NSF Awards: 0837898
Learning through collaboration is an important way of learning and of doing science. But how do children learn to collaborate? This skill is challenging for children from some backgrounds, but children from Indigenous- and Mexican-heritage backgrounds often collaborate in sophisticated ways. How do they learn sophisticated ways of building on each other's ideas? Our video shows that children have opportunities to collaborate from a very early age in many Mexican-heritage families, especially those with Indigenous backgrounds. They may learn skilled collaboration through their inclusion as contributors in important endeavors, even while they are toddlers.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Thank you for viewing our video! We are interested in knowing about your experience and your speculations:
Do you have related observations of how children learn to collaborate?
Have you noticed cultural differences in inclusion of children in mature activities?
Do you think it is possible for families where children are typically excluded from contributing to be more inclusive, like we saw in Indigenous and Mexican-heritage communities?
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
A few years ago an NPR correspondant -- Michaeleen Doucleff -- reported on our and others' research on cultural aspects of the development of collaboration. She got inspired by what she heard and wanted to try it out with her 4-year-old, even though their cultural experience is more like the middle-class European American families in our video. A few days ago, Michaeleen published a New York Times article about the results of her home-experiment.
She was experiencing the frustration that many parents have reported during "sheltering in place," and got exhausted to tears with feeling that she had to constantly entertain her 4-year-old, trying to fill the day with enrichment activities. She had become her child's 'event manager,' and neither she nor Rosy were happy with the arrangement. Then Michaeleen remembered what she had reported about cultural communities where children routinely have the opportunity to participate in mature activities of the family, watching them and helping out!
So she reorganized her approach with her daughter -- no longer the child's event manager, she began to invite Rosy to join her in helping peel potatoes, vacuum, staple papers -- and quietly write when it is time to write. (Rosy decided to write a graphic novel about leading characters from Frozen.) The transition took some adjustment, but slowly, Rosy got with the program. Now they write together about 4 hours a day and Rosy even reminds her mom to get back to writing if Michaeleen's screen does not show writing.
I happened to get an email today from Michaeleen, who said, "For us, the experiment has been quite transformative. Rosy has quickly learned to self-entertain and as she says 'I don't need instructions.' We cannot go back to the old way even after preschool starts again. She really loves being more autonomous and I really love it too!" Michaeleen concluded that these research ideas have changed her life, but she says it took a while for the ideas to sink in.
Jennifer Rigney
Holly Morin
Lorna Quandt
Jessica Gale
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Andrew Coppens
Marcia Linn
Hi Barbara
Great to see this work. A wonderful way to foster family cohesion and empower children. We too are looking at how students learn remotely while studying science. I am glad to see that researchers are actively exploring ways to help students and their families adapt to the new normal.
Take care,
Marcia
Barbara Rogoff
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Our team has 4 related 3-minute videos in prior NSF Video Showcases. They help fill out the cultural picture of children's collaboration, initiative, helpfulness, alertness to what is going on around them. Here are links:
2019: Impressive ways that Mexican-heritage children collaborated in a planning task and programming a computer game.
2018: The spontaneous helpfulness and initiative shown by Mexican-heritage children, especially from families with Indigenous background.
2017: The sophisticated collaboration of many Mexican-heritage and Indigenous children of the Americas.
2016: Attentional strengths for learning among Indigenous and Mexican-heritage children - being alert to surrounding events.
Heidi Carlone
Mariana Enriquez
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Questions and comments in Spanish are also very welcome!
Claudia Arufe
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
We are very happy to see that the conversation is developing in both English and Spanish. The posts in both languages are super thoughtful, and we hope that many of our visitors can get the gist in either language. All of our team are bilingual, and we hope to facilitate a bilingual conversation below. We are going to try to bring some of the interesting ideas that are in one language into the other language so that everyone can follow the threads. Hopefully. In previous years, the discussion of our videos has been as interesting as the videos themselves, and wouldn't it be cool if we can do that bilingually?
Mariana Enriquez
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
¡Muchas gracias por ver nuestro video!!!
¿Qué te pareció? coméntanos.
Platícanos si has observado algo similar en tu familia o comunidad o tu misma/o lo has experimentado y dinos de dónde eres o en qué contexto lo observaste.
Mariana Enriquez
Claudia Arufe
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Ulrike Keyser
Vivo en una comunidad p'urhépecha desde hace más de 30 años y observo a diario la colaboración de pequeños y grandes en diversas actividades con un objetivo común. La colaboración es un medio de aprendizaje desde los más pequeños hasta los más grandes, porque nunca se deja de aprender. Pero la ventaja de la colaboración no siente solamente la persona que aprende, sino también las y los demás que integran a alguien más en su grupo y lo hacen crecer de esta manera en cantidad y diversidad.
La contingencia actual por el COVID19 crea innumerables oportunidades de colaboración para niñas y niños obligados a quedarse en casa con toda la familia, sobre todo si sus madres y padres tienen que cumplir con "home office".
Dr. Carmen Noemi Cintron
Mariana Enriquez
Jessica Gale
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
REBECA MEJIA-ARAUZ
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Ulrike -- Gracias por este punto súper importante acerca del COVID-19 y las oportunidades para la colaboración familiar que se pueden crear. Desafíos sí hay. Sin embargo muchos niñas y niños, por primera vez, ahora tienen oportunidades para observar el trabajo de sus padres, etapa importante para aprender a colaborar.
Una parte de este recurso (disponible aquí en English y Español) fue escrito con este sentido, basado en investigaciones como estas y las suyas.
Mariana Enriquez
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
REBECA MEJIA-ARAUZ
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Uli,
El comentario que haces me parece muy importante. Cuando hay situaciones tan difíciles como la que el mundo entero está viviendo es cuando podemos ver la importancia de la colaboración. Finalmente es gracias a la colaboración entre las personas que se han ido sosteniendo y desarrollando las comunidades y sociedades.
Mariana Enriquez
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Monique Reynaud
Nunca había caído en la cuenta de la gran diferencia que hay entre la cultura anglosajona y la nuestra... Me gusto y le di 👍🏻
Mariana Enriquez
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Associate Professor of Psychology
Que punto tan importante sobre la situación actual, Ulrike. Creo que la separación que usualmente se ve entre las actividades de niños y adultos (en comunidades de clase media) queda menos clara por la situación que estamos viviendo.
Monique, gracias por el comentario.
Mariana Enriquez
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Uli's post about the importance of adult-child collaboration in a P'urhépecha community in Mexico has generated a thread asking how this can be used in todays' coronavirus crisis, with families isolated at home together. Andrew points out that now middle-class children have the opportunity to observe their parents' work -- an important part of learning.
I wonder if readers of this discussion have observations of efforts to create collaborative parent-child endeavors in families where this is not already routine? The crisis is pushing many families to experiment with different arrangements. What are the challenges and what seems to help foster collaboration at home that includes children in mature household activities?
Lisa Ristuccia
Preeti Gupta
Gabina
Great work. It's interesting to learn the white middle class mothers strategies to keep their children out of housework participation. I wonder about other documented strategies.
Could it be possible to know the methodology and broader context of this research?
Gabina.
Mariana Enriquez
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Gabina, thanks for these questions! The European American mothers sometimes told us they excluded their toddlers from everyday opportunities to help, sometimes in favor of other "educational" activities. We made this video to show that opportunities to help and collaborate are themselves deeply educational.
The methodologies have varied in the studies that Barbara mentions below. The studies of this video used interviews to examine mothers' views and values about helping, which shape parenting strategies and how children's learning is organized at home.
Lisa Ristuccia
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Gabina, Thanks for the question! Our video summarizes a number of studies showing that many Indigenous and Mexican-heritage children help at home spontaneously in middle childhood, according to interviews with mothers. But middle-class children (European American and Mexican middle-class too) seldom help without being asked -- in fact their parents often resort to threats and bribes to make the kids help out at home. The Indigenous and Mexican-heritage parents emphasize that it is important for children's help "to come from the heart" (nacer del corazón). You can see our NSF video from 2 years ago about children helping without being asked, in middle childhood, at https://stemforall2020.videohall.com/maps/1318.html
You can also find out more about those studies at www.learningbyobservingandpitchingin.com
Lisa Ristuccia
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Gabina -- The mothers who spoke in this video were mothers of 2-3 year-olds who took part in an interview about what happens when their toddlers want to help. Andrew Coppens and I were interested in finding out whether the differences that occur in middle childhood show up as early as age 2-3. And they do begin to show that early.
We were especially interested in knowing what cultural differences there are in how mothers handle it when their toddlers want to help with activities that are delicate -- when something could break or be easily messed up. We gave mothers a quick example, and they quickly launched into telling us about how they handle their child's eagerness to help. As in the video, European American middle-class mothers often tried to avoid their toddler's help, but Mexican-heritage California mothers generally welcomed their toddler's help and regarded it as actual help and an indication of the toddler's development of initiative and responsibility.
Does this answer your question?
Mariana Enriquez
Hong Liu
Laura Conner
This is amazing research. I have been following the thread above and it looks like your group has documented different patterns among different socioeconomic groups of Mexican families. Does this pattern hold for different socioeconomic groups of European Americans, as well? And are there any patterns among rural vs. urban families?
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Mariana Enriquez
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Thanks, Laura! That's correct, in research with 6-10 year old children from Guadalajara we've found differences in collaborative helping at home between an indigenous-heritage and middle-class community -- both urban. More consequential seemed to be the extent of families' experience with high levels of formal schooling over several generations. The more families had, the less their children collaborated at home. This might explain why middle-class European American families and middle-class Mexican families seem to be similar in regard to children's experience and skill in collaboration. We haven't studied possible differences across culturally distinct European American groups, but it would be interesting.
Many of us think about experience with formal schooling as a culturally consequential feature of family and community histories, one that we understand to relate dynamically to things like rural/urban living, adults' professions, income, family size and presence of grandparents and relatives, and so on. We often describe interconnection and coherence across these features in terms of "constellations" or ways of life.
