Topics
Enculturation
By
Dr. Priyadarshini
• Socialization & enculturation
• Parenting
• Peer influence
• Math achievement
Department of Psychology
Sunway University
Socialization & Enculturation
Socialization - The process by which we learn and
internalize the rules and patterns of society in
which we live.
 This process probably starts from the very first day
of life and occurs over a long period of time.
Enculturation - A process by which youngsters learn
and adopt the ways and manners of their specific
culture.
 Products of the socialization process (i.e., the
subjective, underlying psychological aspects of culture
that become internalized through development).
 It involves learning and mastering cultural norms,
attitudes, values and belief system.
 Actual process and mechanisms by which
people learn the rules of society and culture (e.g.,
what is said to whom and in which contexts).
Examples:
1. Using the words lu and gua in Indonesia.
2. Right-hand minded in Asian culture.
3. Food serving.
•
Socialization (and enculturation) agents are the
people, institutions, and organizations.
•
Parents are the first and most important
 Help instill and reinforce cultural tradition and values
in their children when they are learned and practiced
well and correcting mistakes in that learning.
•
What about you?
Other agents are siblings, extended families,
friends, and peers.
• School, church, and social groups (e.g., Boy or Girl
Scouts).
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 Microsytem – the immediate surrounding, such as family,
school, peer group, with which children directly interact.
•
 Mesosystem – the linkages between microsystem, such as
between school and family (e.g., SES level).
Human development is a dynamic, interactive
process between individuals and various ecologies
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
 Exosystem – the context that indirectly affects children,
such as parents’ workplace (e.g., Daycare centre).
 Macrosystem – culture, religion, society.
 Chronosystem – the influence of time on the other
systems (e.g., Era of technology).
 We are not simply socialized by our families,
peer groups, and educational and religion
institution; we also contribute to our own
development by affecting the people and
contexts around us.
•
•
Parenting goals & beliefs
•
Parenting goals provide the motivation and
framework for what parents think is the best
way to raise their children.
•
Middle-class mothers in Berlin, Germany vs. New Delhi,
India (Keller, 2010).
•
Germans = autonomous. A separate person with
unique thoughts, wishes, desires and needs. Focus
on objects.
•
Indians = autonomous but closely interdependent
with other people, especially family. Emphasize
physical contact, emotional closeness and
indulgence. Focus on interaction.
Parents’ beliefs concerning their role as caregivers
also influence their behaviors.

Parents in the U.S. believe that they play a very
active, goal-directed role in the development of their
children (Coll, 1990; Goodnow, 1988).

Traditional Turkish mothers believing that their
children “grow up” rather than are “brought up”
(Kagitcibasi, 1996)
This range of parenting beliefs will be reflected in
how parents interact with their children
•
E.g., Whether parents share cultural knowledge
primarily through verbalization and direct instruction
or by observation and imitation.
•
Parental ethnotheories (parental cultural beliefs
system) – “a basis for guiding parenting practices that
structure children’s daily lives” (Harkness & Super,
2006).
•
Family day? Family dinner?

Americans – special time with each children (e.g.,
play baseball with the boy and watch their ballet
recital for the girl).

