Gilda A. Morelli

Cultural variation in young children’s access to work or involvement in specialised child-focused activities

Ethnographic literature indicates that in many cultural communities around the world, children have extensive opportunities to learn through observing and participating in their community’s work and other mature activities. We argue that in communities in which children are often segregated from adult work (as in middle-class European American communities), young children instead are often involved in specialised child-focused activities such as lessons, adult–child play (and scholastic play), and conversation with adults on child-related topics. We examine this argument with systematic time-sampled observations of the extent of 2- to 3-year-old children’s access to adult work compared to their involvement in specialised child-focused activities. Observations focused on 12 children in each of four communities: two middle-class European American communities (West Newton, Massachusetts and Sugarhouse, Utah), Efe foragers of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and indigenous Maya of San Pedro, Guatemala. West Newton and Sugarhouse children had less frequent access to work and were involved more often in specialised child-focused activities than Efe and San Pedro children. The results support the idea that the middle-class European American children’s frequent involvement in specialised child-focused activities may relate to their more limited opportunities to learn through observing work activities of their communities. It may be less necessary for the Efe and San Pedro children to be involved in specialised child-focused activities to prepare them for involvement in mature community practices, because they are already a regular part of them.

Correlates of Bushmeat Hunting among Remote Rural Households in Gabon, Central Africa

Hunted wild animals (i.e., bushmeat) are a main source of protein for many rural populations in the tropics, and the unsustainable harvest of these animals puts both human food security and ecosystem functioning at risk. To understand the correlates of bushmeat consumption, we surveyed 1219 households in 121 rural villages near three newly established national parks in Gabon. Through the surveys we gathered information on bushmeat consumption, income, and material assests. In addition, we quantified land cover in a 5-km radius around the village center and distance of the village center to the nearest park boundary. Bushmeat was not a source of income for most households, but it was the primary animal protein consumed. Ninety-seven percent of households consumed bushmeat at least once during a survey period of 12 days. Income or wealth, land cover, distance of village to the nearest park boundary, and level of education of the head of the household were among the factors that significantly related to the likelihood of consuming any of the 10 most commonly consumed species of bushmeat. Household size was the predictor most strongly associated with quantities of bushmeat consumed and was negatively related to consumption. Total bushmeat consumption per adult male equivalent increased as household wealth increased and decreased as distance of villages to park boundaries increased. Bushmeat consumption at the household level was not related to unit values (i.e., price estimates for a good that typically does not have a market value; estimates derived from willingness to sell or trade the good for items of known price) of bushmeat or the price of chicken and fish as potential substitutes. The median consumption of bushmeat at the village level, however, was negatively related to village mean unit values of bushmeat across all species. Our results suggest that a lack of alternative protein sources motivated even the wealthiest among surveyed households to consume bushmeat. Providing affordable, alternative protein sources to all households would likely reduce unsustainable levels of bushmeat consumption in rural Gabon.

Immigrant-Chinese and Euro-American parents' physical closeness with young children : Themes of family relatedness

This study examined cultural differences in the expression and meaning of physical closeness. Findings indicated that immigrant-Chinese parents, as compared with Euro-American parents, sleep in closer proximity with their children; more often view independence as children growing with the family; are more likely to emphasize the family unit; and place greater importance on inhibition of expression, adherence to correct values, and hierarchy of relations. Euro-Americans, by contrast, are more accepting of nudity; place more emphasis on psychological benefits of physical closeness and on the childs expression of wants and feelings; more often view independence as celebrating the childs distinctiveness; and place greater importance on intimacy, pleasure, and spousal exclusiveness. The authors suggest that closeness is characterized by an overarching theme of harmony in immigrant-Chinese families and by an overarching theme of romance in Euro-American families.

Children's Integration in Communities and Segregation From People of Differing Ages.

This article reviews cultural differences in the extent of segregation of children from community life and their integration with people of differing ages, focusing especially on children’s engagement with older children or similar-age children. We highlight cultural differences in children’s everyday companionship with older children and with peers by discussing a study using naturalistic observations of young children’s days in four cultural communities. Young children were more often involved with older children (who were often related to them) among the Efe of the Ituri Forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Guatemalan Mayan town of San Pedro, whereas middle-class European American children from two regions in the United States were more frequently involved with children of similar ages (who were often unrelated to them). The mainstream research focus on similar-age (unrelated) peer involvements, often regarded as the “norm,” needs to be broadened to consider the various patterns of children’s social engagements worldwide, which often involve integration of children in broader communities, engaging with adults and children of all ages.