Single constellations don't always wholly characterize single children, families, or communities. Something exciting is that many immigrant or minoritized children and families in the US develop skills across more than one way of life, "code switching" when appropriate. We'd like to see more STEM learning organized to allow multiple "codes" to flourish and work synergistically, and to allow children to learn and take part in more than one.
Mariana Enriquez
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
What a great thread! An important direction for future research is to investigate how people navigate across contexts that have different, even conflicting, practices. (See the work of Kris Gutiérrez and Carol Lee, who write about such navigation.) Kris and I wrote about children developing repertoires of practice that support navigating across distinct cultural settings, in Educational Researcher, 2003.
A focus on constellations of cultural practices, in middle-class culture and in other cultural communities, is an alternative to trying to take apart 'variables' such as ethnicity, social class, religion, language, etc etc. We make this argument around data from 3 communities of Guadalajara Mexico that embody distinct constellations of cultural practices, in Rogoff, B., Najafi, B., & Mejía-Arauz, R. (2014). Constellations of cultural practices across generations: Indigenous American heritage and Learning by Observing and Pitching In. Human Development, 57, 82-95.
To answer your question, Laura, I am sure there are important cultural differences among different European American communities with distinct constellations of cultural practices. For example, I would be curious to see how Appalachian European American families with limited schooling experience and middle-class European American families differ and/or share cultural practices -- it seems likely that they would differ in many ways. We have not looked in this direction, as our focus is on understanding the strengths for learning among Indigenous and Mexican-heritage families.
Mariana Enriquez
Hong Liu
A comment, I should have learned how to let my children to help my housework. Too late, they all grew up.
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Hong Liu, interesting comment. I think there's hope! Evidence suggests that the developmental "window" for learning to help and collaborate doesn't fully close, even though it's likely beneficial to start early. Learning that is guided by a "bigger purpose" (key for collaborative learning) can be transformative for older children and teenagers too. The key is children's integration in family and community endeavors.
Mariana Enriquez
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Ha ha, Hong Liu. Maybe now that they are grown up they will have other reasons to learn to take care of where they live! :-)
Gloriana Gonzalez Rivera
So wonderful! I wonder about the process of letting go and when in the interaction it is "okay" to let kids do something on their own, without direct supervision.
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Hi Gloriana,
Thank you for your comment and a great question. One of the things I've learned from our participants is to trust your children a bit more and to trust their initiative to take on new tasks. And like Andrew Coppens mentioned in the comment above, integrating them from an early age is also fundamental. However, in our samples, young children are always supervised or an adult is nearby. By the age of 12 is when children are expected to do things on their own, to have the skills and the precautious to do the work in a competent way. This is particularly true for Yucatec Maya families.
Mariana Enriquez
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
To add to what Lucía said, Gloriana, we think that one of the main motivations for children's involvement is to be doing something together. I think there are probably cultural differences in what is considered to be doing something 'on their own'. I'm curious if you have reflections on that.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Associate Professor of Psychology
Great question, Gloriana! Gloriana pregunta algo importante. ¿En qué momento en la interacción se “permite” que los niños hagan algo por su cuenta sin supervisión directa?
Lucía explica que lo que se ha visto en las investigaciones es que muchos confían mas en la iniciativa que prestan sus hijos debido a la integración de su participación desde temprana edad. Ya para cierta edad, se espera que los niños hagan las cosas a su manera y que tengan la habilidad y precaución para hacer el trabajo con capacidad. Barbara explica que una de las motivaciones principales para la participación de los niños es la idea de hacer algo juntos. También puede haber diferencias culturales en lo que se considera estar haciendo algo ‘por su cuenta’.
¿Tienen algunas reflexiones sobre esto?
Kate Meredith
What a great post to reshare on our FB page on Cinco de Mio. I watched your video last year. It is good to see how the study is evolving. What are your plans for the results?
Barbara Rogoff
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Kate -- Thanks in advance for sharing on FB! We're continuing to examine the sophisticated way that Mexican-heritage families collaborate with young children, and the ideas about learning, helping, and even about childhood that support what they do. It is a very complex pattern that is not well understood in psychology. Here's a recent study that Lucía Alcalá, Anna Corwin, and I published a couple of months ago on this topic. Several others are underway!
Claudia Arufe
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Kate, Thanks! Thanks for passing along the video to your FB page!
You asked about our plans for the results -- Well, in addition to publishing results in scholarly journals, we hope that making the findings more visible will help people see the strengths for learning that are widespread in Indigenous and Mexican-heritage communities. Our underlying motivation is to contribute to the learning and wellbeing of children, families, and communities -- at home and in the institutions where their learning is supposed to occur. Museums, after-school programs, media, in addition to schools.
This involves us all trying to learn more than one way of arranging for learning -- Understanding the learning opportunities that are common in many Indigenous and Mexican-heritage families is a resource for those families and can also be an inspiration for families from other backgrounds.
Diana Astrid Aguiar Aguirre
Me llamó mucho la atención el contraste entre las familias mexicanas y las europeo-americanas. Me pregunto si las familias mexicanas cuyos padres tienen más experiencia urbana y más escolaridad se parecen más a las familias de clase media europeo-americanas. Me gustó mucho este video, resalta la importancia de la colaboración desde la infancia, trabajar en equipo como familia.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Claudia Arufe
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Muchas gracias por tu comentario Diana. Si, creo que para las familias sería muy bueno reconocer la importancia de las iniciativas de los niños y niñas para colaborar o fomentar que lo hagan, tiene muchas repercusiones importantes tanto socio-emocionales como cognitivas.
En cuanto a tu cuestionamiento, en algunos aspectos si hemos encontrado que los niños y niñas de familias mexicanas cuyos padres tienen más de 12 grados escolares y por varias generaciones han vivido en zonas urbanas son más similares en sus formas de interacción y participación, observación y atención a los niños y niñas de familias europeo-americanas de nivel socioeconómico medio, o se muestran en el medio entre las familias de herencia indígena y las europeo-americanas.
Tenemos resultados de esto en diversos estudios. Por ejemplo en:
Mejía-Arauz, R., Rogoff, B., & Paradise, R. (2005). Cultural variation in children’s observation during a demonstration. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 29 (4), 282-291.
Mejía-Arauz, R. Correa-Chávez, M. Keyser Ohrt, U. & Aceves-Azuara, I. (2015). Collaborative work or individual chores: The role of family social organization in children´s learning to collaborate and develop initiative. In Benson, J. (Series editor), M. Correa-Chávez, R. Mejía-Arauz, & Rogoff, B., (Volume editors) Advances in Child Development and Behavior. Children learn by observing and contributing to family and community endeavors: A cultural paradigm. Vol. 49, pp. 25-51. London: Elsevier.
Mejía-Arauz, R. (2015). Contraste en el desarrollo sociocognitivo de niños de contextos urbanos y rurales o indígenas de México. En R. Mejía-Arauz (Coord.), El desarrollo Psicocultural de niños mexicanos, pp. 13-43. Guadalajara, México: ITESO. ISBN 978-607-9361-80-8.
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Diana asked whether Mexican-heritage families that have more schooling and urban experience seem more like middle-class European American families. This is a very important question that can help the field understand cultural change and continuity, and examine whether some cultural practices are more resilient and others fall away in a generation or two.
Our team has done a number of studies on this question. In general, mothers and children from highly schooled Mexican, Mexican-heritage in the US, and Guatemalan Mayan communities show a pattern that is intermediate between the patterns we find with mothers and children from Indigenous-heritage and those from highly schooled European American families. In some studies, they are more like the highly schooled European American families, but in several studies (of mothers' attentiveness and children's considerateness), they are just like the Indigenous-heritage families.
Lorna Quandt
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
References to these and other studies can be found at www.learningbyobservingandpitchingin.com
Mariana Enriquez
This is such an interesting research and conversation! I wonder if you have considered looking at the concept and practice of collaboration within the context of "COMMUNITY" and "BELONGING." Another aspect that I have not seen (although the conversation is pretty long already and I must confess I have not read all the comments), relates to GENDER DIFFERENCES. I was born and raised in Mexico City, and have been living in Denver, Colorado, for over 30 years. You are right, we learn to collaborate, but in great part it is because of the sense of community and belonging, collaboration is a form of belonging. My mother always would tell us, "¡acomídete! no esperes a que te pidan ayuda!" (something like, help/offer help/contribute, don't wait to be asked for help), and that is so reflective of our culture. At the same time, boys and girls are expected to participate/collaborate in different tasks that are more "gender-related." For example, girls will help more with household chores, while boys would help more with "fixing" things. Since very young we are given the opportunity to help, as you can see in the video, as a reflection of belonging to the family community.
As you know, a great strength among Latinos is the sense of community vs. a more individualistic approach. I wonder if you have also analyzed the impact of ACCULTURATION in these practices. That probably will help a lot to explain some of the differences with other groups, such as the European American already mentioned, as well as class differences (i.e., middle class mentioned already). And just as if we need something else, the number of children in the family also plays a role, as well as parents' protectiveness towards their children.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Associate Professor of Psychology
You bring up excellent points, Mariana! We haven't looked specifically at the context of "community" and "belonging" but in our studies, when families talk about collaborating and helping, they mention that it's part of being a member of the family or belonging to a particular group/household. We've often tied this idea of contributing because it's expected to the value of being acomedida/o like you mentioned. That comment very much resonates with what I grew up hearing as well and what many participants in our studies have also described. Our group's video two year ago touches specifically on this aspect (2018 video: https://stemforall2018.videohall.com/presentations/1318)
In term of gender differences, we haven't really examined how the type of work differs by gender but we've found that both boys and girls are expected to contribute just as much.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Mariana, thanks for your observations! You mentioned that the number of children in the family and the parents' protectiveness towards their children might make a difference in cultural changes in collaborative practices in Mexico. I wonder if you have speculations about that, or perhaps someone else does.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hola -- Mariana menciona que el número de hijos y la actitud de los padres de proteger a sus hijos puede influir en los cambios culturales en las prácticas colaborativas en México. ¿Alguién tiene ideas acerca de esto?