Dutch – family time with their children (e.g., sitting
down for dinner every night).
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Parenting styles
Baumrind (1971) three major patterns of parenting:
1. Authoritarian - expect unquestioned obedience and
Ethnotheories motivate and shape what parents
think is the “right” way to parent their children.
view the child as needing to be controlled. They have
also been described as being low on warmth and
responsiveness toward their children.
2. Permissive - warm and nurturing to their children,
however, they allow their children to regulate their own
lives and provide few firm guidelines.
3. Authoritative - sensitive to the child’s maturity and
are firm, fair, and reasonable. They also express a high
degree of warmth and affection to their children.
Authoritarian
Maccoby & Martin (1983)
4. Uninvolved - often too absorbed in their own lives to
respond appropriately to their children and may seem
indifferent to them.
They do not seem committed to caregiving, beyond the
minimum effort required to meet the physical needs of
their child. An extreme form of this type of parenting is
neglect.
Authoritative
Permissive
Which of these styles is optimal for a child’s
development?
•
American children seem to do well with the
authoritative parenting style.
•
Children of authoritarian parents - more
anxious and withdrawn, lacking spontaneity and
intellectual curiosity.
•
Children of permissive parents - immature;
they have difficulty controlling their impulses
and acting independently.
•
Children of uninvolved parents - fare the
worst, being noncompliant and demanding.
 Demonstrate more positive mood, self-reliance, selfconfidence, higher emotional and social skills, and
secure attachment to caregivers.
 Promote psychologically healthy, competent,
independent children who are cooperative and at
ease in social situations.
 Higher school achievement for European American,
African American, and Hispanic American
adolescents, but not for Asian Americans.
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Authoritarian
However, Baumrind’s parenting styles may not
adequately capture parenting in other cultures.
Permissive
•
Chinese parents have been often described as
authoritarian.
•
However, the significance and meaning attached to this
parenting style may originate from a set of cultural
beliefs that may differ greatly from the European
American cultural belief system (Chao, 1994; Gorman,
1998).
•
Based on Confucian philosophy, Chinese parenting may
be distinguished by the concept of ‘training’ ( jiao xun) in
child rearing.
Authoritative
Culture & peers
How much do your
peers influence your
development?
Margaret Mead (1978) culture types with differing
levels of peer influence on the socialization of its
young people:
1. Post-figurative cultures – Cultural change is slow
and socialization occurs primarily by elders transferring
their knowledge to their children.
2. Configurative Cultures – Cultural changes occurs
more rapidly, adults continue to socialize their children,
but peers play a greater role in socializing each other.
3. Pre-figurative cultures – Culture is changing so
rapidly that young people are the ones to teach adults.
The knowledge that adults hold may not be sufficient
for the next generation and adults may need to look to
younger people for advice and information.
Social and cultural factors that
influence Math achievement
Exposure to peer groups
•
American teenagers spend more hours (18hrs)
with their peers compared with Japanese (12hrs)
and Taiwanese (8 hrs) (Fuligni & Stevenson, 1995).
•
Children from solitary farm settlement have limited
options to interact with a wide range of potential
playmates.
•
Children from hunting/gathering society may have peers
from multi-age groups instead of the same-age group
(e.g., U.S. age stratified schooling system).
•
Depending on the culture, the extent to which children
interact with their peers may be quite significant.
•
Cross-national differences in math
achievement are related to secondary
(i.e., culture) rather than primary (i.e.,
inherent – natural abilities that are
shaped by evolutionary processes that all
people presumably share) math abilities
(Geary, 1996).
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Cross-national differences among Chinese, Japanese,
and American children in counting and memory
exercises may be largely a function of differences in
those languages related to counting and numbers
(Stigler et al., 1986).
•
Possible contributing factors are:
 Language
 School systems
 Parental and familial values
 Attitudes & appraisals of students
 Teaching styles & Teacher-student relationships
Mandarin
Japanese
1 = ichi
11 = juchi
1 = yi
11 = shi yi
2 = ni
12 = juni
2 = er
12 = shi er
3 = san
etc.
3 = san
etc.
•
The Japanese language has unique verbal labels only for
the numbers 1 through 10. Number 11 is then “ten-one,”
12 is “ten-two” and so forth.
•
English, however, has unique labels for number 1 through
19 as well as decade numbers (20, 30,40..)
Research has shown that East-Asian students make
fewer errors than Americans in counting, and
understand some basic math concepts related to
counting and numbers better (Miller et al., 2005; Miura et
al., 1999).
Research has shown that the educational system which
children take part plays an important role in producing
cross-national differences in math abilities, while at the
same time imparting cultural values.
•
The content of what is taught in the school reflects a priori
choices by that culture or society regarding what it believes is
important to learn.
Different cultures believes different topics to be
important for later success in that society.
4 = si
4 = yon
5 = go
20 = niju
5 = wu
20 = er shi
6 = roku
21 = nijuichi
6 = liu
21 = er shi yi
•
Environmental setting in which education occurs (Formal –
schools vs. informal – taught by the elders).
•
Organization, planning and implementation of lesson plans
(e.g., praises, mistake focused, special classes).
7 = qi
7 = nana
8 = hachi
30 = sanju
8 = ba
30 = san shi
9 = kyu
31 = sanju ichi
9 = jiu
31 = san shi yi
10 = ju
10 = shi
Cultural differences in parenting beliefs about
education have an impact on children’s education
experiences (Chao, 2000).
•
Japanese and Chinese parents consider all children as
equal, with no differences between them; U.S. parents
recognize differences and find reasons to treat their
children as special.
•
U.S. parents consider innate ability more important than
effort; Japanese and Chinese, effort is far more
important than ability (Stevenson & Zusho, 2002).
•
U.S. parents tend to be more easily satisfied at lower
levels of competence than either the Japanese or the
Chinese.
Students around the world approach their
academic work with quite different worldviews,
attitudes, and attributional styles.
•
Asian American middle-school students exhibited a
stronger desire to please parents, greater parental
pressure, but also higher levels of parental support,
than did the European American students (Pang, 1991).
•
American undergraduate and graduate students
attributed academic achievement more often to ability
than did Asian students (Yan & Gaier, 1994).
American students also believed that effort was
more important for success than lack of effort was
for failure, whereas Asian students considered
effort equally important for success or failure.
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•
Differences in the use of classroom time appear to
underlie math performance differences.
•
The Japanese and Chinese spend more days per year in
school, more hours per day in school, a greater
proportion of time in school devoted to purely academic
subjects, and a greater proportion of time devoted to
math (Takahasi & Takeuchi, 2006).
American teachers tend to use praise to reward correct
responses.

Teachers in Japan & Taiwan tend to focus on
incorrect answers, using them as examples to lead
into discussions of the computational process and
math concepts.

These teaching differences is in line with the
cultural emphasis in the U.S. on rewarding
uniqueness and individualism & the emphasis in
Japan and China on finding ways to engage in
group process and sharing responsibility for
mistakes with members of the group.
END
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