Children’s Engagement in the World: Sociocultural Perspectives

This volume describes children’s development in its cultural context. It stresses the point that children’s development in diverse cultures follows different paths, depending on the developmental opportunities provided by their cultures. It illustrates that the everyday work at school, and play activities provided for children vary from one culture to another depending on the social and economical structure of children’s cultures and adult beliefs about what is valuable for children’s participation to secure optimal development. Thus, Children’s Engagement in the World: Sociocultural Perspectives proposes to study children’s development and education within its social as well as cultural context. It brings together the most recent theoretical advances in cultural psychology in order to establish a framework for the studies reported in it.

• Volume covers many different cultures in the world • Covers many different activities of childhood • Focuses on childhood development and education

Part I. Introduction: 1. Children’s and researchers’ engagement in the world Artin Goncu; Part II. Children’s Engagement in the World: 2. Children’s daily lives in a Mayan village: a case study of culturally constructed roles and activities Suzanne Gaskins; 3. Cultural heterogeneity: parental values and beliefs and their preschoolers’ activities in the United States, South Korea, Russia and Estonia Jonathan Tudge, Diane Hogan, Soeun Lee, Peeter Tammeveski, Marika Meltsas, Natalya Kulakova, Irina Snezhkova, and Sarah Putnam; Part III. Children’s Engagement in Play: 4. Activity setting analysis: a model for examining role of culture in development Jo Ann M. Farver; 5. The pragmatics of caregiver-child pretending at home: understanding culturally specific socialization practices Wendy L. Haight; 6. Children’s play as cultural activity Artin Goncu, Ute Tuermer, Jyoti Jain and Danielle Johnson; Part IV. Children’s Engagement in Planning, Math and Literacy: 7. Everyday opportunities for the development of planning skills: sociocultural and family influences Mary Gauvain; 8. Supportive environments for cognitive development: illustrations from children’s mathematical activities outside of school Steven R. Guberman; 9. Becoming literate in the borderlands Christine C. Pappas.