EDU 3102 CHILD DEVELOPMENT (Post No.. 6)

Understanding Chinese Child Development: The Role of Culture in Socialization: A Summary


Sing Lau and Patricia P. W. Yeung

The authors believes that human functioning cannot be separated from the cultural and immediate context in which children develop as the zone of proximal development is where culture and cognition create each other. Focusing on the socio-cultural context of a child’s development, development is inseparable from human social and cultural activities as children develop through socialization and their immediate families or peers thus become their main social agents.

Theories of Development: Western and Chinese Perspectives

From Western perspective, development is viewed as a lifelong process. There are in general well-defined boundaries, domains of development. In terms of domains such as cognitive development, it is suggested that a child’s ability to think and to reason progresses through a series of distinct stages. Each stage has its own unique characterization, yet it could vary considerably depending on intelligence, cultural background and socioeconomic factors.

Chinese perspective, different from Western theorist, is that they tend to be predominantly intuitive in their thinking, and they also do not diversify the viewpoints and distinctly label them into different psychological categories. Chinese perspectives seem to build solely upon some integrative framework, such as Confucianism.

In terms of cognitive development, there is emphasis on progressive learning, timing, and a human instinct or capacity to learn. In terms of moral development, there is emphasis on respect for authority and a well-defined hierarchy of human relationships in government, society, and at home. It is the latter aspect, morality that Western psychologists pay the greatest attention to.

Unlike Western theories of development, there is a notable lack of an empirical base from which Chinese thinking on child development is structured, more like philosophies than theories of nature.

Theoretical Basis of Chinese Development Research

Focusing on only one ideology has created a phenomenon whereby researchers tend to over-generalize the influence of Confucianism. This may even generate misconceptions in the process of investigating Chinese culture and child development. There are many cases of over-generalized some Chinese traditional behavior and falsely interpreted and such cases are trapped in the traditional and stereotypic modes of thoughts where the focus is solely on one aspect of Chinese.

Chinese tradition has its own uniqueness, but one cannot deny that there are some areas that are comparable with other cultures as well. There is research in variety of cultures that provided evidence of impressive regularities across cultures in the field of development. There are also consistent findings that children’s behavior and development in terms of specific patterns or ways of manifestation may vary according to cultural context.

Critique of theoretical assumption from Confucianism

Confucianism only covers the areas of family, society, the moral person, self-fulfillment and happiness, etc. Chinese orientation toward children tends to be moralistic rather than psychological. The ideology might have neglected, for example, teaching and learning or the psychological development of an individual.

Therefore to reply on a single ideology to study Chinese culture and child development is simply not appropriate. First the ideology may not be all-perfect. If one decides to use it as a theoretical base, both positive and negative aspects should be taken note of. Second, the ideology may not be all encompassing. Thus it is only appropriate that any assumption should be empirically measured and tested.

Different aspects and issues of Chinese Child development

Studies have shown that the value orientation and life goals of modern Chinese are creating another chapter in Chinese history. There are also a value preference of Chinese high school students playing greater emphasis on personal and competency values. This is complete contrast to the general collectivistic depiction of Chinese in relation to adolescent development. Lying ahead of Chinese people is great uncertainty and traditional Chinese culture will be affected and modified over and over again.



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