Psychology

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/01650254.html DOI: 10.1080/01650250244000335

Cultural variation in young children’s access to work or involvement in specialised child-focused activities

Gilda A. Morelli

Boston College, Chestnut Hill, USA

Barbara Rogoff and Cathy Angelillo

University of California at Santa Cruz, USA

Ethnographic literature indicates that in many cultural communities around the world, children have

extensive opportunities to learn through observing and participating in their community’s work and

other mature activities. We argue that in communities in which children are often segregated from

adult work (as in middle-class European American communities), young children instead are often

involved in specialised child-focused activities such as lessons, adult–child play (and scholastic play),

and conversation with adults on child-related topics.

We examine this argument with systematic time-sampled observations of the extent of 2- to 3-year-

old children’s access to adult work compared to their involvement in specialised child-focused

activities. Observations focused on 12 children in each of four communities: two middle-class

European American communities (West Newton, Massachusetts and Sugarhouse, Utah), Efe

foragers of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and indigenous Maya of San Pedro, Guatemala. West

Newton and Sugarhouse children had less frequent access to work and were involved more often in

specialised child-focused activities than Efe and San Pedro children.

The results support the idea that the middle-class European American children’s frequent

involvement in specialised child-focused activities may relate to their more limited opportunities to

learn through observing work activities of their communities. It may be less necessary for the Efe and

San Pedro children to be involved in specialised child-focused activities to prepare them for

involvement in mature community practices, because they are already a regular part of them.

Introduction

This paper examines cultural and historical aspects of

children’s opportunities to learn the mature ways of their

communities. We draw attention especially to the cultural basis

of the arrangements of the daily lives of young middle-class US

children in two locales by examining their everyday access to

adult work as well as their engagement in specialised child-

focused activities, and by comparing their lives with those of

children in two other communities. Our thesis is that in

middle-class communities that offer children little access to

observe and participate in the ongoing work of their commu-

nity, young children’s preparation for mature roles often occurs

by taking part in lessons, adult–child play, and conversations

with adults on child-focused topics. In middle childhood, these

specialised child-focused activities continue in compulsory

schooling designed to prepare children for mature involve-

ment, largely in activities separate from productive adult

endeavours.

We base our proposal on ethnographic and historical

accounts suggesting that the ‘‘mainstream’’ US social interac-

tion practices often studied in developmental psychology are a

cultural pattern of arrangements for children’s learning that

make sense given US children’s current segregation from adult

workplaces and their required schooling. In communities in

which children are much less segregated from the mature

activities of their communities, it may make sense for there to

be less reliance on the sort of adult arrangements for children’s

learning that are often taken for granted in developmental

psychology. Instead, young children are likely to have greater

access to the adult world as legitimate peripheral participants

(Lave & Wenger, 1991).

We examine cultural patterns with a systematic comparison

of 2- to 3-year-olds’ access to work compared to involvement

in specialised child-focused activities in two middle-class US

communities and two other communities in which children in

middle childhood typically participate responsibly in adult

work, and where there is little or no history of formal schooling.

Cultural basis of children’s learning environments

Cultural research indicates that a great deal of children’s day-

to-day learning relates to the settings they frequent and their

daily routines, in addition to direct adult–child engagements

(Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Super & Harkness, 1997; Weisner &

Bernheimer, 1998; Whiting, 1976, 1980; Whiting & Edwards,

International Journal of Behavioral Development # 2003 The International Society for the 2003, 27 (3), 264–274 Study of Behavioural Development

Correspondence should be addressed to Gilda A. Morelli, Department

of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA;

e-mail: morellig@ bc.edu.

We are grateful to the families who participated in this research and

our assistants in the Efe and San Pedro communities: Marta of the Efe

and Marta Navichoc Cotuc. The development of the coding scheme

benefited from extensive discussions with Jonathan Tudge, Sara

Putnam, and Judy Sidden; data collection was facilitated by a software

program written by David Wilkie and by the generosity of Penny and

Ken Jameson. We appreciate comments on drafts of this paper by

Pablo Chavajay, Eugene Matusov, Jacyn Smith, Cindy White, and

several anonymous reviewers. This research was supported by a grant

from the Spencer Foundation and by a Boston College Faculty

Fellowship Award; part of this work was done while the first two

authors were affiliated with the University of Utah.