Paulina Valdés
Dear All,
I think the construct of "collaboration" is quite powerful and has a wide range of applications - clinical, academic and also in workplace settings. It also makes me wonder how it could be studied in a multi-cultural context. I work with children from different nationalities that live in Switzerland and attend international or local schools. In my experience, when they require my services, the first thing that comes to my mind is: How can these students be asked to collaborate towards established academic and or social goals in Swiss schools when, due to the fact that they come from diverse backgrounds, their modes of learning and interacting cannot be wholly analysed according to their country of origin and/or socio-economic status. There are multiple other factors that influence their behaviour and that of their parents such as: parents' mother tongue, language or languages spoken at home, family dynamics and also, the other cultures they have been exposed to. I would sincerely appreciate your insight.
Mariana Enriquez
Claudia Arufe
Lucia Alcala
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Thanks a lot for your comment Paulina.
As the video shows, it seems that children all over the world like to collaborate, I would say especially when there is real involvement of others, both peers, and adults in the activities, and even more if the activities are not an obligation but children are allowed to chose whether to participate. When they see that all the collaborators are having a good time, then they also want to participate.
In a study with my colleagues Mary Correa-Chavez, Uli Keyser and Itzel Aceves Azuara, we pointed out that real collaboration is not individual help, but it should be a "co-llaboration, that is, people doing things together to accomplish a shared purpose. So to do this in the context of the school, that idea of not sharing the work or not talking to others might not help. And I think that it would be very good if the teacher or adults are also participants in the activities in which they want the children to contribute and collaborate.
Mariana Enriquez
Claudia Arufe
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
I you are interested on the reference here it is:
Mejía-Arauz, R. Correa-Chávez, M. Keyser Ohrt, U. & Aceves-Azuara, I. (2015). Collaborative work or individual chores: The role of family social organization in children´s learning to collaborate and develop initiative. In Benson, J. (Series editor), M. Correa-Chávez, R. Mejía-Arauz, & Rogoff, B., (Volume editors) Advances in Child Development and Behavior. Children learn by observing and contributing to family and community endeavors: A cultural paradigm. Vol. 49, pp. 25-51. London: Elsevier.
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Paulina, I have long admired how the Swiss have multiple official languages, so you might be in an excellent place to experiment with what Rebeca suggested.
Once, a group of us were giving a symposium in Brazil and the audience of about 200 people were speakers of about 12 or 15 different languages. It was a poster symposium, and we asked the audience to help each other out -- soon we had the room filled with people explaining the posters to each other in their different languages. For example, if the poster was in English, there might be someone bilingual in English and French, explaining the poster in French to a Russian speaker who understood French.
I think it helps for the collaborating groups to have something real to refer to -- in this case, the posters, but it could be anything that shows or represents what the group is trying to accomplish.
Susana Frisancho
Excelente video. Muestra muy claramente los diferentes modos de colaboración. Con las variaciones de cada grupo, en general hay similitudes en el patrón general de colaboración entre los diversos pueblos indígenas. Lo he visto con los grupos de la Amazonía peruana con los que trabajo. Resultaría importante que los maestros de escuela tomaran mayor conciencia de estos patrones, estoy convencida de que pueden incluir prácticas escolares que los incluyan y promuevan.
Mariana Enriquez
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Muchas gracias Susana, muy buen comentario.
En México veo cómo los maestros limitan bastante la interacción entre los niños en el salón de clases, a veces para ayudarse entre ellos, pero no se les deja porque "no se debe copiar" o "se debe trabajar en silencio". Me parece que eso va creando un ambiente que no fomenta la colaboración. En cambio en escuelas que trabajan maestros indígenas o de herencia indígena y que no siguen al pie de la letra el estilo de enseñanza occidental, hay mucha mayor participación y colaboración de los niños y niñas (ver por ejemplo el trabajo de Ruth Paradise y de Mariette de Haan).
Mariana Enriquez
Mariana Enriquez
Lo que llamamos en inglés culturally responsive practices!
A pesar de esa práctica que no promueve la colaboración en la escuela, los niños saben que en casa se colabora, aprenden a navegar en diferentes ambientes.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Hola Mariana! Coincido contigo. Creo que los niños pueden diferenciar basado en el contexto (casa o escuela) cuando se debe de colaborar o se espera que ellos colaboren. Mas que aprender a navegar las diferencias, creo que podemos partir de las fortalezas sobre colaboración que los niños traen al salon de clases, para generar lo que mencionas, culturally responsive practices o community-based pedagogy, como lo reflejan en su video.
Hong Liu
Hi, Barbara and Andrew, let's forget the grown-up children for a moment, thinking about what nowadays is not made by teamwork, we know that collaboration is a critical soft skills that children and grown-up all need for success, personally, and professionally. I am very interested and worked on some project to use AI to make Computer-supported collaborative learning transparent, so that the teachers can make each teammate accountable and reward according to their collaboration, participation, and contribution. I do not want write too long here. We can discuss more about this research and findings in other occasions.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Does the computer-supported software help the participants develop shared objects or similations that they can work on together?
Teresita Arceo
Me parece enriquecedor cómo los niños indígenas mexicanos aprenden de sus padres a colaborar en el trabajo cotidiano y al mismo tiempo aprenden algún oficio y se sienten parte de sus familias, y forman identidad. Al mismo tiempo pienso que en ocasiones les falta jugar más y dedicarse a ser niños.
En las familias mexicanas de clase media, concretamente en Guadalajara tristemente cada vez se ve menos común que los niños colaboren en las tareas de casa. Les es difícil trabajar en equipo. Quizá influye que muchos papás trabajan ambos fuera de casa y prefieren hacer ellos mismos los quehaceres para ahorrar tiempo.
Mariana Enriquez
Claudia Arufe
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Teresita, Thank you for raising the point that middle-class families in Mexico are often somewhat torn between the importance of children learning to collaborate in everyday work and the pressures of middle-class life such as tired parents working outside the home and preferring to just do household work themselves to save time.
I want to address your comment that it seems enriching for Indigenous Mexican children to learn to collaborate in everyday work, to feel part of their families and form their identity -- but that at the same time you think that sometimes they need to play more and dedicate themselves to being children.
My comment is that the concept of what it is to be a child is shaped culturally. In communities where children are segregated from a large proportion of the mature activities, childhood is often seen as a time of both not being competent to make contributions and having freedom to play. In contrast, in some Indigenous communities of the Americas, children are included and valued as contributors from a very young age. (And of course they play too.) What I'm trying to say is that the idea of childhood as a time of play, separate from the 'adult' world, is a cultural construction. The idea of a child world separate from an 'adult' world -- or children helping with 'adult' work -- is very different than seeing children as already contributing people in the community, from the earliest ages.
We think that this contrast matters for how children learn at home from the earliest years -- learning either that they are supposed to be separate and can't be a part of the family work, or that they along with everyone else can provide important contributions as they collaborate in the shared endeavors of the family.
Mariana Enriquez
Mariana Enriquez
And if collaboration is a value of the family, children also collaborate while playing.
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
This is an interesting idea, Mariana. Thanks! I don't disagree, just curious. I'd love to hear more about this idea of children collaborating through play.
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Muchas gracias Tere por esta reflexión tan clara e importante que nos das. Ciertamente, la colaboración en las actividades en familia y en la comunidad van forjando unidad e identidad.
Me parece que a muchos padres y madres de familias mexicanas de clase media se les ha transmitido la idea de que "no se debe" pedir a los niños que "trabajen" y se considera que su participación en labores del hogar es trabajo y casi abuso, pero lo que quieren los niños y niñas pequeños es participar y formar parte del grupo. Al colaborar en labores del hogar los niños como tú bien dices, aprenden a atender necesidades básicas de la vida cotidiana que les servirán a ellas y ellos mismos en la vida. Además, en investigaciones que hemos hecho varias colegas y yo, nos podemos dar cuenta de que cuando los niños colaboran en casa, lo hacen sintiéndose orgullosos de sus contribuciones. Eso también incide entonces en su bienestar emocional y sus relaciones con la familia.
Mariana Enriquez
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Y esta idea de que la infancia es un momento de preparación para la vida adulta, y sobre todo una preparación unicamente académica es una idea que ha venido con el incremento de la escolarización en México y otros paises con poblaciones de herencia indígena como Guatemala.
La falsa promesa de la meritocracia y el incremento nivel educativo como medida de progreso, de la mano con la participación en un mundo neolibreal, gloabalizado cade vez más individualizado puede que sea un factor que diluya esta maravillosa fortaleza cultural de colaboración. Será que al hacernos conscientes de esta herencia cultural nos haga valorarla y fomentarla en proximas generaciones? O será que mejor nos vayamos despiediendo de ella :( Increible video!
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Qué impactante comentario Itzel, muchas gracias. Tiene muchísimas implicaciones en muchos sentidos. El punto del papel de la escuela en el desarrollo infantil me parece importantísimo, ya lo señalan también Ron Gallimore y Roland Tharp en varias de sus publicaciones. Como se implica en tu comentario, es muy importante retomar y fortalecer la interacción colaborativa en los diversos escenarios en que participan y se desarrollan los niños y niñas.
Gabriela Rangel
Me encanta el trabajo que hace y lo que se muestra a través del video. La infancia indígena aprende de formas distintas al del otros pequeños, pero esas formas son tan válidas e importantes que es preciso visibilizarlas para su reconocimiento y su consideracion al momento de pensar lo educativo en contextos indígenas. Gracias.
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Totalmente de acuerdo Gabriela, y no solo visibilizarlas y reconocerlas sino aprender de ellas, es un recurso tremendamente enriquecedor para la vida, la interacción social, el desarrollo de las personas y las comunidades.
