Concepts Relating Cultural and Individual Development
From WikEd
Margaret Mead filmed the daily events which was useful to understand how individual acts and interactions were affected by the culture. Her studies revealed that shared activities are an important source of development; even if these activities are not part of explicit lessons for the children.
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[edit] Whiting and Whiting’s Psycho-Cultural Model
Psycho-cultural model which underlines the relationships “between development of individuals and features of their immediate environment, social partners and institutional and cultural systems and values” was proposed by Beatrice Whiting and John Whiting in 1975. One can understand individual’s development only if she/he can carefully examine the immediate environment and culture of individuals, of their children, partners or ancestors. Whitings criticized the scholars who accepted the role of general concepts, such as culture or gender, on children’s development but did not do any analysis on these issues. Unlike these scholars, Whitings particularly looked for these categories and searched the environments in which children act. They believed that these environments are important to shape the developmental processes of children.
Whiting and Whiting’s model depicted the chain of social and cultural environments around the children which characterizes their development. This chain starts with the environment (consisted of climate, flora, fauna, terrain) and reaches the history part (including migrations, borrowing, inventions). Then it connects to the group’s maintenance systems (subsistence patterns, means of productions, settlement patterns, social structure, systems of defense, law and social control, and division of labor) which eventually lead to the children’s learning environment (routine settings, caretakers and teachers, tasks assigned and mother’s workload). Next step of chain is the individual (including the innate needs, drives, and capacities of infants and also the learned behavioral styles, skills, value priorities, conflicts and defense). According to Rogoff, some assumptions from the psycho-cultural model can be derived. For example, there is a causality link in this chain which starts from the environment and history followed by the children’s learning environment and finally ends at the individual’s development. Theory claimed that the learning environment of children is essentially composed of maintenance systems. In addition, the learning environment in which children grow up influence their behaviors and developments. Although Rogoff admitted the influence of Whitings on her ideas, she criticized the conceptualization of the relation between the individual and cultural practices. According to her, drawing of Whitings implies that the categories are independent but there is a casuality between them e.i. individual features created by cultural characteristics.
[edit] Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System
Although Bronfenbrenner’s ecological perspective differs from Whitings in terms of its different form, it is similar with Whitings’ model about treating the individual and cultural processes as separate entities. Bronfenbrenner emphasized “the interactions of changing organism in a changing environment”. He defines the environment as one’s immediate settings, for instance school, home, and also social and cultural contexts of relations among different settings, like interacting practices of home and work. Individuals are the results of their immediate settings and larger contexts. Individuals and larger context compose concentric circles like Russian nesting dolls. According to Rogoff, the claim of concentric circles means that all parts are independent but “the “larger” contexts affect the “smaller” ones, which in turn affect the developing person”. While the smallest circles, nearest to individual, form the immediate environment of an individual; the outer circles are the ones in which the person does not participate but she/he is affected due to their impact on others. These systems, from inner to outer, are microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, macrosystems. Microsystems compose the immediate settings which include children and other people, home, school, and work. In microsystems, individuals and others compose the dyad which in turn leads to triads. Mesosystems, are the interaction between and among the different settings of microsystems that an individual participates, such as interactions or shared practices between school and home of a child. Exosystems relate the microsystems in which children are actively involved with settings that children do not actively participate such as parent’s work place, mass media, local government etc. Bronfenbrenner claims that these settings in which children are not directly involved also affect their development, especially parent’s work and community’s organization. Macrosystems are “the ideology and organization of pervasive social institutions of the culture or subculture”. They are like blueprints for the organizations of every type of settings.
[edit] Descendents
Rogoff proposed that her views are a combination of Whitings, Bronfenbrenner, and cultural-historical ideas.
Some approaches, influenced by Whitings, Bronfenbrenner and other’s ideas, emphasized “ecological niches as a way of thinking about the relation of individuals and communities”. On the other hand, Weisner, Gallimore, and Jordan (1988) looked for childen’s daily activities for understanding cultural influences; such as personnel around the children, motivation of these people, cultural scripts to guide behaviors, tasks and activities, cultural goals and belongings of people. Super and Harkness (1997) emphasized the physical and social settings, customs of child care, and psychology of caregivers.
[edit] Issues in Diagramming the Relation of Individual and Cultural Processes
Rogoff criticized Whiting’s boxes and arrows diagram since it suggested that culture and individual development are separate things but culture influences the development of individuals. She also disagreed with Bronfenbrenner’ nested circles diagram since it assumed separate but hierarchical structures of entities for culture and individual development. According to her, a new diagram should be developed which depicts the mutual functions of cultural processes and the individual contributions.
[edit] Questions
How can we draw Rogoff's diagram who assumes that cultural and individual processes create each other? Which subcategories may be included in this diagram?
