KULTURELLE HORISONTER PÅ BØRNS UDVIKLING OG SOCIALISERING

Resumé

Pia Løvschal Nielsen: Cultural Aspects of

Child Development and Socialisation

Using ethnographic material from a

Hutterite colony in Western Canada, the

article shows how adult interpretations of

child development and socialisation influence

the organisation of children’s daily

routines and thus their access to social and

cultural knowledge. In this colony, adults are

thought to occupy a central position in

children’s social and cultural learning

processes. At the same time, adults and

children are seen as two exclusive categories

with separate spheres of action. Daily

routines, grounded in this cultural construction,

actively exclude children from

adult practices, minimising their daily

participation in adult spheres of action and

allowing few opportunities for direct observation

of adult models. The author discusses

how children’s cultural and social

learning takes place through exclusion from,

rather than participation in, adult practices.

Hutterite children’s intense involvement in

an annual community event indicates that

children actively create and participate in

their own social field gaining social and

cultural knowledge through this process

rather than through engagement with adults.

The author argues that children’s cultural

learning processes are far more active and

situational than proposed by theories of

development and intemalisation which

identify adults as focal to children’s

development and intemalization of cultural

codes for agency.