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Gracias por tu comentario, Gabriela! Aunado a lo que dice Rebeca, creo que es importante que las escuelas y la sociedad reconozca las fortalezas de las comunidades indígenas para poder alejarnos de la narrativa de deficits sobre estas comunidades y podamos apreciar la riqueza de estas culturas, sus practicas y conocimientos.
Mariana Enriquez
Claudia Arufe
Muchas gracias a todo el equipo de esta investigación por compartirnos, ahora de forma visual, los avances de sus trabajos sobre esta temática. Considero que las reflexiones en torno a ella son muy variadas, como se puede ver en todos los comentarios que se han hecho. Me parece interesante cómo se vincula el aprendizaje de la colaboración a la práctica cotidiana y habituada; así como a un estadio de bienestar emocional. Creo que es muy importante, como ya han mencionado, el ayudar a generar conciencia entre los padres sobre cómo estamos educando a nuestros hijos, estoy segura que muchas de las veces, educamos como fuimos educados, replicando patrones, hasta que tomamos conciencia y decidimos si es conveniente seguir así o no. Me gustaría compartir dos situaciones desde mi experiencia:
1) La vida en las Casas Hogar. Muchas de las niñas, niños y adolescentes que viven institucionalizados se les mantiene al margen de muchas formas de colaboración, en aras de asegurar su protección, y por lo que Rebeca Mejía comenta de que las labores de casa son vistas como algo no propio de los niños y niñas. Por otro, lado, cuando se sabe que en una Casa Hogar hay colaboración infantil, se puede llegar a criticarles por no cuidar bien de la población a su cargo y hasta se puede confundir con otras prácticas de explotación. Me parece un tema que ha sido poco estudiado.
2) El trabajo en equipo en estudiantes universitarios. Soy profesora universitaria y por años he visto las dificultades que se enfrentan los estudiantes cuando se requiere trabajar con otros, por lo regular no es que no quieran hacerlo, he observado que no saber cómo se hace. Supongo que será consecuencia de lo que se menciona el vídeo, no aprendemos a colaborar colectivamente.
Saludos a todos!
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Que maravilloso comentario Claudia. Si, parece que se ha confundido la participación de los niños y niñas en la actividad diaria de los adultos y en actividades que finalmente implican el aprender a saber hacer, con ideas de que al no colaborar en casa o en los diversos hogares en que viven se les protege del "trabajo infantil", cuando esas actividades pueden convertirse en escenarios de convivencia que son tan necesarios para la familia o en hogares institucionalizados.
Comparto contigo también el comentario de que a los estudiantes universitarios se les dificulta el trabajo en equipo o trabajo colaborativo. Pareciera que sus experiencias escolares de tantos años (por lo menos 12 años escolares) no les indujo al trabajo colaborativo. Algo a remediar en los sistemas educativos.
Claudia Arufe
Kimberly Welty
Wonderful video! I am very intrigued by your hypothesis and would love to know more about how different cultures around the world include or do not include their young children in daily family activities, and how that might correlate to children's social skills (cooperation, sharing, collaboration) as they get older. I believe children are naturally curious and want to be helpful and included, but I wonder if some cultures are inadvertently shutting that down by not allowing them to participate, and if that might lead to less developed social skills as they interact with others. Thank you and I look forward to learning more about this!
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Thank you for your comment, Kimberly. I agree with you; young children are naturally curious and eager to help and to be part of the group. But based on our research and other ethnographic work, we see that in many Indigenous communities children are commonly included in family activities allowing children constant opportunities to observe and help. Their environment (social and physical) or developmental niche, is organized in a way that supports their autonomy and their involvement in work.
Al Rudnitsky
Fascinating work. Really enjoyed the video. The face of the little girl who was not very enthusiastic about helping with 'chores' said so much. I'm so curious about the talk that accompanies participation. Are the Mexican children working side by side with parents rather than independently? I also wonder about the connections between working with parents and (later) working with peers. I also wonder about how collaboration on tasks relate to collaborative problem solving and idea building. Great stuff here.
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Al, thanks for these questions!
In this study, toddlers in both communities "joined in" with work parents were doing around the house. In the Mexican-heritage community, some toddlers were already helping voluntarily on a regular basis, without rewards/prizes or even needing to be asked. Several of us have worked together on prior studies that show large cultural differences at older ages between these two and other similar communities, within voluntary helping predominant among Mexican-heritage families.
"Sharing goals" (core to Mexican-heritage children's collaboration) can be done side-by-side or physically apart, and children who have early experience with side-by-side collaboration seem to develop skills in collaborating together without being together. In a prior study, many Mexican-heritage college students told Lucía Alcalá and I that although they were studying away from home they understood their academics as a family collaboration, which supported and motivated them to do well.
Bernardo García-Romero
Gracias por compartir este vídeo y las reflexiones que se están realizando entorno a este tema.
La colaboración entendida como un acto de contribución, de dejar de ser egoístas, de integrar a los niños y niñas a la familia a partir de sus habilidades y destrezas de acuerdo a su edad; estoy seguro que fomenta a desarrollar adultos más sensibles y empáticos con la sociedad.
Desde la Universidad ITESO, en varios de los proyectos de intervención psicológica y de investigación, estamos enfocados en la promoción de mejores estilos de vida desde etapas tempranas, y me parece que este vídeo y tema ayuda a generar impacto en la importancia de seguir actuando en la colaboración desde casa para fomentar estos estilos de vida más saludables.
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Gracias, Barnardo, por este comentario valioso. Me parece importante lo que sugiere acerca de la empatía y si podría tener base o origen en este tipo de colaboración. Dos valores culturales (por lo menos) parecen guiar estas formas de participación colaborativa: respeto y la importancia de acomedirse. Para mi son muy vinculados con la acción e disposiciones empáticas.
Bernardo García-Romero
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Muchas gracias por tu comentario Bernardo, como señala Andrew en las familias mexicanas de nivel socioeconómico medio y medio alto bajo las condiciones de vida urbana se observa algo de pérdida de estas formas tradicionales de interacción, valdría la pena revalorarlas, para reorientar hacia estilos de vida además de más saludables también de mayor impacto más allá de la familia en los diferentes escenarios sociales en que participan los miembros de las familias.
Esto también lo investigamos en el proyecto que conoces de Organización de vida cotidiana familiar (Mejía-Arauz y colaboradores, 2016-2019) que en muchos de los temas que abarca se fundamenta en el paradigma LOPI (Learning by Observing and Pitching in In Family and Community Endeavors) que ha desarrollado la Dra. Rogoff.
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
¡Rebeca, este tema es importantísimo y me has sembrado la semilla de curiosidad desde que te conocí! ¿Qué pasa si hay una concientización sobre las prácticas tradicionales? Así como hay revitalización del lenguaje, ¿Se puede hacer algo así con colaboración, atención, o cualquier otra faceta de LOPI? El tema que trabajamos con Barbara en la tesis es sobre transformaciones generacionales en interacción familiar, específicamente en colaboración y como te imaginaras, esperamos ver menos colaboración en las nuevas generaciones. Y en mi espíritu iteseano de transformar, me dan muchísimas ganas de saber qué pasa si re-aprendemos ese conocimiento (aunque sabemos que el tema de la intervención es bien delicado).
Sobre el proyecto “Organización familiar de vida cotidiana en el contexto urbano y su impacto en el desarrollo en la infancia media”, ¿Tienen algunos resultados publicados? ¡Me gustaría mucho saber sobre este!
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Si quieren conocer más del paradigma de LOPI (Learning by Observing and Pitching In in family and community endeavors), pueden ver
Rogoff, B. (2014). Learning by Observing and Pitching In to family and community endeavors: An orientation. Human Development, 57, 69-81.
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Itzel, en muchas de las entrevistas que hemos hecho para estudios en el paradigma LOPI (muchas que tú me ayudaste a codificar y sistematizar) y otras más recientes, seguimos encontrando que al preguntar a las madres y padres de familia de algunas condiciones culturales si los niños o niñas colaboran en casa nos dicen que no, pero en ese momento caen en la cuenta de que en su propia infancia ellas o ellos colaboraban en casa y se preguntan por qué ahora ellos/as no les piden a sus hijos que lo hagan. Reconocen lo significativo que fue limpiar los zapatos para toda la familia y otras labores en las que colaboraban y lo bien que se sentían cuando la mamá o el papá (o algún otro pariente) les apreciaban esa ayuda, y como eso, muchos otros ejemplos... Luego dicen "creo que tengo que retomar eso con mis hijos". Eso es revalorar y reconstruir estas tradiciones, como bien dices, revitalizarlas o recuperar intergeneracionalmente las tradiciones. Yo creo que si vale la pena tratar de incidir en ello. El paradigma LOPI da el fundamento para este reconocimiento de formas de aprendizaje muy valiosas, que pueden aplicarse tanto en la vida cotidiana no escolar como la escolar, con profundas repercusiones a nivel social y cultural.
Barbara Rogoff
Hugo Vidal Centurión Cárdenas
Buenos días! Agradecido por vuestro trabajo, pues me genera reminiscencias de mi vida en el espacio rural andino donde fui aprendiendo labores que generaban alimentos y servicios para la familia de progresiva complejidad, inicio en el espacio del hogar (crianzas, cultivo y acarreo de agua), luego el espacio de la familia (cultivos, acopio de leña y otros productos del ámbito comunal), y, después, en la interacción de la etapa infantil - adolescente, al espacio de la comunidad e intercomunal (cultivos, comercio, servicios comunales), donde era valorado como un hombre adulto y retribuido como tal en labores para otros. En el último lustro, mis vivencias en el espacio amazónico me indican que las tareas para la vida propia y del hogar son progresivamente de mayor complejidad; niños no se diferencian en el acopio de alimentos (cultivos o recolección), a veces solos y otras veces acompañados por los integrantes de la familia; en la adolescencia, las tareas, comienzan a ser diferenciadas por sexo, y están relacionadas a la vida en comunidad y extra-comunal (individual, por hogar o por familia); generalmente el ingreso a la vida comunal tiene ritos de iniciación (caza, faenas comunales, otros). Estas vivencias me están generando un trabajo de investigación sobre la formación la vida y el rol de la escuela en espacios rurales, acotado a la familia amazónica (etnia Shawi); agradeceré compartir información sobre ello, como ahora lo hacen. Buena salud en sus hogares!
