Robert A. LeVine - Böcker

Women's schooling is strongly related to child survival and other outcomes beneficial to children throughout the developing world, but the reasons behind these statistical connections have been unclear. In Literacy and Mothering, the authors show, for the first time, how communicative change plays a key role: Girls acquire academic literacy skills, even in low-quality schools, which enable them, as mothers, to understand public health messages in the mass media and to navigate bureaucratic health services effectively, reducing risks to their children's health. With the acquisition of academic literacy, their health literacy and health navigation skills are enhanced, thereby reducing risks to children and altering interactions between mother and child. Assessments of these maternal skills in four diverse countries - Mexico, Nepal, Venezuela, and Zambia - support this model and are presented in the book. Chapter 1 provides a brief history of mass schooling, including the development of a bureaucratic Western form of schooling. Along with the bureaucratic organization of healthcare services and other institutions, this form of mass schooling spread across the globe, setting new standards for effective communication - standards that are, in effect, taught in school. Chapter 2 reviews the demographic and epidemiological evidence concerning the effects of mothers' education on survival, health, and fertility. In this chapter, the authors propose a model that shows how women's schooling, together with urbanization and changes in income and social status, reduce child mortality and improve health. In Chapter 3, the authors examine the concept of literacy and discuss how its meanings and measurements have been changed by educational research of the last few decades. Chapter 4 introduces the four-country study of maternal literacy. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 present the findings, focusing on academic literacy and its retention (Chapter 5), its impact on maternal health literacy and navigation skills (Chapter 6), and changes in mother-child interaction and child literacy skills (Chapter 7). Chapter 8 presents a new analysis of school experience, explores policy implications, and recommends further research.

Women's schooling is strongly related to child survival and other outcomes beneficial to children throughout the developing world, but the reasons behind these statistical connections have been unclear. In Literacy and Mothering, the authors show, for the first time, how communicative change plays a key role: Girls acquire academic literacy skills, even in low-quality schools, which enable them, as mothers, to understand public health messages in the mass media and to navigate bureaucratic health services effectively, reducing risks to their children's health. With the acquisition of academic literacy, their health literacy and health navigation skills are enhanced, thereby reducing risks to children and altering interactions between mother and child. Assessments of these maternal skills in four diverse countries - Mexico, Nepal, Venezuela, and Zambia - support this model and are presented in the book. Chapter 1 provides a brief history of mass schooling, including the development of a bureaucratic Western form of schooling. Along with the bureaucratic organization of healthcare services and other institutions, this form of mass schooling spread across the globe, setting new standards for effective communication - standards that are, in effect, taught in school. Chapter 2 reviews the demographic and epidemiological evidence concerning the effects of mothers' education on survival, health, and fertility. In this chapter, the authors propose a model that shows how women's schooling, together with urbanization and changes in income and social status, reduce child mortality and improve health. In Chapter 3, the authors examine the concept of literacy and discuss how its meanings and measurements have been changed by educational research of the last few decades. Chapter 4 introduces the four-country study of maternal literacy. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 present the findings, focusing on academic literacy and its retention (Chapter 5), its impact on maternal health literacy and navigation skills (Chapter 6), and changes in mother-child interaction and child literacy skills (Chapter 7). Chapter 8 presents a new analysis of school experience, explores policy implications, and recommends further research.

First published in 1986, this book proposes and illustrates a new approach to the comparative analysis of educational policy, based on anthropological and historical inquiry. It reviews the transitions of Western countries, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China and in doing so investigates cultural ideas of human potential and how they inform social and economic goals of education. An analysis of the problems and emerging patterns in developing countries reveals how and why the meanings of life for the majority of their populations were still influenced by agrarian cultural models, even after the introduction of new educational and occupational careers. In place of universalistic economic models and homogenous modernization strategies, the authors propose that culture-specific meanings of education are determined by each country’s particular transition from its agrarian past to its socio-economic conditions at the time. They argue that change in educational development has been as varied in ends, means and significance outcomes as the cultures in which it has occurred and point to the need for a deeper understanding of cultural contexts in which policy choices and development plans are made.

First published in 1986, this book proposes and illustrates a new approach to the comparative analysis of educational policy, based on anthropological and historical inquiry. It reviews the transitions of Western countries, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China and in doing so investigates cultural ideas of human potential and how they inform social and economic goals of education. An analysis of the problems and emerging patterns in developing countries reveals how and why the meanings of life for the majority of their populations were still influenced by agrarian cultural models, even after the introduction of new educational and occupational careers. In place of universalistic economic models and homogenous modernization strategies, the authors propose that culture-specific meanings of education are determined by each country’s particular transition from its agrarian past to its socio-economic conditions at the time. They argue that change in educational development has been as varied in ends, means and significance outcomes as the cultures in which it has occurred and point to the need for a deeper understanding of cultural contexts in which policy choices and development plans are made.

