Anthropology and Child Development

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).

"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

• Acknowledgments xIntroduction 1Robert A. LeVine and Rebecca S. NewPart I Discovering Diversity in Childhood: Early Works 9Introduction 111 Plasticity in Child Development 18Franz Boas2 The Ethnography of Childhood 22Margaret Mead3 Childhood in the Trobriand Islands, Melanesia 28Bronislaw Malinowski4 Tallensi Childhood in Ghana 34Meyer Fortes5 Continuities and Discontinuities in Cultural Conditioning 42Ruth BenedictPart II Infant Care: Cultural Variation in Parental Goals and Practices 49Introduction 516 The Comparative Study of Parenting 55Robert A. LeVine, Suzanne Dixon, Sarah E. LeVine, Amy Richman, Constance Keefer, P. Herbert Liederman, and T. Berry Brazelton7 Infant Care in the Kalahari Desert 66Melvin J. Konner8 Multiple Caregiving in the Ituri Forest 73Edward Z. Tronick, Gilda A. Morelli, and Steve Winn9 Fathers and Infants among Aka Pygmies 84Barry S. Hewlett10 Swaddling, Cradleboards and the Development of Children 100James S. Chisholm11 Talking and Playing with Babies: Ideologies of Child-Rearing 115Catherine Snow, Akke De Blauw, and Ghislaine Van Roosmalen12 Attachment in Anthropological Perspective 127Robert A. LeVine and Karin Norman13 An Experiment in Infant Care: Children of the Kibbutz 143Melford E. Spiro with the assistance of Audrey G. SpiroPart III Early Childhood: Language Acquisition, Socialization, and Enculturation 157Introduction 15914 The Acquisition of Communicative Style in Japanese 165Patricia M. Clancy15 Why African Children Are So Hard to Test 182Sara Harkness and Charles M. Super16 Autonomy and Aggression in the Three-Year-Old: The Utku Eskimo Case 187Jean L. Briggs17 Narrating Transgressions in U.S. and Taiwan 198Peggy J. Miller, Todd L. Sandel, Chung-Hui Liang, and Heidi Fung18 Child’s Play in Italian Perspective 213Rebecca S. New19 Discussione and Friendship in Italian Peer Culture 227William A. Corsaro and Thomas A. RizzoPart IV Middle and Later Childhood: Work, Play, Participation, and Learning 245Introduction 24720 Age and Responsibility 251Barbara Rogoff, Martha Julia Sellers, Sergio Pirrotta, Nathan Fox, and Sheldon H. White21 Child and Sibling Caregiving 264Thomas S. Weisner and Ronald Gallimore22 Altruistic and Egoistic Behavior of Children in Six Cultures 270John W. M. Whiting and Beatrice Blyth Whiting23 Children’s Daily Lives among the Yucatec Maya 280Suzanne Gaskins24 Children’s Work, Play, and Relationships among the Giriama of Kenya 289Martha WengerEpilogue 307Index 309