Claudia Arufe
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Que interesante trabajo, Hugo. Creo que unas obras que te interesarían son el libro de Inge Bolín, "Growing Up in a Culture of Respect," y los artículos de Marjorie Murray. Ambos son en la región andina. Además, hay un bonito artículo teorético de S.H. White y Alex Siegel (1984, creo), que es parecido a lo que describes arriba -- sobre la expansión del círculo del niño, como crece. !Suerte!
Jessica Gale
Hi Barbara - Wonderful video. I've always found your work fascinating. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on how the collaboration practices in indigenous and Mexican-heritage families compare to the types of "practical life" activities recommended by Montessori. Since starting Montessori school, our 2-year-old is obsessed with helping us cook, clean, do dishes, etc. It seems that perhaps there is a difference in whether children collaborate organically as a natural part of the ebb and flow of household life versus being taught more explicitly about how to do certain practical life activities in Montessori.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Jessica -- This is an interesting question! Our research suggests that it matters that the children are working WITH others, rather than having individual tasks. So it's less about the dishes or the broom and more about joining with others in a shared endeavor.
Jessica Gale
Thank you for responding. That makes complete sense and something to keep in mind as I'm collaborating with our little one. On a personal note, I had the opportunity to meet you when I was a psychology major at Pomona - I was in Val's sponsor group our first year. It's hard to believe that was almost 20 years ago!
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Gracias, Jessica -- ¡Cuanto gusto reconectar contigo! Contesté con la distincción entre trabajar juntos con la familia y tener tareas individuales. Pensamos que lo que atrae los niños es más unir con los demás en actividades compartidas, que hacer las tareas en sí. I'll be interested to know how things go if you try something new in collaborating with your little one! Congratulations on what you've been doing since we met a few decades ago! (sheesh!)
Danielle Boulden
This video is so insightful! Thank you for sharing. I can't help but begin thinking about the pedagogical implications of this and how this knowledge will be valuable for educators as they incorporate their students' assets into instruction. Do you have any thoughts on how this research could have practical implications for teacher education?
Francene Watson
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Danielle. Thanks for watching our video! I teach in an education department at University of New Hampshire and think about this question a lot. Here's a short accessible paper that makes some points about the general relevance of cultural research to teacher education.
Specifically, this research suggests beneficial learning, STEM or other areas, when students' activity combines both initiative in coordination with others and contributions to a "bigger purpose." Both are rare in many schools, but possible at all levels.
My university students make podcasts on topics they choose, but coordinate with a whole-class theme or "season." This is a real communication genre outside of schools, and the audience is not me the instructor. Their podcast episodes are aimed at finding seldom heard voices. Here's last season. The principles of something like this are relevant to students of any age.
Danielle Boulden
Thank you for sharing this! What a great read with so many important principles for teacher education. I also love the authenticity of your student project and commend your work raising the awareness of our future educators.
Francene Watson
Francene Watson
Thank you all--appreciating the cross pollination of this showcase, a first time for me! Compelled to add into this last strand with particular focus on teacher education--when I saw/listened to the teachers in the video, I couldn't help but wonder how we are restructuring teacher education and interrogating the cultural assumptions it's built upon (e.g. western knowledge/value systems privileging individualism vs. collectivism)--even when we have all walked the well-trodden path of student centered work, and collaboration in the classroom. I am also thinking about the "who" of the teaching force, which continues to be majority white middle class monolingual women (like myself, a former hs teacher!). In short, I just want to comment that your work is a powerful affirmation of the need to take this further to task around equity and social justice, where these often unexamined assumptions are surfaced and with that, a hope to supporting a teaching profession as diverse as the students, families, & communities it serves. Much gratitude.
Claudia Arufe
Andrew Coppens
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Francene, I just viewed and commented on the fantastic video by you and your other team members. What important and inspiring work. Thanks for leading the way there!
Some of us find subtle but important inconsistencies between how "student-centered" learning is often understood and organized in schools and the kind of family and community learning that our research highlights as supporting young children's collaborative dispositions and skills. In many indigenous American communities collaborative learning is neither child- nor adult-centered, which is to say that activities are not commonly designed for children but rather children are included in activities to which everyone contributes and shares value and commitment.
This is a big challenge in many schools, but it can inspire important innovations and reforms. Barbara Rogoff has written a great book about her and others' efforts to do so in a school in Utah, Learning Together.
Claudia Arufe
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
A second comment, your post was so interesting! One of the things I work hard to do is help pre-service teachers to recognize strengths for learning in their students of non-dominant backgrounds, when those strengths can look like deficits from dominant cultural perspectives. For example, the kind of observational patterns that support collaboration are often open, inclusive, and attentive to multiple ongoing events. For teachers unfamiliar with the cultural patterns we study, this observational sophistication can appear (to teachers) to be mere distraction creating possible disciplinary problems for students whose skills in this way of attending are misunderstood.
Claudia Arufe
Monica Paz
Pasto, Colombia. Ineresante estudio, en América latina, la familia crece asi, de esa forma de una manera intuitiva, el ejemplo enseña y de ésta manera se consolida el valor de la contribución de cada uno de los miembros de la misma, Lastimosamente la tecnología (mal utilizada) abre una brecha intergeneracional que no hace posible esta interacción constructuiva de la colaboración como aprendizaje, y el trabajo en equipo, haciendo que más rápidamente las familias se disocien y sea más complejo la interacción de los individuos en sociedades colectivas. Hay que volver a nuestros orígenes, a las cosas buenas de nuestros ancestros. Nuestros niños con discapacidad pueden aprender mucho si los dejamos colaborar en las actividades diarias, haciendo una inclusión efectiva desde nuestro núcleo familiar, generando cohesión y compromiso de todos los miembros.
Un aplauso para ustedes!
Claudia Arufe
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Gracias por tu comentario, Monica! Coincido contigo, creo que la tecnología puede crear brechas generacionales en la forma que se ayuda y colabora en la familia. Por otra parte me gustaría saber mas sobre como se pueden integrar a los niños con discapacidades de formal colaborativa para facilitar su aprendizaje.
Mónica Márquez
Me parece muy interesante la investigación que realizan y me gustó mucho el video. Es muy sintético pero muy expresivo, motiva a profundizar más sobre el tema y conocer sus investigaciones al respecto.
Coincido con varios de los comentarios que resaltan el valor de la colaboración para el aprendizaje de la ciencia y de tantas otras áreas del conocimiento; la colaboración como signo de pertenencia a la comunidad, como fortalecimiento del autoconcepto y la capacidad de agencia, como recurso para la reconstrucción de tejidos sociales, como experiencia de descubrimiento de la alteridad, como vivencia de la gratuidad y del servicio, como forma de rescate de la tradición, transferencia de saberes generacionales y fortalecimiento de los lazos afectivos.
¡Gracias por recordarnos el valor de la colaboración!
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Claudia Arufe
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Gracias por todo esto, Mónica! Una frase de su comentario me interesa mucho: "la colaboración como signo de pertenencia a la comunidad." Para mí es interesante que la colaboración puede función tanto de esta manera como un medio de integrarse para los niños. O sea, es signo de ya haberse integrado y medio de profundizarlo.
Preeti Gupta
Director of Youth Learning and Research
Presenters...thank you for such a rich discussion. Did you find that older children in a family unit were more likely to collaborate than younger siblings? Also did you find any patterns with girls doing more "women's work" and boys helping with more "men's work"? Any thoughts about how this played out? Growing up in an Indian home in the U.S. and visiting India regularly for the entire summer vacations and seeing my girl and boy cousins interactions in their families...there was definitely that sense of collaboration among adults and children to get work done. My parents fostered that in me. However...it was easy to see gender-specific roles get emphasized in ways that are detrimental, at least in my experiences with my cousins. Thoughts on that?
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Preeti, Thanks for your observations! It's difficult to answer the question of whether older siblings were more likely to collaborate than younger siblings. When we observe siblings collaborating, they are both contributing to the collaboration. And we haven't investigated whether older siblings would be more collaborative with a peer or with an adult than younger siblings would be with their peer or an adult.
With regard to gender -- we aren't focusing on what type of work children are doing, but whether they are pitching in voluntarily. We have not found reliable differences between girls and boys in voluntary helping or collaborativeness at home or in research tasks. However, our sample sizes are small, so I would hesitate to make a strong conclusion about gender.
Marley Jarvis
Great video, thanks for sharing! Our research has found that pairs of preschoolers that moved in unison (like swinging together in synch) were better able to cooperate on tasks directly afterwards. I thought I would share an animated short I made around some of our research on cooperation in preschoolers: https://youtu.be/MITcIuiwLGI or you can check out the original study here by Rachinowitch and Meltzoff: http://ilabs.uw.edu/sites/default/files/17Rabinowitch_Meltzoff_Child_Synchrony_Cooperation.pdf
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Marley, I've seen your animation and these findings before -- so interesting! Thanks for bringing this into the conversation. Your finding may relate to our research (with Dayton and Aceves-Azuara) that finds more collaboration among Mayan mothers and small children than among European American middle-class mothers and children, even at a scale of 200-millisecond segments.
Marley Jarvis
Elliot Frank Hess
Hey Professor Rogoff,
I am happy to see how well of a response you and your colleagues' video has gotten.
Is there a way to trace this path of collaboration and helpfulness back in history in both European American Middle Class Families and Indigenous/Mexican Heritage communities? Is this something that y'all have thought of and done?
Love the video, and keep up the good work!
