Global Perspectives of Childhood and Youth

Global Perspectives of Childhood and Youth 1
Global Perspectives of Childhood and Youth
According to Graham Allen, British Member of Parliament, the repercussions of poor
parenting are all around – parents and youngsters respectively can turn unrealized human
potential into massive waste by not valuing education as a route out of poverty and indulging in
anti-social behavior. Anthropologists, irrespective of their developmental assumptions, wanted to
describe child rearing and their activities all over the world. During the course of ethnography
many theorists’ views came under attack. Piaget’s universal account of childhood cognitive
development was under empirically attacked. Parents can influence and inspire their children
from a very young age (Levine, 2007). Child development is a special avenue of interest in the
field of psychology. The theories of child development focus on the different stages of
development that a child goes through. These include from conception to infancy, childhood and
adolescence. Such theories are mental frameworks used to collect information and make
predictions about what may happen as a result of an outcome based on connected concepts
(Eccles & Templeton , 2002). Useful child development theories bring together systemic
research evidence and suggest reasons behind the outcomes and establish the connection between
the events (Berk & Garvin, 1984; Berk, 1986). This paper examines the theories on development
of children and parenting and presents an overview of the consequences of economic and cultural
gap on parenting and its impact on the children.
Theories
Over the years, researchers have come out with a number of social theories seeking to
explain why people behave the way they do. In his Social Learning Theory (1977), Albert
Bandura bridges the space between behaviorism and cognition. Bandura’s perspective integrates

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the thought of behavioral strengthening and cognitive process from both of them. In his effort to
give details of the way children gain knowledge in a social environment by observing and
following others, Bandura performed a series of experiments involving children and Bobo Dolls.
First, the children were categories into two parts. The initial group was made to watch adults
behaving aggressively towards the doll. While in the case of the second group adults behaved
gently with the doll. Bandura observed that when let lose the kids of the first collection acted
insistently intimating the adults, while offsprings of the second group acted gently. Based on
these observations Bandura formed his four principles of social learning - attention, retention,
reproduction and motivation ( Wheeler, 2018). According to Bandura, human beings are
exposed to a number of behaviors on a daily basis. However, the majority of them hardly pose
any significance. Therefore, attention plays a significant role in understanding whether behavior
can influence a person to imitate it. Also, behavior can be imitated immediately, but in order to
imitate it multiple times, memory retention is needed. As per Bandura, the ability to reproduce a
behavior also depends on the physical and mental ability of the person. Motivation is another
factor, as the perks and rewards of behavior can motivate the person to reproduce the behavior
(McLeod, Simply Psychology, 2018). Bandura’s Social Learning Theory provides a
wonderful insight into the mysterious human mind and the way individuals behave. It can be
used as a powerful method to educate children. If children see any positive consequence as a
result of any particular behavior, then they are most likely to repeat it. However, if they face any
negative consequence, chances are that they would avoid such behavior in future ( Wheeler,
2018).
Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, the Russian psychologist known for his socio-cultural
Theory of Cognitive Development, elaborated on the principle psychological between the

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everyday concepts and the academic concepts (learned in school) of students. The academic
concepts are referred as scientific not because they are based on logical facts but they are learned
through a systemic process. As per Vygotsky (1978, 1987), these two concepts are different.
While the everyday concepts develop through the day to day experiences of the child, the
academic concepts develop through a systemic learning process. These two unite into a single
concept during the psychological development of the child. The development of academic
concepts influences everyday concepts and trigger a change (Haenen, Schrijnemakers, &
Stuf, 2003). This interpretation of Vygotsky’s challenged Jean Piaget’s view which was widely
accepted. According to Piaget, there exists an opposite relationship between teaching-learning
and development (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2002). As per Vygotsky the processes teaching and
learning are intertwined. When a child interacts with adults, peers and others, the functions
transform themselves as the out world, before being absorbed inward. It is through others that we
turn into ourselves (Haenen, Schrijnemakers, & Stuf, 2003). This compliments the research
of Kimburley Choi, which shows due to different parenting practices middle-class kids enjoy an
unfair advantage over the kids of working-class parents in terms of language, creative training,
computer application and practical problem solving (Choi, 2015). For instance playing with
building blocks helps the children become creative.
According to famous Austrian neuroscientist Sigmund Freud, the personality of a human
being develops in multiple stages and the childhood events can have a great influence on the
adult life of the person. Freud developed a topographical structure of the mind where he
categorized it into three entities, id, ego and superego. These are hypothetical perception rather
than physical areas (Woodworth, 1917). The id compromises of two types of impulses- Eros and
Thanatos. While Eros is the survival instinct, Thanatos is instinct to die. According to Freud,

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superego develops during the early infant stage. Freud divides the human psychological stage
into several stages like oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital. In any case, if one the stage remains
incomplete mental abnormality takes place (McLeod, Simply Psychology, 2018). The
influences of Freud’s work are visible among the works of several anthropologists who
conducted ethnographic fieldwork based on his stages of psychological development.
Advantages and Disadvantages
The social learning theories have their own share of advantages and disadvantages. It is
difficult for a single theory to explain a system as complex as the human mind. For example,
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory was able to prove that children do copy aggression. It was a
break from the traditional belief that watching violence prevents a person from being violent in
real life. Another aspect of Bandura’s theory was that children acquire skills that they see on
platforms like television. This supports the research of Kimburley Choi, where she proposes that
access to capital and cultural resources can strengthen the child’s overall skills as they learn what
they see. However, Bandura’s theory fails to explain the fact that why despite being exposed to
violence many children never imitate these acts.
Vygotsky’s theory of social constructivism acknowledges the difference between
individuals from the same cultures and individuals from different cultures. However, according
to him, a child cannot do anything beyond its development stage. Moreover, his works haven’t
faced the same level of scrutiny as some of the other psychologists like Paiget. Perhaps the time
taken to translate his works from Russian to English is responsible for this. The main criticism of
Vygotsky’s works comes from Rogoff (1990). He criticizes Vygotsky’s ideas as culturally non-
universal and largely reliant on verbal interaction.