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Winter 2024
FINAL SYLLABUS: 1/13/2024
Course Overview
The way in which human beings are socialized, grow up, and develop is affected by and expresses
their cultural environment. This course will explore this process through reading, lecture, film,
online discussion, and empirical study. The course will take a multidisciplinary approach to the
subject; in addition to psychology, it will draw particularly upon anthropology and
sociology.
We have a theme: social change, culture, and human development. This refers to the way that
global ecological, demographic, technological, and cultural shifts are changing socialization and
child development. The course is based on looking at these shifts over time and in the
immigration process. The initial reading for this topic is a case study of historical change.
Lectures and later readings (available on the course website) will expand and generalize this
theme. The course will be tied together by the instructor’s interdisciplinary theory of social
change, culture, and human development.
Classical developmental theories and approaches will be discussed and the extent to which they
apply to cultural variation and universal ontogeny will be discussed.
Students, along with the instructor and teaching assistants, will have the opportunity to relate the
class materials to their own experiences growing up as members of various ethnic or cultural
groups and in different ecological circumstances.
Do listen to and watch the lectures and films in order and during the week they are posted.
The projects and readings are coordinated in time with the lectures and films.
My Powerpoint + audio + audio-transcription-in the-Notes format gives you maximum control, as
you can go back to any slide and review the audio and audio transcription for that particular slide.
You can also repeat the audio on a particular slide as needed. However, you must download
each PowerPoint lecture for the audio to work properly! Do not rely on viewing and
listenening from BruinLearn or Microsoft 365. We recommend that you download and install
PowerPoint onto your computer. Downloading is also helpful if you need to listen to lectures
somewhere where you do not have an internet connection. The format also enhances your focus,
as there is no distraction from seeing the lecturer
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(READ THESE GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS/INFO FIRST!)
Projects and project presentation:
During Week 1 you will sign up for a project. Your section leader will provide a link for sign-ups
on your BruinLearn section page to do this. Descriptions of each project are found on the
syllabus. All the projects are interesting. Choose one that is interesting to you and works with
your schedule - that is, you will have time the prior week or two to collect your data and work
with your group.
Everyone will do one group project out of the seven possible projects described in the syllabus
below. You will find the descriptions in this syllabus listed under the week they will be presented
online: Weeks 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10. All the projects are based on field research and are interesting.
Each field project will be based on issues from one or more of the lectures, films, and/or readings;
in the presentation, data will be related to lecture, film, and/or reading. Each group (composed of
two to four students) should prepare one unified PowerPoint presentation with narration in the
Notes section of the slides.You will not make a recording; all information will be visual,
contained in the slides or Notes. Each presentation ends with two questions for the class to discuss
(See below for more information on responding to these questions). Here is the list of topics with
the presentation week schedule:
1. Week 3: Transformation of social ecology across the generations
2. Week 4: Infant sleeping arrangements
3. Week 5: Technology
4. Week 6: Gender roles
5. Week 8: Acculturation
6. Week 9: Adolescence in immigrant families
7. Week 10: Going back
The presentation will include introducing the project and/or discussing results in relation to
lecture, film, and/or readings; it will also include creating two questions based on the project to
stimulate class discussion on bruinlearn forums. Your section leader will use the presenters'
questions to start a Project Discussion thread each week. Members of that section can respond
to the questions. Presenters should not answer their own questions, but presenters (and other
students in the section) can respond to the response of another student to their questions. (See
below for how responses will be graded)
One or more articles specific to each project are often assigned the week before the project is
due. The relevant lecture(s) will also be given the week before. Sometimes additional material
is flagged as relevant. Therefore, where possible, integrate both lecture and reading material
from the prior week and other relevant material; for some projects you are asked to include
additional information from previous weeks; you may also add any course material you think
is relevant to your project. Each project should also utilize one outside reading in the
presentation’s Intro or Discussion. Grades will be based on powerpoint slides, the notes, and
discussion questions. Every member of the group will get the identical grade. The powerpoint
slides should be emailed to your section leader by Wednesday 11:59 pm of the week the
project is due. Your section leaderwill post the slides on your section webpage for the rest of the
class to see. These become part of class material you will use in writing your take-home essay
exams. Google slides will be useful for working together in a group. However, for grading
purposes, please save your slides as a powerpoint file and email the powerpoint to your section
leader. This will be the presentation of record, including both slides and your notes in the Notes
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section. A grading rubric and project guide, to supplement information in the syllabus, will be
posted on the class bruinlearn website. The project will be worth 50
points.