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Elliot, Thanks for the question! There are historical records going back almost 500 years showing similar ways of learning among Aztec families then and now, published by Chamoux. I don't know of similar work going back centuries with other Indigenous/Mexican-heritage communities nor with the ancestors of European American middle-class families. Except there are accounts of Puritan childrearing from centuries ago, and it sounds very different than either ancient or contemporary Aztec or other Indigenous American ways.
If any reader knows such references, please post the information here!
Nickolay Hristov
Ph.D.
It is exciting to see the diverse audience and rich discussion mirror the multicultural topic of the project. There is much to consider and digest already but as I am spending time with the conversation I find myself pondering: in the areas of problem solving, conflict resolution and development of innovative cultures and environments, there is a distinction among coordination, cooperation and collaboration with escalating levels of intellectual investment and benefit from the collective effort. Do you make a difference between these terms in your work/projects and how would the distinction affect the outcomes and interpretation of your results?
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Nickolay, this is an interesting question about ideas that are often used interchangably. Probably different people define these things differently. I think of coordination as merely actions required to do something socially. So, teachers and students have to coordinate their actions in a classroom, conversation partners have to coordinate what they say to each other. Even adversarial or competitive activity partners have to coordinate. Cooperation is similar, but more based in helpful support. However, none of this is necessarily collaborative. To me, collaboration includes cooperation but is fundamentally about sharing goals.
In many of the indigenous-heritage Mexican communities we've worked with, deep cultural values about reciprocity, shared responsibility, and respect buttress collaborative efforts and further distinguish them from coordination or cooperation. For example, both children and adults are encouraged to be acomedido which involves paying attention to the needs and purposes of others and pitching in to help without needing to be asked.
Dearing Blankmann
Thank you so much for your truly fascinating work and this subsequent discussion. I am particularly drawn to the idea of children included as contributors. The children receive the message that their involvement is authentic and appreciated. As a teacher I spent most of my classroom years focused on PK-2. Over the years I have found myself designing and implementing STEM professional development and working with many elementary teachers as a STEM coach. With all my professional hats on I have noticed that teachers often underestimate not just what students are capable of but also question how students might undertake a task. They do not trust the activities, exploration or setting to the students. Control is a major issue. When I watched your videos, it is clear that the adults in the indigenous communities are happy to share the space as investigator (of an object) or expert (at sweeping floors) with the children. The inquiry driven science and engineering classroom can be messy, with many hands, ideas and voices. To build on Francene’s comment, I wonder how we can leverage your work and help teachers foreign to the idea of children as legitimate contributors begin to shift their thinking. What your thoughts are on how can we help teachers become comfortable sometimes being a collaborator and learner alongside their students instead of always being the one out front?
Heidi Carlone
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Dearing, what important questions these are. I'm hoping several others following this conversation jump in here too. Above, I mentioned Barbara Rogoff's book Learning Together and also suggest this study by Ruth Paradise and others, from a special issue several of us put together a few years ago. See also Barbara's post about NPR reporter Michaeleen Doucleff's experiences reimagining and collaborating with her young daughter at home.
One of the best examples I know about for reimagining social relationships in educational spaces, guided by these ideas about collaboration and reciprocality, is this Exploratorium "tinkering" collaboration with the San Francisco Boys and Girls Clubs. Here and here are two explanatory videos I use in the classroom with pre-service teachers.
Alex DeCiccio
Heidi Carlone
Martin Storksdieck
Director
After I watched the video, I immediately showed it to my wife and our 10-year old son and asked for feedback. We had a good laugh and some good conversation about the contribution our son makes to the family. That said, I have two questions: what do we know in comparative terms about collaborative culture in scientific communities between, say Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Anglo countries (US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, part of Canada).
Secondly, I seem to remember vaguely this work across cultures on the role of children, what childhood means and how this has changed over time. Are we saying that there is a deficit in white, middle-class, educated kids in the US, from the perspective of helping? Does this mean they play less collaboratively? I might have missed answers to that above, but we will soon be delving into the structure of play and how it relates to STEM practices, so knowing about cultural differences upfront will help us tremendously.
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Martin! Thanks for these questions. Regarding the second, I wouldn't say that middle-class European American children have a helping "deficit" -- they are quite capable of helping with the right kinds of experiences and opportunities. Whether children of this background play collaboratively -- which to me means sharing goals, making contributions to the activity, and sharing responsibility for it -- is a great question. What kinds of play activities do you have in mind?
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Martin, I want to follow up on your great question -- how does collaboration in scientific communities differ between places like Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Anglo countries? I don't know the answer but I think maybe some participants in this discussion might. Especially participants who may have worked in two or more countries. So, everyone, do you have some speculations or observations? It would be fascinating to know.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Una pregunta muy interesante, que viene de Martin, es si hay diferencias en la colaboración dentro de la comunidad científica en diferentes paises, como de América Latina, Asia, Africa, Europa y los países Anglos? Si tienes observaciones favor de compartirlas. !Gracias!
Elizabeth Guzman
This video is amazing in showing the portrayal of learning to work collaborative at home that will benefit in real world experiences. Watching this video gave real life experiences in how in Latin American countries differ to westernized societies through showing visual examples of children in action and also made me realize that we all grow up differently. It was rather an eye opening video to me because it really showed how certain customs similarly to how I grew up in my own culture (Mexican) are not widely used and seeing this video gave me a real insight on how it greatly differs and the idea behind why parents do certain actions to hinder collaborative learning in westernized societies.
Congratulations on this great video Professor Rogoff! It was amazing!
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Thank you Elizabeth! It is interesting to see that something very familiar to you can also be eye opening when you see a contrast with it! I think that is one of the important contributions of cultural research -- it can make people away of practices in places far away, and also help people be aware of their own community's practices that they might take for granted. We are hoping that the contrasting statements of mothers in our study helps people from all backgrounds 'open their eyes' to the importance of everyday ways of arranging children's opportunities to learn!
Maria Montejano
Congratulations, beautiful and engaging video!
It is always exciting to watch videos showing how indigenous children from the Americas learn as they participate and help in family activities. I have seen this process so many times among Yucatec Maya children.
Lucia Alcala
Andrew Coppens
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Thank you, Maria! I'd be so interested to hear about some of your observations in the Yucatan! Do any examples come to mind that you might share with the group here?
Alex DeCiccio
Your video and thread has really sparked my curiosity! One of them being the use of story and analogy with directives or requests in both settings of your research?
Also, does your research draw connections or overlap at all with that of the psychological studies in WEIRD or western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies?
Is there a sub text theme in your research regarding “universal” strategies that come from small slices of unusual populations (middle class euro-American)?
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Alex! One of our goals in making this video is certainly to help balance the overrepresentation of middle-class European-heritage cultural patterns in the research that informs what counts as and what is beneficial for STEM learning. Thanks for raising the connection.
One of the limitations of the "WEIRD" lens is that a lot of "non-WEIRD" communities and patterns for learning and collaborating can get lumped together. We've shown one "non-WEIRD" pattern among Mexican-heritage families, but there are likely to be many more. Lots to learn.
Alex DeCiccio
Alex DeCiccio
I agree, there is lots to learn and I feel parenting will always be this way. Although that is purely from the parental lens which is something we personally try to be aware of with varying levels of success. As a parent who was raised middle class euro American influenced by middle eastern and Mediterranean cultures I have tried hard to inform myself on parenting and the uses of different styles of communication.
What I find so interesting about the work and research of this project is the connection to learning STEM and the ways in which collaborative strategies lead to success.
Where/when have you seen the more collaborative strategies start to fray in indigenous settings?
just want to disclose that I am aware that is a generalized comment and I am by no means a researcher in this field. Asking from a beginner’s place and mindset.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Alex, Thanks for raising these points! You asked where/when we have seen the more collaborative strategies start to fray in Indigenous settings.
With Itzel Aceves-Azuara, I am following up on the collaboration we found in Mayan families in Guatemala -- we are visiting the same families, 30 years later, to see whether practices that were common 30 years ago have persisted, transformed -- or what.
Some of the readers here also work in Indigenous communities -- do you have observations that would help answer Alex's question?
Alex DeCiccio
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hola tod@s, Tenemos una pregunta muy interesante -- Alex pregunta si la interacción colaborativa se ha disminuida en algunas situaciones Indígenas. Por favor, si tienen observaciones que tienen que ver con esa pregunta, ayúdenos a entender lo que has visto. ¡Gracias!
Alex DeCiccio
That is simply amazing to be following up on these concepts decades later.
This reminds me of a finely tuned and culturally sensitive version of a long term ecological research study or LTER with indigenous families acting as an ecosystem. That of course is not your approach and a desensitized one at that but there is an interesting connection.
Please forgive the oversimplification there and loose comparison made, just another media person playing in the science world!
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Yes, it's amazing to be able to follow up the next generation of the same families 30 years later. The idea of a long term ecological research study is apt. The ecology is much bigger than this one Mayan town, and includes me and my family, as well as the missionaries, medical systems, media, and world events, from 30 years ago to now.
Linda Halgunseth
This work gives a window into the real lives, strengths, and parenting of Mexican heritage. I see my own mother and family in this video, and see how these strategies have instilled strong collaboration skills in me in my work and outside of work. This line of research os so important and valid. Thank you for casting a light in true family dynamics in Mexican families.
Lucia Alcala
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Thank you for this comment, Linda! We'd love to hear about your experiences with this pattern for organizing learning with your mother and family, and also how this experience was a continuing resource for you later on. Thanks for raising the possibility of long-lasting benefits of early experience with collaboration in the family.
Linda Halgunseth
This work gives a window into the real lives, strengths, and parenting of Mexican heritage. I see my own mother and family in this video, and see how these strategies have instilled strong collaboration skills in me in my work and outside of work. This line of research os so important and valid. Thank you for casting a light in true family dynamics in Mexican families.
Joyce Pérez Ospina
Hi, I'm Joyce Pérez from Colombia.
