Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Social Work
Homo Faber Juvenalis: A Multidisciplinary Survey Of Children As Tool Makers/Users, David F. Lancy
Homo Faber Juvenalis: A Multidisciplinary Survey Of Children As Tool Makers/Users, David F. Lancy
Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications
The overall goal of this paper is to derive a set of generalizations that might characterize children as tool makers/users in the earliest human societies. These generalizations will be sought from the collective wisdom of four distinct bodies of scholarship: lithic archaeology; juvenile chimps as novice tool users; recent laboratory work in human infant and child cognition, focused on objects becoming tools and; the ethnographic study of children learning their community’s tool-kit. The presumption is that this collective wisdom will yield greater insight into children’s development as tool producers and users than has been available to scholars operating within narrower …
How Do Children Become Workers? Making Sense Of Conflicting Accounts Of Cultural Transmission In Anthropology And Psychology, David F. Lancy, Christopher A.J. Little
How Do Children Become Workers? Making Sense Of Conflicting Accounts Of Cultural Transmission In Anthropology And Psychology, David F. Lancy, Christopher A.J. Little
Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications
This article uses children’s work as a lens to examine methodological concerns in the study of cultural transmission and children’s learning of useful domestic and subsistence skills. We begin by providing a review of the relevant literature concerning cultural transmission in the context of the ethnographic record, as well as more recent studies originating largely from psychology. We then offer an ethnographic case study concerning Asabano (PNG [Papua New Guinea]) childhood to make an important methodological contribution in the interdisciplinary study of cultural transmission. The case study centers on the paradox that Asabano parents, in interviews, claim that their children …
Teaching Is So Weird, David F. Lancy
Teaching Is So Weird, David F. Lancy
Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications
Direct active teaching by parents is largely absent in children’s lives until the rise of WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized rich, democratic) society. However, as mothers become schooled and missionized – like Kline’s Fijian subjects – they adopt “modern” parenting practices, including teaching. There is great variability, even within WEIRD society, of parental teaching, suggesting that teaching itself must be culturally transmitted.
Playing With Knives: The Socialization Of Self-Initiated Learners, David F. Lancy
Playing With Knives: The Socialization Of Self-Initiated Learners, David F. Lancy
Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications
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 …
Children As A Reserve Labor Force, David F. Lancy
Children As A Reserve Labor Force, David F. Lancy
Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications
Human life history is unique in the great length of the juvenile or immature period. The lengthened period is often attributed to the time required for youth to master the culture, particularly subsistence and survival skills. But an increasing number of studies show that children become skilled well before they gain complete independence and the status of adults. It seems, as they learn through play and participation in the domestic economy, children are acquiring a “reserve capacity” of skills and knowledge, which they may not fully employ for many years. The theory offered here to resolve this paradox poses that, …
When Nurture Becomes Nature: Ethnocentrism In Studies Of Human Development, David F. Lancy
When Nurture Becomes Nature: Ethnocentrism In Studies Of Human Development, David F. Lancy
Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications
This commentary will extend the territory claimed in the target article by identifying several other areas in the social sciences where findings from the WEIRD population have been over-generalized. An argument is made that the root problem is the ethnocentrism of scholars, textbook authors, and social commentators, which leads them to take their own cultural values as the norm.
Children Of The Depression: A Study Of Children In 169 Fera Families Ogden, Utah, 1935, Leah Plowman Lillywhite
Children Of The Depression: A Study Of Children In 169 Fera Families Ogden, Utah, 1935, Leah Plowman Lillywhite
All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023
Today the under-privileged are by no means confined to the mentally and physically handicapped. Since 1929 the number has greatly increased because of our faulty economic and social organization. Many healthy men who are both able and willing to work have been forced into idleness because of inability to secure a position. Extension classes in "Mental Hygiene" and "Social Case Work" conducted under the direction of the head of the Sociology Department of the Utah State Agricultural College during 1934-35, decided to make a study of conditions actually existing among Ogden City's victims of the depression, with particular emphasis on …