Go to week#8 and read
the instructions for that
specific presentation
- you may want to refer
to week#3 as instructed
Topics and Readings
PART I: INTRODUCTION TO THEORY AND CONCEPTS
Week 1
Section: Sign-up for one group project and two weeks of discussion questions
in your section. The rubric for creating and grading the group projects will be
posted on BruinLearn. Introduce yourself on your section webpage: First and
last name, location, major, motive for taking the class, a fun fact, and what
you like to do when you are not studying or in class.
Lecture 1
Introduction to Psych 133G, Culture and Human Development
Lecture 2
Cultural pathways through universal development: Theory and theories
Reading: Greenfield, P.M. (2016). Social change, cultural evolution, and human
development. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 84-92
Week 2
Section: Questions for discussion. Discuss questions on readings assigned in
Week 1 and the Week 1 lecture. If you are preparing questions for this week, one
question should be on the reading, the other question on the lecture. These
questions are to be submitted to your section leader by Wednesday at
11:59pm. They will select and post questions on the section webpage.
Responses to the posted questions are due by Sunday at 11:59pm.
PART II: THE ZINACANTECS: A LONGITUDINAL CASE STUDY OF SOCIAL
CHANGE, CULTURE, AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Lecture 1
A theoretical and empirical approach to cultural evolution: Intergenerational
transmission, cognition, and creativity (This lecture has a Zoom recording.)
Lecture 2
Social change and youth development in Zinacantan: Role of commerce, formal
education, and technology
Reading: Greenfield, P. M., Maynard, A. E., & Martí, F. A. (2009). Implications of
commerce and urbanization for the learning environments of everyday life: A Zinacantec
Maya family across time and space. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 935-952.
*In this article, play particular attention to the effects of the natural experiment
comparing female behavior in urban and rural environments.*
Sociodemographic
questions listed here
(highlighted)
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Questions for discussion. Discuss questions on readings assigned in Week 2 and
lecture in Week 2. If you are preparing questions for this week, one question
should be on the reading, the other question on lecture or film. These questions
are to be submitted to your section leader by Wednesday at 11:59pm. Your
section leader will select and post questions on the section webpage. Responses
to the posted questions are due by Sunday at 11:59pm.
Lecture 1
Infant care and development: Historical change in Zinacantan and around the
world
*This lecture begins to show that the theory I developed on observing one Maya
community has broad applicability.
PART III:
CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON AND CULTURAL
PATHWAYS FROM GEMEINSCHAFT TO GESELLSCHAFT
Lecture 2
Cognitive Development
(In addition to the PPT lecture, a film will be posted, but not discussed.)
Reading:
Morelli, G. A., Rogoff, B., Oppenheim, D., & Goldsmith, D. (1992). Cultural
variation in infants’ sleeping arrangements: Questions of independence.
Developmental Psychology, 28, 604-613. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.28.4.604
J. J. McKenna et al. (2007). Mother-infant cosleeping, breastfeeding, and sudden
infant death syndrome, Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 50, 133-161.
Week 4
Section: Sleeping arrangements project will be presented.
Interview two generations, a mother and a grandmother (your own if possible)
about the sleeping arrangements they had for their infants up to two or three years
of age. Same room? different room? same bed? different bed? What were their
reasons for these arrangements? How did these arrangements change in the first
two years? What were their feeding practices: breast and/or bottle? Note: bottle
includes significant use of bottle for breast milk. So find out milk source (breast or
formula) and delivery method (breast or bottle) If breast for source or delivery, for
how long? Find out where each mother and baby was born (country of birth, rural
or urban) as well as the educational level of each mother. Were there any
differences between the two generations? What were they? Analyze the data
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both “quantitatively” (pooling your data descriptively across families via averages
or bar graph representations) and qualitatively (each person giving a thumbnail
sketch of the family they interviewed). Relate your intro and/or your findings to
the lecture on infant care and development) and to the article by Morelli et al. or
McKenna et al.), plus one outside reading. Also, as part of your conclusion, state
what you think you would do with your children concerning sleeping arrangements
and why. (Suggested format, roles, and PowerPoint length is same as for Project
1.) Project PPT must be mailed to your section leader by Wednessday of this
week at 11:59 pm. Responses to the presentation questions must be submitted
by Sunday of this week at 11:59 pm.
Questions for discussion: Discuss questions on Week 3 lectures and readings. If
you are preparing questions for this week, one question should be on the reading,
the other question on lecture. These questions are to be submitted to your
section leader by Wednesday at 11:59pm. Your section leader will select and
post questions on the section webpage. Responses to the posted questions are
due by Sunday at 11:59pm.
Lecture 1
Film: Won't you be my neighbor? Impllications of Mr. Rogers for social change
and child development
The Powerpoint will have questions to take notes on while viewing the film.
Follow the instructions in the section called Film Discussion, above (pp. 4-5), to
contribute to your section’s discussion of the films. Your contribution must be
posted by 11:59 pm on Sunday.
Lecture 2
Communication technologies and social relationships
Reading:
Manago, A. M., Guan, A. S., & Greenfield, P. M. (2015). New media, social
change, and human development from adolescence through the transition to
adulthood. In L. A. Jensen (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of human development and
culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Week 5
Section: Technology project will be presented.
Each member of your team: Try to interview a three-generation family (one
member from each generation). Try to get a time budget of how much time each
member spent interacting with others (family, friends) and using media as they
were growing up. (The youngest member could be a child or teenager now. You
can also interview yourself for this youngest generation.) What were the media that
they used? Ask the members of the two older generations how they think the way
young people spend their time has changed. Do they think that these changes
have affected family and other social relationships? How did the pandemic affect
each generation’s use of communication technologies? Analyze the data both
“quantitatively” (pooling your data descriptively across families via averages or
visual graph representation) and qualitatively (each person giving a thumbnail
sketch of the family they interviewed). Introduce your project and/or discuss your
findings in relation to the article, “New media, social change, and human
development from adolescence through the transition to adulthood,” assigned for
last week, as well as the film and lectures from Week 4 and one outside reading.
(Suggested format, roles, and PowerPoint length are the same as for Project 1.)
Project PPT must be mailed to your section leader by Wednesday of this week
at 11:59 pm. Responses to the presentation questions must be submitted by
Sunday of this week at 11:59 pm.
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Questions for discussion: Discuss questions on Week 4 lecture, film, and
readings. If you are preparing questions for this week, one question should be on
the reading, the other question on lecture or film. These questions are to be
submitted to your section leader by Wednesday at 11:59pm. Your section
leader will select and post questions on the section webpage. Responses to the
posted questions are due by Sunday at 11:59pm.
Lecture 1
Social change and gender roles in a Mexican American family
Film: La Familia
The Powerpoint will have questions to take notes on while viewing the film.
Follow the instructions in the section called Film Discussion, above (pp. 4-5), to
contribute to your section’s discussion of the films. Your contribution must be
posted by 11:59 pm Sunday.
Lecture 2
Social change, social development, and socialization in middle childhood:
Evidence from Mexico
Reading:
Donnelly, K. & Twenge, J. (2017) Masculine and feminine Traits on the Bem SexRole Inventory, 1993–2012: A cross-temporal meta-analysis, Sex Roles, 76, 556565.
