Cultural Values and Local Appropriations of National Policies in Early Care and Education

• In Event: Contributions of Anthropology to Educational Research: The Continuing Legacy of Robert A. LeVine

Abstract

Italy has a long history of investment in the provision of services to young children and their families, beginning with charitable and church-affiliated programs for children in need of out-of-home care. Maria Montessori’s work on behalf of children deemed ‘uneducable’ is well known throughout the Western world, and has deep roots in the Italian culture. As a student of Bob LeVine’s, he directed me to Italy as a setting amenable to the study of an ‘alternative’ western culture of parenting and child development. This year-long ethnographic study lead to further studies, including a two-decades and continuing ethnography of early childhood services in the wealthy and politically radical community of Reggio Emilia. Of special note in this community as well as other high-quality services throughout the country is the essential role of parents in determining the quality of the educational experiences for their children. This presentation will present this work as it illustrates LeVine’s ‘cultural model of child care’ (1994) as well as his early thesis on cultural values and parental goals (1974).
The primary aim of this presentation is to illustrate the potentials of LeVine’s theory of parental behavior and child care to illustrate within-cultural diversity along a continuum of national cultural values. The presentation will describe a study in which parents as well as teachers in five different cities—Reggio Emilia, Milan, Trento, Parma, and San Miniato—were observed within 46 early childhood settings, interviewed, and invited to respond to questions about the timing of children’s developmental milestones and their interpretations of ‘ideal’ home-school relationships. Results of the study are consistent with LeVine’s thesis that parents hope for what they believe their children will need; and these needs evolve as a function of changes in the cultural surrounds. Thus these Italian parents act as all good Italians believe they should act in terms of caregiving practices and the expression of educational goals; and yet they vary from one another as a function of local instantiations of those larger cultural values and beliefs.
Findings from this study illustrate the practical, theoretical and methodological value of LeVine’s scholarly investigations into the cultural nature of parental goals and behavior. Descriptions of educational practices described as desirable by Italian parents and teachers have already influenced U.S. interpretations of ‘developmentally appropriate’ educational practices. Ethnographic observations of parents and teachers engaged in making decisions regarding children’s early care and education also challenge traditional notions of ‘parent education’ and professional competencies. Last but not least, this study provides further support for LeVine’s rejection of a reductionist view of culture. Rather, it helps to illustrate culture’s complexities as described by LeVine and other cultural psychologists. By inspiring deep investigations of the diversity in parenting across human populations—within and across cultural settings—LeVine has played an instrumental role in illuminating a more flexible and dynamic view of cultural constellations and associated cultural activities and their consequences for children’s developmental pathways.

Author

• Rebecca S. New, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill