Paper Symposium Proposal for the 19th Biennial Meeting of the
International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development 2006
Paper Symposium Title: "The cultural organization of children's learning
through collaboration and observation: Intent Community Participation"
Co-Convenors:
Maricela Correa-Chávez
University of CA., Los Angeles
Graduate School of Education &
Information Studies
Moore Hall Box 951521
Los Angeles CA. 90095-1521
USA
Email: mcorrea@ucla.edu
Rebeca Mejía-Arauz
Universidad ITESO
Departament of Health, Psychology and
Community
Periferico Sur Manuel Gomez Morin 8585
Tlaquepaque, Jal. CP 45090
Mexico
Email: rebmejia@iteso.mx
Discussant: Marilyn Fleer, Department of Education, Monash University, Australia
Review Panel Topic Areas: Cultural and cross-cultural studies; Cognition
Symposium Abstract
The cultural organization of children's learning through collaboration and
observation: Intent Community Participation
The research presented in this paper symposium focuses on how children learn through
intent community participation. The presentations show how children from different cultural
communities vary in their engagements with each other and in the activity structuring their
participation in various ways, with fluid collaboration, helping each other, with keen attention
and varied forms of communication. These are some of the factors involved in studying
learning through intent participation as a key aspect of children’s development, a new
approach to address how learning occurs and varies culturally.
The authors propose that studying the cultural aspects of learning through intent
community participation is essential for developing a deeper understanding of how learning is
organized and vary in the context of culturally situated activities and endeavors.
Paper Abstracts
Cultural Patterns in How Mayan and European American Children
Pay Attention to Events Not Addressed to Them
Maricela Correa-Chávez
UCLA GSE & IS
Moore Hall Box 951521
Los Angeles CA 90095
mcorrea@ucsc.edu
Barbara Rogoff
University of California Santa Cruz.
Psychology Department,
Social Sciences II, Room 277
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
brogoff@ucsc.edu
This study examined cultural differences in children’s attention to events that were not
addressed to them (third party attention). One hundred and twenty 5 to 11-year-old children of either
Guatemalan Maya or European American backgrounds were present as their sibling learned how to
make a novel toy. The children were given a distracter toy and asked to wait. Mayan children whose
mothers averaged 2 grades of school engaged in more third party attention than Mayan children whose
mothers had 12 years of schooling and European American children. Mayan children whose mothers
has 12 years of schooling also engaged in more third party attention than European American
children. Differences are interpreted as being related to children’s participation in either traditional
Indigenous way of organizing learning which emphasize observation of ongoing interactions or
participation in traditional European American middle-class ways of organizing learning that
emphasize lessons.
These results provide support for the idea that children’s involvement in learning through
observation may be structured in part by cultural practices such as Western schooling and Indigenous
community ways of organizing learning opportunities. The results may be useful in informing
educational practice, in that many US children may have untapped resources for learning through
observing — especially those who come from families in which current or previous generations have
lived in Indigenous communities of the Americas.
Cultural variation in children’s use of nonverbal conversation
Amy Dexter
UCSC Psychology Dept,
Social Sciences 2
Santa Cruz CA. 95064
adexter@ucsc.edu
Rebeca Mejia Arauz
ITESO Department of Health,
Psychology and Community
Periferico Sur Manuel
Gomez Morin 8585
Tlaquepaque, Jal. CP 45090,
Mexico
rebmejia@iteso.mx
Barbara Rogoff
University of California
Santa Cruz.
Psychology Department,
Social Sciences II, Room
277
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
This study examines the ways 1st through 3rd grade children from 4 Mexican and 2 US
communities that vary in their historical involvement in schooling and indigenous traditions
used nonverbal conversation to structure their participation in an informal activity. The
literature suggests that children from communities with experience in indigenous practices are
likely to employ nonverbal means of coordination, whereas children from communities with
extensive experience with schooling are more likely to engage verbally (Lipka, 1991; Rogoff,
Mistry, Goncu, & Mosier, 1993). Children from communities where the use of indigenous
practices of teaching and learning were historically prevalent were expected to use nonverbal
forms of communication more often than children from communities where schooling was
historically prevalent. Same-sex triads of children from adjoining grades at each school were
videotaped during an informal paper folding demonstration. The demonstration was provided
by a Mexican young woman who gave minimal explanation and did not manage the children’s
attention. Videos were coded in 20-second segments for whether the children engaged in:
solely nonverbal interactions about folding, talk about folding, or talk not about folding. For
all children the majority of the communication was related to the paper-folding task, with
differences in form of conversation. Children in the US and Mexico who had more access to
indigenous traditions were more likely to use nonverbal conversation than were US children.