Abu Aleon, T., Weinstock, M., Manago, A. M., & Greenfield, P. M. (2019). Social
change and intergenerational value differences in a Bedouin community in Israel.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 50, 708-727.
Week 6
Section: Gender roles project will be presented.
Interview one female and one male member of each generation of a threegeneration family (if you have one or two missing categories, that is okay.) Ask
each what his or her concept of male and female roles was growing up. Ask if they
have seen any change over time. Where relevant, ask how the grandmother’s or
grandfather’s gender role conceptions differ from her/his parents and/or
child/children. Get the same demographic information as for the Week 3 project.
Analyze the data both “quantitatively” (pooling your data descriptively across
families via averages or visual graph representation) and qualitatively (each person
giving a thumbnail sketch of the family they interviewed). Introduce your project
and/or relate your findings to the film La Familia and to the two articles assigned
for Week 5, plus one outside reading. (Format, roles, and PowerPoint length same
as described for first project.) Project PPT must be mailed to your section
leader by Wednesday of this week at 11:59 pm. Responses to the presentation
questions must be submitted by Sunday of this week at 11:59 pm.
Discuss questions on Week 5 film, lectures, and readings.
Lecture 1
Social change, cultural evolution, and human development: China and the United
States
Lecture 2
Technological change and developmental change in the Deaf community
2 films: Sound and Fury; Sound and Fury Six Years Later
The Powerpoint will have questions to take notes on while viewing the film.
Follow the instructions in the section called Film Discussion, above (pp. 4-5), to
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contribute to your section’s discussion of the films. Your contribution must be
posted by 11:59 pm Sunday.
Reading:
Bian, Q., Chen, Y., Greenfield, P. M., Yuan, Q. (2022). Mothers’ experience of
social change and individualistic parenting goals over two generations in urban
China, Frontiers in Cultural Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.487039
Week 7
Section: Discuss Sound and Fury films. No project presentation
Lecture 1
Ethiopian immigrants to Israel: The persistence and transformation of African
values and practices in life and art
PART IV: CULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL ISSUES IN EDUCATION
Lecture 2.
Immigration and acculturation as social change processes: Cross-cultural
value conflict between home and school and across the generations
Reading:
J. Suina (1988), And then I went to school. In R. R. Cocking & H. P. Mestre
(Eds.), Linguistic and cultural influences on learning mathematics. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
M. F. Orellana Responsibilities of children in Latino immigrant homes (2003).
In C. Suarez-Orozco & I. L. G. Todorova (Ed.), Understanding the social
worlds of immigrant youth, New Directions for Youth Development, No. 100.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Week 8
Read week #8
instructions
here
Section: Acculturation project presentation
Each member of your team: Interview an immigrant mother and her elementary
school-age child or children. Get the same demographic information as in the
Week 3 project for both the mother and children. Give each individually the
scenarios that were presented in lecture (copies will be made available).
Compare the responses to the results presented in lecture. Why do you think your
patterns were the same (if they were)? Why do you think your patterns were
different (if they were)? Relate your introduction and/or findings to Thursday's
lecture from Week 7, to the Suina article “And then I went to school,” to the
Orellana article, and to one outside reading
(Use same format, roles, and PowerPoint length as described in the first project
description.)
Project PPT must be mailed to your section leader by Wednesday of this week at
11:59 pm. Responses to the presentation questions must be submitted by Sunday
of this week at 11:59 pm.
Questions for discussion: Discuss Week 7 lectures and reading. If you are
preparing questions for this week, one question should be on the reading, the other
question on lecture. These questions are to be submitted to your section leader
by Wednesday 5/19 at 11:59pm. Your section leader will select and post
questions on the section webpage. Responses to the posted questions are due
by Sunday at 11:59pm.
