This study leans into the observation of different expectations and techniques in education by an English and a Spanish mother, to find out in which ways they are affected by their cultures, which areas of development were found important for the child and how they encourage their development. The results were compared to the previous researches mentioned before, however these are just individual studies and not samples of population for which any patterns were just indicative.
METHOD
DESIGN
The design of this study was a replication of the procedure used by Hess et al. For his research with American and Japanese mothers, carried in this case in two individuals from different cultural backgrounds.
PARTICIPANTS
Participant A was a mother of 23 years old born in England. She was a mother to a 14 months old female child and she had always lived in England.
Participant B was a married mother to a two year old female child, she had grown and born in Spain but lived in England for the past five years. She was married to an English man.
Both hold a medium class social status.
MATERIALS
The resources used were:
A/ a set of cards containing each one of them an statement about a goal that a child achieve at some point in his/her development + one example card.
B/a sorting sheet to place cards with three divisions : “younger than four years”, “4 or 5 years”, and “6 years or older”
C/a summary data sheet containing all the statements in the cards grouped into 6 main developmental areas.
D/a data profile sheet where able to compare averages in a graphic.
PROCEDURE
The study was carried at the place of work of the two participants in a separate and empty room with a table. They were told that a set of cards were going to be given to them each one containing a statement about something that children learn at some point when they grow up. At this point they were shown the example card “can brush teeth without supervision” , and asked weather they thought if this goal would be reached by their child before her fourth birthday, when she is 4 or 5 or after she is 6, and then asked to place the example card in one of the three boxes provided for each band of age in the sorting sheet. After taking a sort break they were asked some questions about their views of the task and about their thoughts in child development.
The study was carried under the ethics, contemplated within the BPS ethical code and principles of confidentiality, impartiality and sensitivity to others people’s feelings, and previous contact with them was made to obtain consent.
The procedures were previously piloted by the researcher being the data contained in the summary data sheet and the data profile sheet.
During the interview both participants thought that their views were typical inside their own cultures. The first participant said that what most influenced her expectations was her own family background and social context and her own education. The second participant said to be influenced by her own instincts and values inculcated by a religious education in Spain.
RESULTS
Score responses for each statement were as follows:
Before four years old ____ score 3
Four or five years old ____ score 2
Six years or older _______ score 1
And averages were calculated for each of the six areas (refer to the summary data sheet).These are the results compared to the American and Japanese mothers from Hess et al. study and the UK mothers from the OU sample.
Table A :
The developmental goals of four samples of adults.
Japanese US OU UK Participant Participant
mothers* mothers* mothers* A B
Emotional 2.49 2.08 1.84 3 1.50
maturity
Compliance 2.24 2.04 2.18 2.75 1.70
Politeness 2.49 2.30 2.61 3 1.50
Independence 2.13 1.92 1.73 1.50 1.37
Social skills 1.87 2.18 2.08 2.83 1.66
Verbal 1.73 2.18 2.17 2 1.40
assertiveness
Note: Averages range between 1 and 3, with a higher score indicating a younger age at which
children are expected to reach the various developmental goals.
*The averages in these columns have been taken from Table 1 from Hess et al., 1980,
and Table 2, the OU UK data.
As it can be seen from table A, the scores from participant A are higher than any of the other samples, except for the area or independence which goes down dramatically compared to the rest of the areas the participant scored; finding a even bigger bridge from the averages from participant B. These seem particularly low but more adjusted to each other ( refer to the data profile sheet ).
It should be noticed that highest scores for Japanese mothers (emotional maturity and politeness) are also the highest evaluated by the English participant, and the social skills also have a high score.
DISCUSSION
The English participant’s expectations averages expose a very early achievement of most developmental areas. It is easy to recognize politeness as a very extended and reinforced value in the English culture “ in the for appropriate social behaviour “ ( Whiting, B. and Edwards, C.P. 1992 ), and also is shown as an earlier achievement expectation by the mothers tested by the OU students for the UK sample ( 1995 ).
In Hess’s study, the most considered areas for American mothers were social skills and politeness while for the Japanese mothers, emotional maturity and politeness were the highest scores. Hess explains these differences as a result of a “ difference in the value accorded to children’s relationships to the world of adults compared to relationships with their peers “ ( Hess et al. ,1980 ).