These findings have important implications for schools, in terms of the need to acknowledge
and value nonverbal conversation.
Cultural Variation in Forms of Social Organization
Among European- and Mexican- heritage Peers
Behnosh Najafi
UCSC Psychology Dept,
Social Sciences 2
Santa Cruz CA. 95064
behnoshn@ucsc.edu
Barbara Rogoff
University of California Santa Cruz.
Psychology Department,
Social Sciences II, Room 277
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
The present work examines differences in how small groups of U.S. Mexican- and
European- heritage children, whose mothers vary in experience with Western schooling,
organize their interactions in constructing a puzzle together. Following Chavajay and Rogoff
(2002), forms of engagement that are contrasted include the extent that the children use
horizontal shared, multiparty engagement or hierarchical division of labor approaches.
Briefly, pilot data suggests that Mexican-heritage children whose mothers had little schooling
more often collaborated smoothly in shared, multiparty engagements than European-heritage
children. Instead, European- heritage children whose mothers had more extensive experience
with school approached the task with more division of labor approaches. Additionally, the
study explores whether Mexican- heritage children whose mothers have extensive experience
with school follow the European- heritage children in their patterns of participation or are
intermediate between the organizations of the other two groups. The present study extends
previous literature addressing cultural aspects of adult-child collaborations; same-age peers
from similar cultural backgrounds seem to “carry over” forms of participation that they engage
with adults in the cultural routines and practices of their communities.
Exploration of a Science Exhibit by Groups of Guatemalan Mayan Children
Whose Mothers Vary in Schooling Experience
Pablo Chavajay
University of New Hampshire
Department of Psychology
Conant Hall
10 Library Lane
Durham, NH 03857
pabloc@cisunix.unh.edu
Cathy Angelillo
University of California
Home address:
15 Fieldstone Estates
Newmarket, NH 03857
cangelillo@comcast.net
There exists little research examining how groups of three or more children coordinate
their interactions as they engage in various activities (Angelillo & Rogoff, in prep.; Azmitia &
Hesser, 1993; Barron, 2000; Ellis & Gauvain, 1992). The available research suggests that
groups of children may organize their interactions in ways that may differ or be similar across
cultural communities. For example, European American middle-class and Mexican-descent
sibling triads often organized their exploration of a magnet exhibit primarily through
collaboration or touching base with one another (Angelillo & Rogoff, in prep.). However,
European American middle-class sibling triads more often collaborated using explicit turntaking than Mexican-descent sibling triads, who more often relied on fluid collaboration
without explicit turn-taking. Unlike the European American middle-class siblings whose
mothers had similar schooling, maternal schooling among Mexican-descent siblings varied
widely, limiting examination of the potential roles maternal schooling may play in siblings’
exploration of a science exhibit.
The present study examined how Guatemalan Mayan children who share kinship
organized their interactions as they explored a spinning animation exhibit (zoetrope). Two
groups of 10 triads whose mothers achieved 0-3 or 12+ years of schooling were videotaped
exploring a zoetrope. After the oldest child demonstrated how the zoetrope worked to the two
younger children, the triads organized two additional sets of animation card patterns in the
zoetrope. Preliminary findings indicate that the oldest children whose mothers achieved less
schooling relied more often on nonverbal means of communication in demonstrating how the
zoetrope works than the oldest children whose mothers achieved more schooling, who tended
to use both verbal and nonverbal means of communication. In addition, triads whose mothers
had less schooling collaborated fluidly more frequently than triads whose mothers had greater
schooling.