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Lecture 1
Cross-cultural value conflict in peer relations
PART V: OTHER PATTERNS OF ECOLOGICAL CHANGE
Lecture 2
Going back…
*After viewing/listening to my introduction on the PPT, watch Daughter from
Danang. The Powerpoint will have questions to take notes on while viewing the
film. Follow the instructions in the section called Film Discussion, above (pp. 4-5),
to contribute to your section’s discussion of the films. Your contribution must be
posted by 11:59 pm Sunday.
Reading:
C. Wu & R. Chao (2017). Parent-adolescent relationships among Chinese
immigrant families: An indigenous concept of qin. Asian American Journal of
Psychology, 8, 323-338.
Harrington, B. (2022). "It's more us helping them instead of them helping us":
How class disadvantage motivates Asian American college students to help their
parents." Journal of Family Issues,1-23.
Week 9
Section: Presentation on adolescence in immigrant families
Each member of your team: Interview an adolescent with immigrant parents or
write your own memoir. What are the most difficult conflicts with parents? What is
it hardest for parents to understand about teenage life in the United States? What
are the barriers to intergenerational communication? Relate your autobiographical
or biographical data and/or your introduction to the lecture entitled “Social change
and adolescent development in Zinacantan: Role of formal education and
technology” (Week 3) or to the Bridging Cultures lecture, Lecture 1day of Week 7.
Relate it also to the Wu & Chao and Harrington articles, plus one outside reading.
Please note that this week may have a different format than the previous weeks, as
the project is entirely qualitative. Project PPT must be mailed to your section
leader by Wednesday of this week at 11:59 pm. Responses to the presentation
questions must be submitted by Sunday of this week at 11:59 pm.
Questions for discussion: Discuss Week 8 lectures and reading. If you are
preparing questions for this week, one question should be on the reading, the other
question on lecture. These questions are to be submitted to your section leader
by Wednesday at 11:59pm. Your section leader will select and post questions
on the section webpage. Responses to the posted questions are due by Sunday
at 11:59pm.
Lecture 1
Commentary on Daughter from Danang: Interaction of developmental issues and
cultural issues
Lecture 2.
Culture change in the pandemic: Adapting to survival threat and small-scale social
environments
Reading
Y. Minoura (1992). A sensitive period for the incorporation of a cultural meaning
system: A study of Japanese children growing up in the United States. Ethos, 20,
304-339.
Saturday, 3/9
Extra credit due at 11:59 pm
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Final essay prompt posted on BruinLearn
Reading
He, A., Greenfield, P. M., Akiba, A.J., Brown, G. (2022). Why do many parents
expect more help from their children during COVID-19? A qualitative follow-up to
quantitative survey data. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology,
3.
Evers, N. F. G. & Greenfield, P. M. (2021). A model of how shifting intelligence
drives social movements. Journal of Intelligence, 9, 62.
https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9040062
Week 10
Presentation on going-back project
Each member of the team: Interview an immigrant who has gone back after living
in the United States for a number of years to his or her country of origin. What was
it like? (If you are an immigrant or international student who has visited your
country of origin after living in the U.S. for at least a year, you can “interview”
yourself.) Were there any adjustment problems because of having changed while
living in the United States? If so, what were they? Was the country different in
any way from how it was remembered? If so, how? Relate your group findings to
the film Daughter of Danang, the article by Minoura, and lecture material from last
week. Please note that this week’s project may have a different format than many
of the earlier weeks, as it is entirely qualitative.
Questions for discussion: Discuss Week 9 lectures, film, and reading. If you are
preparing questions for this week, one question should be on the reading, the other
question on film or lecture. These questions are to be submitted to your section
leader by Wednesday at 11:59pm. Your section leader will select and post
questions on the section webpage. Responses to the posted questions are due
by Sunday at 11:59pm.
Lecture 1
What will we take away?
Wed, Thurs, Fri Zoom discussions of final essay strategies (optional)
Times TBA
Sun, Mar 17
Final essay due at 11:59 pm California time
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