It's intersting! professor Roggoff.
I saw a way collaborate learning in children and I'm going to try explain in English. It was while I did a research about politics emotions with children. When one child didn't know how was one emotion others children explained with similar examples the emotion and the children got it.
I think this showed the sense of collaboration in the learning. I read about the collaborate learning from your books and journals when I did this research.
Thanks
Lucia Alcala
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Joyce, Thanks for your observation! What an interesting situation. The children collaborating to help each other explain their emotions! Was this in a classroom setting or an interview? and what was the children's background? Thanks!
Joyce Pérez Ospina
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Hola Joyce! Coincido con Barbara. Creo que es importante ver como las habilidades de colaborar pueden ir mas allá de las actividades y trabajo de la familia, y como puede apoyar nuevas habilidades, sobre todo en el desarrollo socioemocional.
Joyce Pérez Ospina
Joyce Pérez Ospina
Hi, Profesora Roggoff and Lucia
This happened in the research workshop with children between 3 and 9 years old who took part in it.
The research was aimed to understand the emotions with this political meaning and the relation with Media. So we use some pictures about world events and parts of episodes of differents childhood programs of media to establishing the conversation and interaction with preschool and primary children and researcher. When appeared emotions like compassion the children told us about some familiar experiences in the dialogues with children more toddlers. These last didn't know about this emotion, the children older explained to them through the examples and their own experiences with the emotion until the toddlers got the significance understanding. So the understanding about emotions were helped with collaborate learning.
Thanks to you.
I'm following your discussions
Una parte del estudio se encuentra publicado en el capítulo 7 de este libro, disponible en español
Barbara Rogoff
Lourdes Leon
Gracias por mostrarnos esta variedad de escenas donde los niños y niñas participan con orgullo en actividades valoradas en la familia. Lo hemos atestiguado en muchas comunidades indígenas mexicanas y es una práctica que también se puede incorporar a otras familias no indígenas. ¡A innovarlo en tiempos de COVID 19!
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Lucia Alcala
Andrew Coppens
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Gracias, Lourdes!
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Gracias, Lourdes! Me interesa conocer mas sobre las ideas de como poder incorporar estas practicas a otras familias y como poder innovarlo en tiempos de COVID-19. Esta situación definitivamente nos hace replantear practicas colaborativas que beneficien al grupo.
Barbara Rogoff
Nora Obregón
Interesante, bello y conmovedor.
Barbara Rogoff
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Gracias, Nora!
Sandra Larios
Thank you for sharing your video and work! As a first-generation Mexican graduate student, this video resonated with me and my "misfit" learning style I had while going through the American public school system. In my experiences, my educators/school never involved my culture or ways of understanding the world in the classroom, at home I was very active helping contribute to the household as a young girl from cleaning, caring for my siblings, cooking, helping with DIY projects around the home, etc, but in school it was a very individualistic culture/environment. I think it is important that as educators we take the time to learn about the various backgrounds of our students and ultimately change the dominant western framework we have with schooling practices that very much excludes our Indigenous and students of color perspectives and understandings of the world. Thank you for sharing!
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Andrew Coppens
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Sandra! Thank you very much for sharing these comments from your experiences with public schools. I couldn't agree more. Your observations underscore our purposes for both creating this video and pursuing this program of research.
I wonder: Did you ever have a teacher or encounter an educational setting that was a "fit" with your vast experience with collaborative learning, even giving you the opportunity to expand these skills?
Sandra Larios
Hi Andrew,
To answer your question it hasn't been until this past year that I have encountered a setting that was a "fit" with my experiences.This was in a space of creating digital testimonios in a group setting with other first-generation Chicanx women.This space acknowledged our backgrounds, roots, and culture and respected the voices and testimonios shared in that space in the collaborative efforts to create digital testimonios. Together we were able to speak our stories/experiences. For many of us, it was the first time we had ever been asked to share and reflect on our lived experiences being first-generation Chicanx women in a PWI.
It has only been until recent that I have been able to experience such a profound collaborative learning experience that drew from our lived experiences and centered and acknowledged us as being knowledge holders. Which is why it is so amazing to see that Indigenous children and children of color are now being recognized as being knowledge holders and that their cultural background/experiences are being acknowledged in the classroom for collaborative learning instead of being pushed out of silenced.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Thanks very much for this, Sandra. You're reminding me of conversations with and things I learned from Aida Hurtado and Gabriela Arredondo while in Santa Cruz. It is really interesting to imagine ways that the kind of collaborations you're highlighting can extend in different kinds of relational projects later in life, building from early experiences. Thanks again.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Sandra Larios
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Associate Professor of Psychology
I love your point, Sandra. Yes, it's about trying to move beyond a deficit-view approach and really embrace and incorporate this "cultural wealth" and these "pedagogies of the home" and "funds of knowledge".
John Fraser
I found this an interesting study. I did find the summary of the findings a bit odd but still, useful information. Looking forward to seeing this in the peer-reviewed literature. Do you have any publications out yet?
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Throughout this robust discussion you can find information on and citations of published studies from this and our related work, even more helpful to you if you read Spanish.
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Here is a list of some publications on the topic by this research group https://learningbyobservingandpitchingin.sites.ucsc.edu/overview/#3
John Fraser
Well, that's a fantastic resource. Bookmarked already! Thanks
Itzel Aceves-Azuara
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
So John -- Thanks for your message (and also for your video).
I'd like to know a little more about what you found odd about the video's summary of the findings. Can you tell us what seemed odd? Maybe we can clarify here, or tell you about a specific publication?
Karletta Chief
I love this video. Thank you for sharing. I am Diné and grew up without electricity and running water. I grew up chopping wood, carrying water buckets, cooking, etc. Today, my children have much more at their finger tips and it is more challenging for me to ensure that they are learning to be independent and to contribute. Thank you for emphasizing this type of learning. My question is how did you work to build partnerships with Indigenous communities?
Andrew Coppens
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Karletta, I'm curious -- how are you handling the challenge of ensuring your children's Diné development, to be independent and to contribute, given the changing circumstances for them? This could be informative to others with similar challenges.
(And... I hope things are ok there with you and your family and relations, given how much the coronavirus has been impacting Diné people.)
Karletta Chief
When I am with my extended family, my son is able to contribute through making food, cleaning up, cooking, feeding the dogs, feeding the sheep or picking up trash on the homestead. When we are in the city, we re-enforce independence by expecting him to help himself and clean up after himself and to help with family chores. He went Montesorri up to Kindergarten and he learned to help care for animals, plants and to do work. I teach him my language and culture and he goes to a Diné immersion school. I can relate to one of the moms saying you just want to do everything but I try to allow him to help. Thank you for your prayers for the Navajo Nation. We really need them.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Congratulations on your son! Be well, all y'all....
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Hi Karletta, thank you for this comment and of course for your own wonderful video and work on the Indige-FEWSS project.
I want to underscore what you offered about these collaborative practices supporting both independence and the importance of contribution. A very important and often misunderstood point.
To hopefully open a conversation to others who may read this, the concept of indigeneity is complex, fluid, and often politically complicated. In this and several previous studies, we used the term "indigenous-heritage" to refer to families with backgrounds or experience in ways of life that are common to many indigenous communities of Mexico and in many cases the Americas more broadly. Yet, due in part to histories of discrimination and oppression, many families avoided identifying as indigenous (Bonfil Batalla has written beautifully about this in the book México Profundo). Our use of the term "indigenous-heritage" is an imperfect effort to both align with families' own choices about cultural membership and identification while not ourselves taking part in the patterns of erasure that distance many of these family and community practices from the indigenous communities who have been instrumental in developing and maintaining them.
Thank you also for raising the question about partnership. Much of the ethnographic work that informs this particular study is based on long-term partnership. For example, Barbara Rogoff's book Developing Destinies describes some of this relative to her decades of work in a Tz'utujil Maya community of Guatemala. Here, in work with families that are not members of formal Indigenous nations or groups, our partnership was with individual families and engagement with them was shorter term. Mexican-heritage families of this background were consulted extensively (and collaboratively) during planning and piloting of the interviews to help ensure they were designed to allow parents to articulate their values and practices in ways that were culturally appropriate and consistent with their perspectives. This too is always imperfect, but we think should be expanded to more cross-cultural work. The kinds of mutual commitments that are the basis of partnerships are core to our efforts in this video project.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and ideas about community partnership. Thanks again.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Thanks for this, Karletta. And thanks for the work that you and your colleagues presented in your video! Regarding your question on building community partnerships: I'll build on Andrew's excellent response -- In some cases, we have developed longterm relationships with Indigenous communities.
For example, I have been involved for 4 decades in a Mayan town in Guatemala, as a researcher and participant, contributor. The book Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town, that I wrote with renowned Mayan midwife, Chona Pérez, and 2 of her grown grandchildren, discusses how my role in the town developed.
A big part of developing the relationship in the town was taking part, contributing, coming back. At the end of my first year in the town, people did not believe me when I said I would come back. When I did come back, I found a much deeper relationship than the first year -- because I came back.
Just yesterday, I heard from 2 of the 'kids' who were in my dissertation study, on my post about this video on the Facebook page for Developing Destinies. They reminisced about what they remembered from the study, and what fun they had, when they were 8 or 9 years old. That was 4 decades ago! When I responded, one of them asked when we can have a reunion of the 'kids' that were in that study. Over the years, returning almost annually, I have a role that involves both the privilege and the obligation of contributing to local events.
I have also had the fortune to be involved in several other Indigenous communities, in Mexico and the US, through collaborating with colleagues who themselves have long relationships in the communities. So, I'd say, hanging in there, contributing, respect, being a learner, all have something to do with developing community partnerships.
