The anthropology of childhood
"How are children raised in different cultures? What is the role of children in society? How are families and communities structured around them? Now available in a revised edition, this book sets out to answer these questions, and argues that our common understandings about children are narrowly culture-bound. Enriched with anecdotes from ethnography and the daily media, the book examines family structure, reproduction, profiles of children's caretakers within family or community, their treatment at different ages, their play, work, schooling, and transition to adulthood. The result is a nuanced and credible picture of childhood in different cultures, past and present. Organized developmentally, moving from infancy through to adolescence and early adulthood, this new edition reviews and catalogues the findings of over 100 years of anthropological scholarship dealing with childhood and adolescence, drawing on over 750 newly added sources, and engaging with newly emerging issues relevant to the world of childhood today"
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What Hacker News says
- So does The Anthropology of Childhood, which is a fun book: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/02/10/the-anthropology-of-child....
- > On the other hand, teaching is an innate human capability, and a big part of what makes us humans.
That depends on what you mean by teaching. Explicit formal instruction with at least some attention to abstract principles is basically unknown in non-literate societies. People are generally terrible at it without experience. Observational learning is something people are amazingly good at, and language helps a lot but teaching isn’t even a universal in human societies. Watching and learning with occasional, minimal correction is.
Anyone who wants to learn more should read The Anthropology of Childhood by David F. Lance.
- There is no "only" book, but The Anthropology of Childhood could be one choice. https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/05/thoughts-on-the-anthropol...
- I suggest you read David F. Lancy’s Anthropology of Childhood. If children were as stupid as you suggest none of them would make it through childhood. No parent can watch even one child all the time and it’s possible to kill your self getting out of bed.
> “Perhaps the most persuasive evidence regarding the attitude of adults toward children acquiring culture through play – without the need for adult guidance – comes from widespread reports of parents’ indifference and even encouragement of toddlers playing with machetes and other sharp and dangerous tools (Howard 1970: 35). For example, from the Kwoma of Papua New Guinea: “I once saw Suw with the blade of a twelve-inch bush knife in his mouth and the adults present paid no attention to him” (Whiting 1941: 25). Aka mothers regret it when their infants cut themselves while playing with “knives but they don’t want to restrain their exploration and learning (Hewlett 2013: 65–66). The Aka provide scaled versions of items in their tool inventory to their very young children and enjoy observing (and, occasionally correcting) their practice strikes (Hewlett et al. 2011: 1175). Four-and-a-half-year-old Okinawan children readily peel the outer skin off a length of sugar cane with a sharp sickle. When a mother was asked how the child acquired this skill she was at a loss for a reply. “‘I don’t know! He must have watched us and learned himself by trying it out!’ she said” (Maretzki and Maretzki 1963: 511)”
- If you want to learn more about this David F. Lancy's book, The Anthropology of Childhood, is excellent.
Very short version Children everywhere desperately want to be helpful, to be productive members of society with a useful role. They learn what to do and how to do it with very, very little in the way of explicit instruction and for almost all skills in almost all societies none.
Schools and formal instruction are a product of literate societies and schooling, both teaching and learning are unnatural behaviours that absolutely have to be taught.
https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Childhood-Cherubs-Chatte...
- Sorry, I meant "Anthropology of Childhood" by David F. Lancy
