Choice Reviews Online · 1988 · 793 citations · 0 references
Social SciencesHuman DevelopmentPsychologyChild DevelopmentDevelopmental PsychologySocial DevelopmentAnthropology Of ChildhoodEarly ChildhoodInterpersonal DevelopmentSocializationChild SocializationComplex SocietiesNature Versus Nurture DebateSocial Behavior Development
Twenty years of research culminated in this cross‑cultural study of how age, gender, and culture shape children’s social behavior. The authors show that knowing which peers children interact with and how much time they spend with different social categories allows prediction of important aspects of their interpersonal behavior. They conducted naturalistic observations of children aged two to ten in everyday settings across six countries: Africa, India, the Philippines, Okinawa, Mexico, and the United States. The study identified universal and culture‑specific social behaviors, illuminated nature‑nurture dynamics, and demonstrated that peer company and time allocation predict key interpersonal behaviors.
The culmination of twenty years of research, this book is a cross-cultural exploration of the ways in which age, gender, and culture affect the development of social behavior in children. The authors and their associates observed children between the ages of two and ten going about their daily lives in communities in Africa, India, the Philippines, Okinawa, Mexico, and the United States. This rich fund of data has enabled them to identify the types of social behavior that are universal and those which differ from one cultural environment to another.Whiting and Edwards shed new light on the nature-nurture question: in analyzing the behavior of young children, they focus on the relative contributions of universal physiological maturation and universal social imperatives. They point out cross-cultural similarities, but also note the differences in experience between children who grow up in simple and in complex societies. They show that knowledge of the company children keep, and of the proportion of time they spend with various categories of people, makes it possible to predict important aspects of their interpersonal behavior.An extension and elaboration of the classic Children of Six Cultures (Harvard, 1975), Children of Different Worlds will appeal to the same audience developmental psychologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, and educators and is sure to be equally influential.