For this participant it seems that all these areas evaluated for both samples of adults ( social skills, politeness and emotional maturity ) take all together a primary role in her expectations. For this reason Hess’s argument cannot be applied into this case.
The participant expects almost the same earlier achievement in both what Hess called “ relationships with the world of adults and relationships with their own peer group.
However it is interesting to question if this mother adopts these high expectations by having observed big innate capacities in the baby or by stimulating the child with a well directed education. She thought that both aspects were decisive and influenced her expectations and also the interaction of the baby with other members of family and friends ( socialization of the child ).
This infant is going through the sensori-motor period described by Piaget in which she “ explores and recognizes objects with the senses “ ( Piaget’s theory of intellectual development by Prajna Das Gupta, 1994 ) and constructs a reality from the relations between actions and objects. He is interacting with the outside world.
Piaget ( 1972 ) also argued that cultural and sub-cultural environment affect the speed with which babies develop through the stages and for this mother with such high expectations an advanced culture of technology like the one in England plus adequate family environment stimulates certain aspects of her child’s development and this turns into Vygotki’s theory of social constructivism stressing the influence of the cultural context on development. This influence can be noticed in the only late expectation of achievement existing in this participant; “ independence “. It is possible that this over protective attitude is formed by the influence of an advanced but consequently dangerous society where delinquency and drug addiction are major problems for the government.
The Spanish participant adopts a position of late expectations in every area of development when she is affirming that her expectations were low and that her only worries were for the child “ to be happy and a good person as she promotes the non-violence “, it is important to observe the religious and moral values still present in Spanish society.
Her answers are comparable to the Lebanon mothers in the Goodnow et al. study.
As she argues “ the earlier equals better may itself be an expression of particular cultural values; which it is true in the long run, but the answers from the Spanish participant makes to consider whether Spanish culture is not as demanding and more based still in catholic values which would make a child reach maturity into the real world at a later point and realize that children might not be “ taken as seriously “ in Spain as they are in England. This participant revealed to be highly influenced by her own Spanish education and to constantly try to
“ give example “ to the child. This follows the principle of modelling / imitation by B.F. Skinner in the theory inside behaviourism, which stresses the role on environment in development.
While this participant gives more relevance in development to external stimulus
( behaviourism ) the English participant shows an importance of her baby’s own innate capacities interacting with the social world ( social constructivism ).
As Whiting and Whiting claimed “ in every culture there are customary ideas and expectations about the nature, capacities and proper behaviour of children
( Whiting and Whiting, 1975 ) and this is shown in the example of these two individuals’ expectations from different cultural backgrounds.
However the difficulty of this study sets in the problem that being just individual people and not samples of them, it is hard to relate the differences to just culture since they are also influenced by different personalities, personal situations, own experiences, ages and family backgrounds which affect at the time to explain behaviour and expectations.
For further investigation it would be interesting to observe the expectations of a Spanish individual coming from a non-religious family background.
CONCLUSION
The influence of an English cultural context shows a concern for early achievement of developmental goals due to a competitive and technologically demanding society while the Spanish culture influence expects a late achievement of development influenced by its priorities of catholic religious beliefs.
This might develop into an earlier reach of maturity for English children into the adult world.
REFERENCES
DAS GUPTA, P.(1994) “Images of childhood and theories of development”, in Oates, J.(ed.) The foundations of Development, Oxford, Blackwell/The Open University
GOODNOW, CASHMORE, COTTON and KNIGHT (1984)
HESS, KASHIWAGIE, AZMA, PRICE and DICKSON (1980)
HICHMANN (1987). Social and functional Approaches to language and thought. Orlando: Academic press.
LABORATORY OF COMPARATIVE HUMAN COGNITION (1983). Culture and cognitive development at P. H. Mussen (ed.) Handbook of child psychology, vol. 1, W. Kessen (ED) History, Theory and Methods. New York: Witley.
PIAGET (1972) , Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Human Development.
THE OPEN UNIVERSITY (1995) .Data collected by the OU from ED209 students for the “ developmental expectations procedure” .
WHITING , B. B. and WHITING, J. W. M. (1975) Children of six cultures: a psycho-cultural analysis, Cambridge (Mass.) , Harvard University Press.
APPENDIX
