How are children raised in different cultures? What is the role of children in society? How are families and communities structured around them? Now in its third edition, this deeply engaging book delves into these questions by reviewing and cataloging the findings of over 100 years of anthropological scholarship dealing with childhood and adolescence. It is organized developmentally, moving from infancy through to adolescence and early adulthood, and enriched with anecdotes from ethnography and the daily media, to paint a nuanced (...) and credible picture of childhood in different cultures, past and present. This new edition has been expanded and updated with over 350 new sources, and introduces a number of new topics, including how children learn from the environment, middle childhood, and how culture is 'transmitted' between generations. It remains the essential book to read to understand what it means to be a child in our complex, ever-changing world. (shrink)

Although it is rarely named, the majority of societies in the ethnographic record demarcate a period between early childhood and adolescence. Prominent signs of demarcation are, for the first time, pronounced gender separation in fact and in role definition; increased freedom of movement for boys, while girls may be bound more tightly to their mothers; and heightened expectations for socially responsible behavior. But above all, middle childhood is about coming out of the shadows of community life and assuming a distinct, (...) lifetime character. Naming and other rites of passage sometimes acknowledge this transition, but it is, reliably, marked by the assumption or assignment of specific chores or duties. Because the physiological changes at puberty are so much more dramatic, the transition from middle childhood is more often marked by a rite of passage than the entrance into this period. There is also an acknowledgment at the exit from middle childhood of near-adult levels of competence—as a herdsman or hunter or as gardener or infant-caretaker. (shrink)

O texto discute a consolidação do campo da antropologia da infância a partir de um diálogo com David Lancy, professor emérito de antropologia na Universidade do Estado de Utah, Estados Unidos, e uma das figuras-chave da institucionalização do campo naquele país. A partir de uma entrevista com Lancy na ocasião do lançamento da terceira edição de seu livro The Anthropology of Childhood, apresentamos as principais contribuições deste autor a um público lusófono e discutimos temas chave para os estudos da infância, (...) como os usos da noção de agência, bebês, a variabilidade cultural das categorias de idade, além da contribuição da antropologia para as pesquisas sobre infância, parentalidade e educação. Para Lancy, a antropologia da infância dá visibilidade a compreensões alternativas, em relação à psicologia do desenvolvimento infantil, sobre a infância e sobre processos de aprendizagem, trazendo novas questões e novas perspectivas. Com base num amplo levantamento de pesquisas etnográficas, o autor afirma a significativa quantidade de registros feitos por antropólogos sobre as vidas de crianças em diferentes culturas, enfatizando as distinções entre, de um lado, as infâncias de povos originários e tradicionais e, de um outro lado, infâncias ocidentais e urbanas, que ele sugere agrupar, seguindo uma denominação cada vez mais frequente nos Estados Unidos, como sociedades “WEIRD” [extraño], um acrônimo para “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic Societies”. Nesta entrevista, Lancy ressalta que os trabalhos antropológicos sobre infância em povos originários ou povos tradicionais, quando bem conduzidos, possuem o potencial de produzir um efeito de grande respeito e legitimidade às formas de pensar sobre a infância e educação desses povos. (shrink)

This commentary will extend the territory claimed in the target article by identifying several other areas in the social sciences where findings from the WEIRD population have been over-generalized. An argument is made that the root problem is the ethnocentrism of scholars, textbook authors, and social commentators, which leads them to take their own cultural values as the norm.