Wetter isn't better: global warming and food security in the Congo Basin

Abstract Over 20 million forest farmers practice slash and burn agriculture in the forests of the Congo Basin ( Bahuchet and de Maret, 1995 . State of Indigenous Populations Living in Rainforest Areas, European Commission DG XI Environment, Brussels). They rely on the long dry season (December–February north of the equator) to ensure that their new fields, cleared from regrowth forest, burn sufficiently well to deposit nutrients into the soil and to minimize the labor required to prepare the field for planting. Data from the Ituri forest in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo show that the strength of the annual dry season (a) has a direct positive impact on the size of fields cleared each year by slash and burn farmers, and consequently on food production and the severity of the subsequent years pre-harvest hunger period; and (b) is inversely related to total annual rainfall. These results suggest that the 1 mm/d increase in rainfall predicted for much of the Congo Basin by the 2050s may cause a basin wide increase in the frequency of heavy rains during the dry season, causing a reduction in the size of slash and burn farmers’ fields, and potentially a substantial increase in the food insecurity of poor rural families across the region.

Human livelihoods and protected areas in Gabon: A cross-sectional comparison of welfare and consumption patterns

Understanding the role that protected areas play in the livelihood security of local communities is essential to ensure that local people are not left shouldering the costs of what is a public good, and to help maintain robust local and national constituencies for biodiversity conservation. To provide baseline data for a longitudinal study on the effects of newly established national parks on human livelihoods in Gabon we conducted a cross-sectional study that compared livelihood indicators between communities that do, and do not, use natural resources within protected areas. We interviewed 2,035 households in 117 villages at four sites, recording income, consumption, education, health indicators and social capital, and village characteristics such as distance to markets, distance to park boundaries, and land cover within a 5-km radius. Our results indicated that closed rainforest coverage was greater around park than control villages and that this difference was associated with a greater reliance of park households on forest resources. However, we found no systematic differences in most livelihood measures between park and control households. Instead, the relationship between household livelihood measures and proximity to parks varied in idiosyncratic ways between sites, suggesting that determinants of human welfare are highly localized and cannot be generalized to larger spatial scales.

Afterword: Cross-cultural Challenges to Attachment Theory

When our colleagues and I (Morelli) wrote about the cultural nature of psychology’s most influential theory of relatedness in 2000, we did so in the hope of a rapprochement with theorists wedded to a more universalistic view of attachment (Rothbaum et al. 2000). We questioned the key tenets of sensitive parenting, secure base, and child competency and brought to bear what we knew about other community practices to make clear the ideological underpinnings of this theory—as others had done before us (e.g., Fiske et al. 1998; Harwood et al. 1995; LeVine and Miller 1990; Takahashi 1990). We spoke of the value of including communities with different traditions to learn what mattered to them about relationships to refine our thinking about attachment theory—not to dismantle it. We ended our essay noting: Opening the door to human diversity could greatly enrich the understanding of the myriad ways in which human relationships take shape, go awry, and undergo repair in social contexts around the world. Expanding the research agenda in this way may, in fact, reveal what an intellectual treasure chest attachment theory truly is. (1102)

Ethical Challenges of Parenting Interventions in Low- to Middle-Income Countries:

This article explores ethical issues raised by parenting interventions implemented in communities in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) with rural, subsistence lifestyles. Many of these interventions foster “positive parenting practices” to improve children’s chances of fulfilling their developmental potential. The practices are derived from attachment theory and presented as the universal standard of good care. But attachment-based parenting is typical primarily of people living Western lifestyles and runs counter to the different ways many people with other lifestyles care for their children given what they want for them. Thus, such parenting interventions involve encouraging caregivers to change their practices and views, usually with little understanding of how such changes affect child, family, and community. This undermines researchers’ and practitioners’ ability to honor promises to uphold ethic codes of respect and beneficence. Support for this claim is provided by comparing positive parenting practices advocated by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF; with the world health organization [WHO]) Care for Child Development (CCD) intervention with parenting practices typical of communities with rural, subsistence lifestyles—the most common of lifestyles worldwide and largely observed in LMICs. As UNICEF has a considerable presence in these countries, the CCD intervention was selected as a case study. In addition, parenting interventions typically target people who are poor, and the issues this raises regarding ethics of fairness and justice are considered. Recommendations are made for ways change agents can be sensitive to the living conditions and worldviews of communities, and, thus, be appropriately effective and ethically sensitive to the diverse needs of different communities.