Infant relationships, synchrony, and culture

This webinar was presented live on Friday February 5th, 2021. If you were unable to attend the live event, the Zoom recording and supplementary materials can be accessed HERE.

Introduction

Webinar Presented by Joshua Sparrow, Gilda Morelli and Barbara Rogoff

There is great diversity in infant care within and across cultural communities.  Families differ in the real life problems they must solve to keep their babies healthy and safe, relying on strategies (unconsciously or deliberately) based on local wisdom about how to care for infants related to the hopes they have for them.  Plurality in care gives rise to plurality in infants’ relational lives.  Yet, features exist that are common to all relationships across the lifespan, and one such feature is synchrony.  Though universal, synchronous processes develop in social contexts, and, thus, are influenced by culturally mediated aspects of community life. 

Gilda Morelli will describe infant care in one small-scale society to anchor consideration of these ideas.  The Efe subsist by hunting and gathering in the tropical rainforest of the Democratic Republic of Congo.  What is notable about the Efe, and hunter-gatherers generally, is that their study offers insight into the mosaic of biosocial and cultural adaptations central to human infant development with origins in millennia past.

Barbara Rogoff has conducted studies for many decades in indigenous-heritage communities of Mexico and Guatemala, where toddlers are included in family work situations and their help is welcomed. She will discuss her recent research on cultural practices and values that are associated with young children’s development of sophisticated collaboration — a strength for learning.

Joshua Sparrow will facilitate the conversation.

Joshua Sparrow, MD, is a Child Psychiatrist, Executive Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center in the Division of Developmental Medicine at Boston Children Hospital, and Associate Professor, part time, at Harvard Medical School.

Barbara Rogoff is UCSC Foundation Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California-Santa Cruz. She investigates cultural aspects of children’s learning and how communities arrange for learning, finding especially sophisticated collaboration and attention among children from Indigenous communities of the Americas. She received a Distinguished Lifetime Contributions Award (Society for Research in Child Development) and the Chemers Award for Outstanding Research (UCSC). She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Education, AAA, APS, APA, and AERA. She has held the University of California Presidential Chair and Fellowships of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Kellogg Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and the Exploratorium, and served as Editor of Human Development.

Her recent books have received major awards: Learning Together (finalist for the Maccoby Award, APA); The Cultural Nature of Human Development (APA William James Book Award); and Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town (Maccoby Award, APA). Recent volumes include Learning by Observing and Pitching In to Family and Community Endeavors and Children Learn by Observing and Contributing to Family and Community Endeavors. See www.learningbyobservingandpitchingin.com.

Gilda Morelli, a Professor of Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology at Boston College, has dedicated most of her professional life to the study of ecosocial and cultural correlates of young children’s relational lives, with a special interest in attachment relationships. Her research on, and life with, the Efe foragers over decades fundamentally formed her views on the adaptive nature of care and the plasticity of development. The insights gained led her to question assumptions underlying psychology’s most influential theory of relationships, which informs early childhood care and education interventions, worldwide. Gilda’s formative experiences include a Zero to Three fellowship, a SRCD policy fellowship in the Department of Health and Human Services, and establishing a not-for-profit organization with her husband and colleagues to support the health and education of the People of the Ituri – home to the Efe.

Barbara and Gilda recently chaired and co-organized with other colleagues an SRCD sponsored workshop on strengthening the evidence base for culturally relevant interventions, which was attended by an international group of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.