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Playing With Knives: The Socialization Of Self-Initiated Learners, David F. Lancy
Playing With Knives: The Socialization Of Self-Initiated Learners, David F. Lancy
David Lancy
Since Margaret Mead’s field studies in the South Pacific a century ago, there has been the tacit understanding that as culture varies, so too must the socialization of children to become competent culture users and bearers. More recently, the work of anthropologists has been mined to find broader patterns that may be common to childhood across a range of societies. One improbable commonality has been the tolerance, even encouragement, of toddler behavior that is patently risky, such as playing with or attempting to use a sharp-edged tool. This laissez faire approach to socialization follows from a reliance on children as …
Ethnographic Perspectives On Culture Acquisition., David F. Lancy
Ethnographic Perspectives On Culture Acquisition., David F. Lancy
David Lancy
The study of cultural transmission has been dominated by the view that it occurs largely through a process by which adults—especially parents—transfer what they know to children. However, “instructed learning” or teaching is, in fact, quite rare in the ethnographic record. Rogoff reports of the Highland Maya that “of the 1708 observations of nine-year-olds, native observers could identify only six occasions as teaching situations” (1981:32). Bruner, in viewing hundreds of hours of ethnographic film shot among !Kung and Netsilik foraging bands, was struck by the total absence of teaching episodes. In a very recent study of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) …