Poster #114 - Quechua Runa Caregivers’ Ethnotheories of Child Socialization: Ethnocultural Identities & Socialization Beliefs

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Abstract
Parents’ ethnotheories about childhood and socialization both reflect and are informed by their experiences as individuals and members of a cultural community (Rogoff, 2003). While there is a much cultural work on parental ethnotheories of child socialization, few studies have included Indigenous peoples and most of these have focused on communities in the Global North or in the South Pacific (e.g., Byers et al. 2012; Geia et al., 2011; Olynick et al., 2016). The lack of attention to other Indigenous groups worldwide, especially those in the Global South, limits our understanding of normative child development and hinders our efforts to forge an equitable developmental science. The present study addressed this gap in our knowledge by examining the ethnotheories about child socialization among two generations of Quechua Runa women, the ancestral people in the Andean highlands. In particular, the study explored how urban-dwelling Quechua Runa women described themselves ethnically and culturally, and how these ethnocultural identities informed their ideas about children and their socialization.

Methods
Data were drawn from an ethnography conducted with 20 bilingual Spanish-Quechua families of young children (ages 2-7) from Abancay, the capital of the Peruvian Andean region of Apurímac, home to the largest Quechua population (Lee, 2021). Data sources included field observations in the larger and immediate community, and open-ended semi-structured interviews with 40 primary caregivers (mothers and grandmothers, as they shared primary caregiving responsibilities). Interview prompts targeted caregivers' descriptions of their cultural and linguistic identities, of their children’s everyday routines, responsibilities, and caregivers’ expectations of children’s behaviors and development. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Data sources will be coded in the original language(s) on Atlas.ti. (2022), using an inductive, open-coding procedure and targeting three areas: (1) caregivers' descriptions of their cultural and linguistics identities, (2) caregivers' ideas about the role and status of children in the family and community, and (3) the relation between their ethnocultural identities and childrearing beliefs.

Following a grounded theory approach and variable-concept-indicator coding model (LaRossa, 2005; Strauss & Corbin, 1998), higher-level conceptual units will be extracted from data. Analyses will be conducted at three levels: (1) within-concept to extract meaning from codes, (2) cross-concept to determine how concepts are connected, grouping them into higher-order variables or themes, and (3) cross-case comparisons across the two generations of caregivers.

Results and Discussion
Findings of this study will contribute with knowledge on a rarely studied Indigenous community, specifically aiming to elucidate how urban-dwelling Quechua Runa female caregivers define themselves ethnically and culturally, and how their ethnocultural identities contribute to their beliefs about children’s social development. Results of the present study will be discussed in relation to the need for developmental science to diversify the populations studied including children from Indigenous communities in South America.

Authors

• Jessica Huancacuri, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Gigliana Melzi, New York University