Vygotskian Principles of Cog Dev:
- Children are social beings shaped by their cultural contexts
- Children are both active learners and teachers
- Children are products of their culture
- Cognitive change originates in social interation
Brofenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory
- Briefly describe the study: the research question, sample, procedure, and results. In other words, define the main topic of the article and describe what three groups were included in the study, what the groups were asked to do, and what differences were found between the groups.
Examined attention and learning among Guatemalan Mayan and American children ages 5-11 years
- Studies third party attention
- “Do cultural differences create differences in attention and learning”
Sample:
- 120 children between 5-11 in 20 sibling pairs from each of three backgrounds (Mayan traditional, kaxlaan Mayan, European American middle-class).
2 mayan groups because: - helps to seperate mechanisms in the culture/environment
- Trad:
- Speak mostly traditional Mayan language, parents had less experience in schooling, larger families
- Kaxlaan
- Parents had more schooling, mothers/fathers generally teacher, smaller families
- Euro
- Racially white, even more schooling, children do not work
Procedure:
- Pairs of siblings would be tested together, with one being addressed and shown how to make a toy while the other was not (instead given a distractor toy).
- Toy lady did not fully know about the study (naive to research questions, hypotheses, and the existence of a session 2)
- Afterwards, they would be asked to make the other toy and measured on how much help they required.
Results:
- Different patterns of third-party attention were noticed between the group. Far more sustained attention in Mayans, far more glancing in European Americans.
- Children who enganged in a lot of third party attention needed less help in general
- The mouse toy showed a ceiling effect, very simple to put together
- The frog toy was more indicative
- General negative correlation between help received and attention
- “Help” score was lowest in Mayan traditional, then Kaxlaan Mayan, and then European American
- Mayan children showed more attentiveness than the other sample groups, and better learning in this paradigm.
- How do children from Indigenous backgrounds experience adult interaction differently than those from middle-class backgrounds? How do these differences affect children’s attentiveness and behavior?
In indigenous background, children showed more third party attention and would receive less direct attention, from combination of cultural influences and the larger families.
Indigenous backgrounds have more experience doing ‘adult things’, being more individual and often working.
Take Home
Cultural expectations
- Children attending to interactions and learning by observation
- Children learning through explicit teaching
Parenting effects
- Education
These expectations shape how children attend and learn
- What is one way the results of this study can be applied to how we might develop a curriculum for children in the United States?
Shows how important direct instruction is for learning to traditioanl European American’s learnng style, with one on one instruction being more effective.