Author:  Carolin Demuth, Dipl.Psych (Email: cdemuth@uni-osnabrueck.de).

Universitaet Osnabrueck, Institut für Psychologie, Fachgebiet Entwicklung & Kultur,

Datum der Verteidigung: 27.10.2008

This study wants to contribute to a better understanding of child development by considering the broader cultural context in which it is embedded in. It takes a socio-cultural approach and considers child care practices as adaptive to the specific requirements of a given cultural context. Particularly, it is interested in investigating discursive practices in early mother-infant interactions in diverse cultural settings and relating them to prevalent cultural models of child care. A survey of research literature suggests that infant-directed communication varies greatly across cultures. It is suggested that protoconversation as described in the literature might be a cultural manifestation of an underlying innate parenting system prevalent in Western white middle-class context and that there might be other phenotypical forms of protoconversation in non-Western agrarian societies. Moreover, the study takes a practice approach to language and is interested in investigating how the construction of specific versions of the social world is achieved in the process of the ongoing interactions, particularly with regard to the dimensions autonomy and interpersonal relatedness.

The study therefore examines mother-infant interactions from two cultural contexts previously described as prototypically independent (German white middle class families in the city of Muenster) and interdependent (farming Nso families in the Western Grassfields of Cameroon). The data corpus originates from an earlier longitudinal study and consists of video material and transcriptions of 20 Nso and 20 Muenster mother-infant dyads at the infant’s age of 12 weeks.

The data are analyzed following the principles of qualitative social research using strategies from discourse analysis, conversation analysis and documentary method. Different patterns of co-constructing mother-infant interactions were found and are discussed in chapters 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3. Chapter 4.1 presents findings of a pattern of co-operative vs. hierarchical discourse; chapter 4.2 discusses findings of narrative-biographical vs. rhythmic-synchronous structuring; and chapter 4.3 surveys examples of individual-centered vs. socially oriented discursive strategies. The results point to the possibility of innate characteristics of protoconversation as well as culture-specific manifestations of their phenotype. The results are discussed with regard to the specificities of the relevant local socio-cultural contexts and possible implications for the development of culture-specific world views and self-construals.

The thesis concludes by arguing that infants’ ‘narrative envelope’ is a powerful medium to transmit cultural knowledge, even in interactions with pre-verbal infants. Maternal discursive practices are both constituted by culture and constitute culture.

Finally, some of the main implications of the study’s findings for theory and practice are discussed. It is suggested that what is healthy and pathological development needs to be (re-)defined for each specific cultural context. Curricula for training pediatricians, psychologists, teachers and other social workers accordingly need to take a socio- or eco-cultural approach in order to ensure culture-sensitive counseling and teaching. Further studies from socio-cultural contexts that have so far been neglected in academic research are needed that systematically relate infant-care practices with cultural models of child care. The study of discursive practices is suggested to be a particularly promising avenue to this line of research.