Children’s Initiative in Contributions to Family Work in Indigenous-Heritage and Cosmopolitan Communities in Mexico

This article addresses cultural differences in children’s initiative in helping in their home. Many 6- to 8-year-old children from an Indigenous-heritage community in Guadalajara, Mexico, were reported to engage, on their own initiative, in complex work for the benefit of the whole family (such as t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human development 2014-01, Vol.57 (2/3), p.96-115
Main Authors: Alcalá, Lucía, Rogoff, Barbara, Mejía-Arauz, Rebeca, Coppens, Andrew D., Dexter, Amy L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
After School Programs
Child care
Child development
Child Labor
Child psychology
Community
Community development
Community Relations
Compulsory Education
Cultural Differences
Ethnography
Families & family life
Family integration
Family Involvement
Further Section
Households
Human development
Indigenous culture
Indigenous Populations
Labor Legislation
Learning
Maya (People)
Middle Class
Native peoples
Opportunities
Resistance (Psychology)
Teaching
United States History
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article addresses cultural differences in children’s initiative in helping in their home. Many 6- to 8-year-old children from an Indigenous-heritage community in Guadalajara, Mexico, were reported to engage, on their own initiative, in complex work for the benefit of the whole family (such as tending younger siblings, cooking, or running errands). In contrast, few children from a cosmopolitan community in Guadalajara, in which families had extensive experience with Western schooling and associated practices, were reported to contribute to family household work, and seldom on their own initiative. They were more often reported to be involved in activities managed by adults, and to have limited time to play, compared with the children in the Indigenous-heritage community, who were often reported to have plenty of time for free play and often planned and initiated their own after-school activities. The differences in children’s contributions on their own initiative support the idea that children in some Indigenous American communities have opportunities and are expected and allowed to learn with initiative by observing and pitching in to collaborative endeavors of their families and communities.
ISSN:0018-716X
1423-0054
DOI:10.1159/000356763