Does culture matter or something else?

1. Does culture matter or something else? Overview for today • Tips for improving academic paper. • Coll, C. G., Crnic, K., Lamberty, G., & Wasik, B. H. (1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. Child Development, 67, 1891-1914. • Hill, N. E. (2006). Disentangling ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parenting: Interactions, influences and meaning. Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 1, 114-124.

2. Announcements Class cancelation: • The next class (December 4th) will be canceled. • The class on December 11thwill be our next and last class. Your final paper due is on December 11th • Please email me your paper by midnight on December 11th. • Later papers will be accepted, but you will lose 10 points for each day.

3. Tips to improve your paper Organize your paper: • In your paper, if you were to read only the first sentence of each paragraph, it would tell a story. The sentences that follow your first sentence are backing up your main idea for that paragraph (no paragraph should have more than one main idea). • Do not use personal examples or experiences. • Make a smooth transition between sentences and between paragraphs.

4. Tips to improve your paper Examples: • Usually, it is not a good idea to start a paragraph with: • Umemura, Jacobvitz, Messina, and Hazen (2012) found the association between parental gender and children’s attachment preference. • It may be better if you include a transition phrase: • However, Umemura, Jacobvitz, Messina, and Hazen (2012) found the association between parental gender and children’s attachment preference. • It is much better if you start with your idea: • Children prefer to seek comfort from their mother over their father. Specifically, Umemura, Jacobvitz, Messina, and Hazen (2012) found the association between parental gender and children’s attachment preference.

5. Tips to improve your paper “We” in academic papers mean you and your coauthor(s). • Examples: • “Hence, we hypothesize that parents’ emotional control impacts children's externalizing problems.” • “In our society, we should emphasize the negative impact of parents’ emotional control on children.” → “The society should emphasize the negative impact of parents’ emotional control on children.” Avoid using passive sentences. • Examples: • “Associations between parental conflict and children’s negative developmental outcomes were reported by Amato and Keith (1996).” → “Amato and Keith (1996) reported associations between…” • OR →“Associations between parental conflict and children’s negative developmental outcomes have been reported (e.g., Amato & Keith, 1996).”

6. Coll, Crnic, Lamberty, & Wasik(1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. • Early scholars have proposed a realistic understanding of racial and ethnic groups in the United States and their experiences within a white, mainstream society. • The establishment and maintenance of white middle-class child-rearing patterns as the standard for normal development not only obscures cultural differences in child rearing, but assumes that anything other than mainstream competencies are inferior. Integrative Model for studying minority children: • Constructs salient only to populations of color that contribute unique variance to their developmental processes. • Constructs that are also relevant to the developmental processes in other populations. • The importance of racism, prejudice, discrimination, oppression, and segregation on the development of minority children and families. • unique ecological circumstances (e.g., the influence of racism)

7. Coll, Crnic, Lamberty, & Wasik(1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children.

8. Coll, Crnic, Lamberty, & Wasik(1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. “Children, even at the preschool level, make judgments about people based on ethnic, racial, and social categories and also identify themselves as members of particular groups, compete for resources, and segregate themselves based on social and physical characteristics” The text is always speaking aboutparticular groups. But, what about children that have different and opposite origins? They can’t really identify themselves as a member of a particular group. Is it a problem for their personal identity?

9. Coll, Crnic, Lamberty, & Wasik(1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. • Western world’s society has incredibly changed in 21st century, comparing to previous age, and that could influence a lot. The integrative model for study of developmental competencies in minority children. Are there any new studies on that topic?

10. Hill (2006). Disentangling ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parenting: Interactions, influences and meaning. Developmental Niche Theory (Super & Harkness) • Culture impacts children through: • Psychical and social environment (e.g., the structure and organization of home) • Culturally regulated childcare customs (e.g., commonly used parenting behaviors) • Ethnotheories of parenting (e.g., expectations about children’s behavior) Triple Quandary Theory (Boykin) • Three distinct cultural realms in which families find themselves. • Mainstream experience (beliefs, values & interaction styles common to the majority culture) • Minority experience (coping strategies and defense mechanisms toward negative experiences) • Afro-cultural experience (unique aspects of African American culture) To equalize the confounding effect of SES, there are three possibilities for research: • samples of different ethnic groups reside in the same neighborhoods.  • samples are roughly equivalent on indicators of SES. • focus on within-ethnic group variances across ethnicity by conducing the interaction analyses between SES and ethnicity.

11. Hill (2006). Disentangling ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parenting: Interactions, influences and meaning. Have I understood correctly that there are three types of experiences - mainstream, minority and afro-cultural which influence ethnic minority children? Is their influence equal or does any of them have bigger influence?

12. Hill (2006). Disentangling ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parenting: Interactions, influences and meaning. „It is unlikely that such similarities in values and practices between ethnic minority families and low-income families and across African American, Latino and Asian American families are due to similarities in cultural values. Such similarities may be due to similarities in experiences of discrimination and oppressive social stratification and reflect the influence of adaptive culture and the realm of minority cultural experiences“ (Hill, 2006).Is it possible that in post-communist countries the situation would be different? Maybe because the culture experience, development of the countries and overall situation of minorities is different?

13. Hill (2006). Disentangling ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parenting: Interactions, influences and meaning. She mentioned few limitations of commonly used research design for investigating differences between groups with different ethnicity, SES, and community characteristics, like over-emphasis on comparative design and examining mean differences rather than differences in meaning and influences.Then she suggested thee quantitative approaches as a better ways. But could a qualitative design be better methodological approach for examining real meaning of possible differences?

14. Hill (2006). Disentangling ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parenting: Interactions, influences and meaning. • “Current theories of human development (largely originating from data on predominantly white middle-class families) are based on an increasingly small proportion of the population both within the United States and internationally. Broadening research to include families from a wide range of cultural, religious and economic backgrounds will augment developmental theories, increase our understanding of human development and create culturally sensitive and appropriate policies and programs.” (Hill, 2006, p. 114) • By saying that, doesn’t the author suggests that developmental tendencies (e.g. cognitive development of a child) are not universal or approximately the same? Or to be more specific, doesn’t this statement imply that nurture (culture or ethnicity in this case) plays more important part than nature?

15. Hill (2006). Disentangling ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parenting: Interactions, influences and meaning. 1. Niche Theory refers to some "universal" practices. Which could be the examples, and what examples of cultural impact on parenting would you mention from your own (participants of the course :) experience? 2. I didn't understand correctly may be - were they examining only low-income samples? What would be the difference with high-income ones then?

16. Hill (2006). Disentangling ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parenting: Interactions, influences and meaning. • “Harsh discipline was associated with fewer conduct problems for the less acculturated Mexicans -the opposite of what one would expect. However, an examination of the interrelations among the parenting strategies, we found that harsh discipline was associated with higher levels of warmth for the less acculturated Mexican adolescents, a relation that was not significant for the more acculturated Mexican Americans and negative for European Americans (Hill, 2006, p. 119). „ • Could be harsh discipline productive for children in some cases? For what reason was harsh discipline associated with fewer conduct problems for the less acculturated Mexicans?

17. Homework • Next class (December 4th) will be cancelled. • Read two articles • Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental Psychology, 22(6), 723-742. • Linver, M. R., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Kohen, D. E. (2002). Family processes as pathways from income to young children's development. Developmental Psychology, 38, 719-734. • Email me your thought question(s) by Tuesday (December 10th) midnight.