The relationship between everyday experience and culture - seen as a set of ideas, values, or symbolic codes - has challenged social scientists and especially anthropologists, for more than a century. As a comprehensive and critical account of knowledge and research in the field of culture theory, leading social scientists explore the implications for understanding different aspects of subjective experience, social practice, and individual behavior. The focus of the volume is on the role of symbols and meaning in the development of mind, self, and emotion. They examine the content of culture and how it interacts with cognitive, social, and emotional growth; how ideas relate to attitudes, feelings, and behavior; how concepts and meanings are historically transmitted. They also explore methodological and conceptual problems involved in the definition and study of meaning, and revisit the perennial problem of 'relativism' in light of topical advances in semantic analysis and in culture theory. This book will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, historians, and linguists, as well as those interested in hermeneutics and a science of subjectivity.

Child Care and Culture examines parenthood, infancy, and early childhood in an African community, revealing patterns unanticipated by current theories of child development and raising provocative questions about 'normal' child care in the human species. Comparing the Gusii people of Kenya, whose practices were intensively observed from the combined perspectives of social anthropology, pediatrics, and developmental psychology, with the American white middle class, the authors show how divergent cultural priorities create differing conditions for early childhood development.

Japanese Frames of Mind addresses two main questions in light of a collection of research conducted by both Japanese and American researchers at Harvard University: What challenge does Japanese psychology offer to Western psychology? Will the presumed universals of human nature discovered by Western psychology be reduced to a set of 'local psychology' among many in a world of unpredicted variations? The chapters provide a wealth of new data and perspectives related to aspects of Japanese child development, moral reasoning and narratives, schooling and family socialization, and adolescent experiences. By placing the Japanese evidence within the context of Western psychological theory and research, the book calls for a systematic reexamination of Western psychology as one psychology among many other ethnopsychologies. Written in mostly non-technical language, this book will appeal to developmental and cultural psychologists, anthropologists interested in psychological anthropology, educators, and anyone interested in Japanese and Asian studies.

Japanese Frames of Mind addresses two main questions in light of a collection of research conducted by both Japanese and American researchers at Harvard University: What challenge does Japanese psychology offer to Western psychology? Will the presumed universals of human nature discovered by Western psychology be reduced to a set of 'local psychology' among many in a world of unpredicted variations? The chapters provide a wealth of new data and perspectives related to aspects of Japanese child development, moral reasoning and narratives, schooling and family socialization, and adolescent experiences. By placing the Japanese evidence within the context of Western psychological theory and research, the book calls for a systematic reexamination of Western psychology as one psychology among many other ethnopsychologies. Written in mostly non-technical language, this book will appeal to developmental and cultural psychologists, anthropologists interested in psychological anthropology, educators, and anyone interested in Japanese and Asian studies.

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

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

Pteridine and folate research has long been recognized as important for many biological processes, such as amino acid metabolism, nucleic acid synthesis, neurotransmitter synthesis, cancer, cardiovascular function, and growth and development of essentially all living organisms. Defects in synthesis, metabolism and/or nutritional availability of these compounds have been implicated as major causes of common disease processes, for example, cancer, inflammatory disorders, cardiovascular disorders, neurological diseases, autoimmune processes, and birth defects. Since pteridine and folate biology uses concepts and experimental techniques drawn from all of these disciplines, the breadth of this volume is its great strength, bringing together researchers from a wide variety of fields including biochemistry, chemistry, physics, biophysics, genetics, microbiology, cell and molecular biology, virology, immunology, cancer, neurobiology and medicine. This volume should be a valuable reference work for scientists with interests in these areas as well as those seeking up to date information.

This book presents an overview of the sense of theoretical problem in culture and personality research and a biological perspective on culture and the individual. It describes relations between psychological theory and method, and explores the psychology of culture and social change.

Psychological Anthropology: A Reader in Self in Culture presents a selection of readings from recent and classical literature with a rich diversity of insights into the individual and society. Presents the latest psychological research from a variety of global culturesSheds new light on historical continuities in psychological anthropologyExplores the cultural relativity of emotional experience and moral concepts among diverse peoples, the Freudian influence and recent psychoanalytic trends in anthropologyAddresses childhood and the acquisition of culture, an ethnographic focus on the self as portrayed in ritual and healing, and how psychological anthropology illuminates social change

Psychological Anthropology: A Reader in Self in Culture presents a selection of readings from recent and classical literature with a rich diversity of insights into the individual and society. Presents the latest psychological research from a variety of global culturesSheds new light on historical continuities in psychological anthropologyExplores the cultural relativity of emotional experience and moral concepts among diverse peoples, the Freudian influence and recent psychoanalytic trends in anthropologyAddresses childhood and the acquisition of culture, an ethnographic focus on the self as portrayed in ritual and healing, and how psychological anthropology illuminates social change

Pteridine and folate research has long been recognized as important for many biological processes, such as amino acid metabolism, nucleic acid synthesis, neurotransmitter synthesis, cancer, cardiovascular function, and growth and development of essentially all living organisms. Defects in synthesis, metabolism and/or nutritional availability of these compounds have been implicated as major causes of common disease processes, e.g. cancer, inflammatory disorders, cardiovascular disorders, neurological diseases, autoimmune processes, and birth defects.Since pteridine and folate biology uses concepts and experimental techniques drawn from all of these disciplines, the breadth of this volume is its great strength, bringing together researchers from a wide variety of fields including biochemistry, chemistry, physics, biophysics, genetics, microbiology, cell and molecular biology, virology, immunology, cancer, neurobiology and medicine. This volume should be a valuable and unique reference work for scientists with interests in these areas as well as those seeking up to date information.