3-109 - Grandmothers in Four Developmental Niches: Continuity and Change

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Grandparents can be important socialization agents of their grandchildren, but the amount of research on grandparenting is meager. There is even less research addressing grandparenting in non-Western societies. Using the concept of developmental niche (Super & Harkness, 1999), this symposium will feature research on grandmothers from four different cultural contexts: European American grandmother-mother pairs in the United States; Armenian grandmothers in rural Armenia; African grandmother-mother pairs in Zambia; and Latino grandmothers in the United States.

Care of grandchildren by grandmothers has been traditional in the Majority World. Most developing countries have interdependent orientations, and child care is entrusted to family members (Kagitcibasi, 2007). In contrast, people from developed countries have more independent orientations and look to child care centers or caregivers outside the family for child care and to books or the Internet for child care advice. The first presentation addresses role changes when daughters become mothers and mothers become grandmothers upon the birth of a child. The second presentation focuses on the childrearing roles of grandmothers in the developing country of Armenia. The third presentation reports on intergenerational transmission of sensitive parenting beliefs in Zambia. The last presentation examines influences of Latino grandmothers’ conversations on their grandchildren’s language development.

Addressing two of SRCD’s broad goals, this symposium will help (a) to advance developmental science by broadening the focus to include more diverse contexts and (b) to integrate national and cultural diversity into the sphere of developmental science research regarding the potential contributions of grandmothers to children’s development.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Carol S Huntsinger, Northern Illinois University

Individual Presentations

• Negotiating Rules of Engagement when Daughters Become Mothers and Mothers Become Grandmothers - Presenting Author: Alison Nash, SUNY-New Paltz; Tabitha Holmes, SUNY-New Paltz

• Grandmothers and Childrearing in Rural Armenia - Presenting Author: Carol S Huntsinger, Northern Illinois University; Anna Mkrtchyan Karapetyan, Vardenis State College

• Grandmothers as Mothers in a Multiple Care Context: Predictors of Childrearing Values in Zambia - Presenting Author: Francis Sichimba, University of Zambia; Haatembo Mooya, University of Zambia; Judi Mesman, Leiden University

• Comparing Children's Narrative Complexity with Grandmothers and Parents in U.S. Latino Families - Presenting Author: Raquel Plotka, Pace University; Xiao-Lei Wang, Pace University