Schooling and Changing Patterns in Expectations for Children’s Lives and Contributions in a P’urépecha Town

• In Event: Roundtable Session 59
  In Roundtable Session: Increased Schooling and Changes in Child, Family, and Community Life

Abstract

Objectives and Framework
This study examines how increased schooling is accompanied by changing patterns of child participation in family activity and changing expectations about childhood in a P’urépecha community. We build on work in the sociocultural tradition emphasizing learning and development through participation in activity (Vygotsky, 1978) and on Rogoff et al’s (2003, 2007) proposal of learning through intent community participation where children have access to important family and community activity and learn by contributing to the best of their abilities.

Methods and Data
We interviewed 32 mothers of 8-to-10 year-old children in an Indigenous town in Mexico. The open-ended, semi-structured interviews included questions about the current and prior generations’ cultural practices (schooling experience, participation in community, ideas about school, and child participation with family work). These results are from a subset: mothers with 6 or fewer years of schooling and mothers with training as teachers. Coding of the transcribed interviews identified patterns related to participation in the institution of school.

Results and Significance
All families, regardless of prior experience, greatly valued school and what is learned in school. However there were different patterns of school expectations for children. Teacher-parents oriented children to school as an expected path in an almost obligatory fashion with specific arguments about the benefits of schooling linked to their own experience. Among families with limited school experience arguments about the benefits of schooling were more general as means to better living and secure work. School was presented as an option the parents would support, but without obligation.

Parents also differed in their ideas about children’s capabilities and family contributions. Teacher-parents reported learning about community as children by participating in family and community work, and thus reported involving their own children in some chores. Yet while parents reported child satisfaction in contributing to household work, children rarely took the initiative in this. In contrast children from families with limited schooling were more likely to participate without being told. These parents reported more extensive child collaboration in a range of activities both in the home and in paid labor activities. Teacher-parents discouraged or did not allow participation in activities deemed “too responsible” for children like caring for younger siblings – which children in other families accomplished and in which children showed interest. Teacher-parents tended to direct children towards tasks such as playing and preparing for school which may limit children’s opportunity to show initiative.

Additionally mothers with limited schooling oriented children toward tasks that benefited the entire family (in household chores and in helping in small family businesses). Teacher-parents however tended to orient children towards tasks only involving themselves (picking up their clothes, washing their own socks) and emphasized they would not ask children to do more for other family members.

Some parent-teachers recognized the contrasting socialization patterns and expressed ambivalence towards the school pattern. We believe that elaborating these patterns might lead some teachers from Indigenous communities to develop practices and positions consistent with the valued practices of their community.

Authors

• Rebeca Mejia-Arauz, ITESO University

• Maricela Correa-Chavez, Clark University

• Ulrike Keyser, Universidad Pedagogica Nacional