Enculturation

When writing about enculturation, the following concepts should be explained:

Enculturation: The processes, beginning in early childhood, by which particular cultural values, ideas, beliefs, and behavioral patterns are adopted by the members of society.

Cultural norms: Sets of societal expectations that influence behavior. Norms tell us what kinds of behaviour are appropriate/accepted or inappropriate.

Participatory learning: Actively taking part in the learning process and applying learning from other situations.

Social cognitive theory: A theory that argues that we learn behaviour from models in our society through observational learning and vicarious reinforcement.

Vertical transmission: The passing down of cultural norms from one generation to another.

Smith and LLoyd

Aim: To see how gender labelling would affect toy choice for children - mothers act differently towards a baby depending on its sex

Procedure:

1. The mother and the child were put into a room that had a collection of "gendered" toys - like a football (male) and stuffed animals (female)
2. 6 month old babies with both sex typed and sex neutral toys, babies presented as opposite sex and own sex
3. The interactions between the woman and the child were filmed

Findings:

1. The researchers found in their observation that the mothers chose toys that matched their perception of the gender of the child
2. They also were more active with the child when they thought it was a boy

Strengths: used triangulation (increases reliability) \n naturalistic study (high ecological validity)

Limitations:

• small sample size
• culturally biased
• the experiment was recorded (hawthorne effect)

Kimball 1986

Aim: if exposure to "normal television viewing" would lead to a change in the level of gender stereotyping in a Northern Canadian community.

Procedure:

• Conducted in three small towns (all of the similar socioeconomic standing, similar population, culture, etc) in British Columbia, Canada, first in 1973
• One town called No=tel did not yet have a television reception Studied before and after No-tel got TV channels
• They measured children's aggression levels in all three groups
• Teachers and peer ratings of aggressive behavior and information about television viewing habits were collected
• Two years later the children retook the same measures of aggression & The researchers also took measures of aggression from new 2nd graders

Findings: Significant increase in aggression with both the 2nd and 4th-grade students in No-Tel. Whereas, the aggressive behavior did not change significantly for the two towns. The ratings supported the findings. \n It is likely to be caused by heightened arousal, resulting from No-tel children's lack of familiarity with television. \n Resulting in greater likelihood of aggression.

Strengths: high ecological validity; applicable in real-life

Limitations:

1. lack of control over the time each child watches
2. potential research bias through participant observation during recess
3. ethics; questionable whether parents actually gave consent

When discussing enculturation, you may consider the following points:

• Enculturation is a lifelong process; this makes it difficult to study without prospective, longitudinal studies.  These studies are impractical to carry out. Studies are often cross-sectional, not longitudinal.
• Enculturation assumes that we develop our behavior by interacting with the environment.  Biological factors are not addressed.
• Many studies focus on a single factor in enculturation - e.g. direct tuition from parents - but the actual process of enculturation is very complex and several factors interact in the development of behaviour.
• Several theories of enculturation do not explain why some people do not conform to cultural norms.
• Culture is dynamic.  Enculturation research does not explain how and why culture changes over time.
• There is the problem of the operationalization of culture as a variable in a globalized and Internet-connected world.