Asiye Kumru

Ego Identity Status and Self-Monitoring Behavior in Adolescents

This research examines the association between identity status and self-monitoring behavior including age and gender differences in these variables in 476 adolescents (15 to 22 years old) in Turkey—a non-Western society characterized by traditional and modernist cultural elements. Identity was assessed with the Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status, and self-monitoring was measured by the Self-Monitoring Scale. Identity and self-monitoring were significantly associated for ideological identity with identity-achieved students lowest and diffusion students highest in self-monitoring. There were no associations for interpersonal or general identity status. Consistent with research in North America, there were significant increases in identity achievement and moratorium with age and no gender differences in identity status. Males were significantly higher than females in self-monitoring, but there were no age differences. These findings are discussed in relation to the influences on identity formation in Turkey.

Children's Social Behaviors and Peer Interactions in Diverse Cultures

Cultural socialization has long interested behavioral and social scientists, but recent advances in theory and methodology have allowed researchers to construct new and more powerful theoretical frameworks for conceptualizing the complex ways in which children interact with their environments during the course of development. Studies of childhood socialization in the classic tradition of cross-cultural research were static in their approach to analyzing underlying processes because of limitations in the theories and methods available at the time they were conducted. Many studies, for example, involved straightforward associations or comparisons of levels of parental socialization pressure (the antecedent condition) with childrens social or cognitive behavior (the consequent condition). In contrast, using new theoretical and methodological tools, researchers today can go beyond testing predictions about how differences in childhood environments may predict group differences in some kind of child characteristic and instead consider dynamic and transactional child–environment relations. For instance, current researchers have employed theoretical frameworks from social–cognitive development, Vygotskian psychology, and cultural psychology to characterize the children and their contexts in reframed ways and to highlight such themes as self-socialization and guided participation in cultural socialization. In this chapter, we address the topic of peer relations in cultural context to elaborate how classic and recent approaches to research can be brought together to construct a set of guiding principles for thinking about the cultural dimensions of childrens socialization by peers. We define peers as nonfamily children who are similar to one another in age and competence level.

Young children's close relationships outside the family: Parental ethnotheories in four communities in Norway, United States, Turkey, and Korea

Parents, preschools, and schools in different cultures vary greatly in the extent to which children are encouraged to develop long-term relationships with people outside the family circle—peers and teachers. In contemporary societies, parents face complex choices as they bridge children’s transitions to a wider world. This exploratory cross-cultural study used a newly developed questionnaire, Parental Concerns for Preschool Children Survey, to assess parental beliefs, values, and judgments. The sample included 521 parents from four cities: Oslo, Norway; Lincoln (Nebraska), United States; Ankara, Turkey; Seoul, Korea. Strong cultural community differences were found in parental descriptions of their own child’s friendships and beliefs about the needs of young children in general for close and continuing relationships in preschool and primary. The findings suggest the following conclusions, for example: Oslo parents favoured the value of long-term continuity with peers and teachers; Lincoln parents had a more academic than relational focus to school and wanted their children to deal successfully with (new) teachers in different settings; Ankara parents (an upwardly mobile sample) were low in reporting their child’s friendships at preschool but valued parent–teacher and child–child relationships there; Seoul parents (oriented to education as a means to economic success) favoured their children having quality learning experiences and close peer relationships in preschool.