Susan McKeehan
Thanks for this wonderful video which provides food for thought. I am wondering if one of the cultural aspects may be whether or not grandparents or other relatives are more likely to live together with the parents and children of Indigenous/Mexican Heritage than with those of European ancestry. A larger family base living together could mean that grandparents or others are available to engage children to join in on the various activities. If both parents, of any heritage, have full-time jobs, often with overtime, there is less time available to engage their children in various activities. I am hoping parents will view the video and try to incorporate more hands-on help from their children. I am just scratching the surface of many variables to consider and I'm sure you have considered many over the years!
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Lucía Alcalá
Assistant Professor
Hi Susan! I agree with Rebeca's point on the impact of western education on how mothers and families organize activities at home to provide children with opportunities to collaborate. I grew up in a small rural town in Mexico, where everyone was always helping at home but also helping neighbors and extended family member that lived nearby. However, I see that with my children in the US, they don't have the same level of collaboration, and I often organize their activities based on their age and school-related responsibilities. My husband often tells me that I talk to them like a teacher, ordering them what to do, instead of seeing them as part of the family, and collaborators.
Lastly, I want to mention that although we see these differences based on maternal schooling, in some of my recent work with Maya mothers in Yucatan, these differences are not as significant. Mothers with college degrees are reporting that their children help at home and mostly on their own initiative. This particular community has a robust Maya identity, the population speaks the Maya language as well as Spanish, and their cultural practices are as vibrant similar to other Maya communities.
Your question and the new findings will help us consider the influence of other variables as we continue working with - and learning from - these indigenous and indigenous-heritage communities.
Graciela Solis
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
These are very interesting points Susan, in some indigenous communities even if grandparents do not live together with their children and grandchildren they often do things together because of living in certain proximity, and so children have many opportunities to collaborate with other adults, parents, grandparents and other relatives, but some indigenous families who migrated to urban centers they often show the same collaborative participation within the family and with neighbors, which shows that they keep some of their traditions of social interaction.
In a study (Mejía-Arauz, Keyser, and Correa-Chavez 2013) we found that it is not so much living apart but having the influence of western education that changed this kind of traditions, for example, parents of indigenous background who went to college to be teachers or had professional studies and jobs, tended to think that children should not collaborate at home or help in adult activities because they had to focus on school work and play.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Profesora/Investigadora
Susan McKeehan hace un cuestionamiento interesante en cuanto a la posibilidad de que los niños de ciertas comunidades tengan más oportunidades de colaborar cuando los abuelos y otros parientes viven con ellos, en comparación con las familias de herencia Europea. Le comento que es posible que eso tenga qué ver no tanto con el que vivan juntos o en proximidad, sino con las ideas parentales acerca de que los niños no deben colaborar o "trabajar" sino que se deben enfocar en los aprendizajes escolares y en jugar, como se les ha enseñado y lo muestran algunos padres de herencia indígena/mexicana con estudios para ser maestros o estudios de diversas profesiones aun siendo (Mejía-Arauz, Keyser, and Correa-Chavez 2013).
¿Algunas experiencias, ideas o comentarios respecto de este cuestionamiento?
John Fraser
Barbara
Rewatched the video and my issue here is that there is a slight implication that varies between Hispanic/First Nations parenting practices versus "middle-class" or Western European. I think that the findings are solidly related to ingrained parenting practices that are passed between generations, and that they were commonly found in your study among specific groups. I would prefer that this was "practice first" and the source itself was where you found the evidence. My concern is that care should be taken to not conflate heritage for economic status. But that's why I watched it a few times. It's a muddy line, but the practices that produce more socially effective learning is super important and definitely builds on your past publications in interesting ways. I guess more simply, I was raised by western European parents, but I was painting walls, bailing hay, making dinner, and definitely doing the washing up, from before I can remember time.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi John, Thanks for taking the time to clarify! We too prefer a focus on cultural practices. In fact, we consider economic aspects such as how people make a living or their access to resources to be part of constellations of cultural practices, not a separate 'variable' from many other features of community life, such as region, nation, religion, climate, history, common institutions, family size, infant mortality rates and on and on.
What we are reporting in the video is differences in certain practices that are more common in some communities than others. But specific practices are not exclusive to those communities, and they are not uniform within communities. This variability within communities can be seen in Developing Destinies -- my co-author the midwife Chona Pérez never went to school and spoke only the Mayan language but her grandson who also co-authored the book is a sociologist who speaks 3 or 4 languages.
Likewise, the community of your upbringing is not defined solely by your ancestors' place of origin. That community undoubtedly involves a constellation of cultural practices, and from what you wrote I can guess that it was a farming community, in a time and place when cars had parts that were not computerized, and so on. What about the next generation or the one after that in your place of upbringing? Probably not all the same practices, I would guess.
So your qualms about our conclusions helped surface an important difference in assumptions about culture. Thank you. In sum, our group doesn't separate culture into variables like ethnicity or social class. We focus on constellations of cultural practices as they are maintained, transformed, or discontinued across generations.
This is a central theme of Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town. It is also the focus of Rogoff, B., Najafi, B., & Mejía-Arauz, R. (2014). Constellations of cultural practices across generations: Indigenous American heritage and Learning by Observing and Pitching In. Human Development, 57, 82-95.
A number of participants in this discussion have also been elaborating on the challenges and practices of families with Indigenous American experience as well as experience in Western schooling and related middle-class cultural practices. Hope you have a chance to read through them.
John Fraser
Once again, the system isn't working and cut off comments. I was raised by western European parents (Scottish/British) and I was painting walls, doing dishes, helping prepare dinner, etc.. from before I went to kindergarten. By the time I was nine I could tune up a car, replace most common engine parts, and new how to help deliver a calf if it was breach.
Andrew Coppens
Assistant Professor
Thanks, John! In general it is quite interesting to me to find threads of similarities and variations across communities, as I think these are "levers" for hybridization and cultural transformation.
Barbara Rogoff
Annika Rosten
I grew up in European American homes and the points made in the video regarding a lack of collaboration within European American homes proved to be aligned with what I experienced as a child. When my younger sister began living with me, she had to adapt to new ways of collaboration within household activities that she previously had not been involved in. She began having to learn how to contribute with the dishes, laundry, taking out the trash, grocery shopping, cooking, and becoming more conscientious with resources. She reported an enjoyment and eagerness to contributing in ways she hadn't before and quickly adapted to the new responsibilities. Overall, this video sheds light into cultural norms that can be difficult to see within our own cultures. The information shared is very important so that we can gain awareness to different ways of being and interacting that could improve our ways of coming together within the home and community.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Barbara Rogoff
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Associate Professor of Psychology
Thanks for your comment, Annika. Yes, it's very easy to take own cultural patterns and norms for granted.
Svetlana Darche
Hello Barbara. Svetlana Darche here. So happy to see your video. (Ours is about GLOBE Mission Earth, teaching youth to collaborate as real citizen scientists, taking responsibility to help care for the planet.) I loved your story about the mother sheltering in place. This reminds me of the work of Big Picture Learning--my colleagues in the work-based learning arena--who encourage students to learn from the world around them, working side-by-side with their mentors and solving real problems https://www.bigpicture.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=592322&type=u&pREC_ID=186486
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Wow, Svetlana! Great to hear from you! And I was glad to see your video and the work it represents.
Rogelio Mugarte
Es muy cierto lo que comenta le entendí poco en el español, pero muy cierto y a los niños que se les ocupa desde pequeños en esas actividades desarrollan otras habilidades, son más inteligentes que otros, esto con el tiempo se vuelven más conscientes de su realidad, se vuelven autónomos, esto es lo que aveces la escuela no lo retoma en sus aulas y en sus espacios...en un trabajo que hice en mi titulación para enseñar a los niños maya hablantes a leer y escribir en su lengua maya, bajo el enfoque de psicogenesis, conocí esta parte de los niños...
Mitchell Nathan
I am so glad to see work on collaboration as a basic human drive and practice. Kids love to collaborate. Scientists need to collaborate. The connections are basic to our lives and culture and understanding how to foster it will have such far-reaching impact. Thank you for sharing this important project.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Associate Professor of Psychology
Great points, Mitchell! I think the importance of collaboration as a necessary skill is often overlooked in many arenas. Given the our current situation, many have been able to practice those skills.
Graciela Solis
Karen North
This is wonderful work and sure hope it is scaled. I observe parents who are perfectionists so want to make sure things are done right. Same thing with teachers who fear students will fail the test, so do too much directed learning. I think that testing accountability has set up this mindset. That and worksheet that are either right or wrong instead of time on creative projects. But I fear until accountability laws are changed, problem will continue in schools. Thank goodness for families who understand the importance of their children helping. Wonder how this new world of homeschooling will change the mindset. Doing any research on that?
Shakhnoza Kayumova
This is such fascinating and important work. It has been informing our own understanding of designing and studying equitable learning environments. Thank you so much for all your work!
Luis Guzman
Some would argue that kids shouldn't be helping, that they should be playing, napping or just doing anything else but doing chores. When is it then that the line is drawn between you shouldn't be helping and you "should" be helping?
Is it an age based criteria or is it just an overall family's choice?
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
Hi Luis, What you bring up is distinct views of childhood -- one that sees children as needing protection from community life (and lack of competence to participate) and one that sees children as full members of the community from the start, with something to contribute from the earliest years. These two views of childhood have lots of ramifications.
The two views also are based in different attitudes towards work -- in some Indigenous communities, work is what gives humans dignity and satisfaction, and heaven is a place where everyone works (from Bolin, in Peru). In many other places, work is seen as something to get through, the opposite of play or leisure or enjoyment. This distinction too has many ramifications.
Barbara Rogoff
UCSC Foundation Professor of Psychology
These are cultural models, not just family choices....
Graciela Solis
I always learn so much from the work in your lab. This time I thought a great deal about overarching goals and how this relates to helping behaviors. I think it's interesting that children from Indigenous and Mexican Heritage families can think beyond their immediate needs to the needs of the group. It seems to be an understanding that is related to theory of mind and perspective taking.
Angelica Lopez Fraire
Associate Professor of Psychology
Thanks for your comment, Graciela! I can definitely see the connections you bring up.