.) Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, pp. 542-565. (handed out in class)

Goldstein, Donna M. 1998. Nothing bad intended: Child discipline, punishment, and survival in a shantytown in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. In Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, & Sargent, Carolyn, Eds. Small wars. The cultural politics of childhood. Berkeley: UC Press. Pp 389-415. [handed out in class]

Read all of Gottleib, Alma. 2004. The afterlife is where we come from. The culture of infancy in West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

A one-page summary of your plans for your paper are

due in class next week, Feb. 16th

*********************

Week 6 (February 16th): Culture, gender, and development

Gender, culture, and developmental pathways. Doing gender. Differences in gender strategies across the life span. The idea of “entailed” developmental pathways and tasks.

Video: "Maragoli", with Joseph Ssenyonga

Read Seymour, Susan C. 1999. Women, Family, and Child Care in India. A World in Transition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Read Howard & Millard, Chp. 6

A one paragraph summary of your paper outline, including a suggested title for the paper, is due in class today, Feb.

16th. These will be read and returned after the break half way through class today.

Week 7 (February 23rd): Caretaking and Parenting of Children

Cultural models for parenting and child care and their consequences for children. Cultural goals and child outcomes. Nonparental care of children – its organization in other societies. Cultural goals and parental decisions.

Complete LeVine, et al, Child care and culture.

Howard & Millard, Hunger and Shame, Chp. 7

***********************

Week 8 (March 2nd): Culture, Policy, & Intervention for Children and Families

How should cultural research inform intervention? Ethics and the research role revisited. What do we mean by policy-relevance? Who are the audiences and consumers of such research? Examples from the New Hope and Child projects.

Complete Howard & Millard, Hunger and Shame.

Duncan, Greg J., Aletha C. Huston, & Thomas S. Weisner. Ms. New Hope: A policy success for working poor families and their children.

Daley, Tamara, & Weisner, Thomas S. (2003). “I Speak a Different Dialect”: Teen Explanatory Models of Difference and Disability. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 17 (1): 25 –

48. [handed out in class]

[Your paper is due in class today, March 2ndand comments will be returned before or in class next week.]

Week 9 (March 9th, Thursday): Culture and human development: Discussion of papers

About half of the class will briefly (about 7 minutes each) summarize their papers during the seminar. We will discuss and expand on each of your paper topics in class discussion.

Papers are returned in class today. You can do revisions through March 24th.

*************************

Week 10 (March 16th): Culture and human development: Discussion of papers

The other half of the class will briefly (about 7 minutes each) summarize their papers during the seminar. We will discuss and expand on each of your paper topics in class discussion.

[Any rewrites/revisions of your papers can be turned in any time up to March 24th, Friday.]