1988). Investigating these societal arrangements is key to

understanding the development of children’s skills, social

relations, and roles in a culturally structured social and

institutional world.

Yet, much of what we know about child development comes

from the study of middle-class European American practices,

without considering their cultural basis. This focus has often

led to unexamined assumptions about what constitutes normal

childhood settings and daily routines. In fact, middle-class

European American arrangements for children are so taken for

granted that they are often treated as the norm even when

compared with the practices of other communities—whose

ways are regarded as ‘‘cultural’’ (Cauce & Gonzales, 1993;

Garcı́a Coll et al., 1996; McLoyd & Randolph, 1985; Rogoff,

2003).

There has been greater research attention to children’s

settings and daily routines in other communities. Prominent in

ethnographic accounts in nonindustrial communities in which

schooling plays little or no role is the regularity with which

young children observe and participate in work (Blount, 1972;

Briggs, 1991; Collier, 1988; Coy, 1989; Harkness, 1977;

Heath, 1983; John-Steiner, 1984; Rogoff, 1981; Schieffelin,

1990). In such communities, 5- to 7-year-olds often take on

many mature responsibilities, like tending young children and

animals and maintaining the household (Munroe, Munroe,

Michelson, Koel, Bolton, & Bolton, 1983; Munroe, Munroe,

& Shimmin, 1984; Rogoff, Sellers, Pirotta, Fox, & White,

1975; Whiting & Edwards, 1988).

Although little is known about young middle-class US

children’s access to work, it is reasonable to assume that they

are often segregated from adult work. US children are

prohibited from many forms of work and often from

accompanying their parents to the workplace, and by middle

childhood they are required to spend a large part of most days

segregated in school. Our study examines the routine activities

of young children from four communities, before the age of

compulsory schooling.

‘‘Middle-class’’ ways as cultural practices

We regard ‘‘middle-class’’ as a cultural designation, not as a

reference to a single variable, and ‘‘middle-class’’ child-rearing

as a cultural pattern (Rogoff & Angelillo, 2002). The usual

definition of middle-class includes not only economic standing,

but also extensive involvement in formal schooling—a cultural

institution deriving from European traditions—and occupa-

tions that require extensive schooling (see also Bourdieu, 1990;

Mehan, 1992; Willis, 1977). Middle-class patterns of living

also often involve one or both parents working outside the

home and the kinds of family practices, values, and beliefs that

often accompany extensive schooling and middle-class occu-

pations and income (Hollingshead, 1949).

Our objective in this paper is to identify community-level

cultural child-rearing configurations. For this reason, we do

not attempt to isolate within-community characteristics of

individuals (such as income level, ethnicity, or occupations).

However, we do speculate on the importance of two commu-

nity-wide characteristics—prevalence of schooling and segre-

gation of children from work—in the cultural constellations we

identify. We compare middle-class European American chil-

dren’s daily activities with those of children from two other

communities in which schooling and the segregation of young

children from work are likely to be much less prevalent. If our

study establishes the expected patterns, further studies in more

communities than the four that we study here—or historical

research—would be needed to specify which community

practices may contribute to the differences.

Our interest in community-wide prevalence of schooling

and segregation of children from work is partially based on

historical accounts suggesting that social and economic

changes in the US have led to the treatment of childhood as

a time of preparation for rather than involvement in work, with

a growing reliance on learning in formal school settings to

accomplish this goal. In the early 1800s, about 70% of US

children lived in farm families, with family members working

side by side (Demos & Demos, 1969; Hernandez, 1994).

When the economic base shifted from agriculture to industry

(and from at-home to out-of-home work), children’s opportu-

nities to learn work skills through involvement in work at home

declined. Schools began to serve widely as a specialised setting

that provided exercises to prepare children for later ‘‘real-

world’’ work, generally without direct involvement in ongoing

productive activity (Dewey, 1915; Greenfield & Lave, 1982;

Scribner & Cole, 1973). As industrialisation gained promi-

nence, schooling was made compulsory and lengthened,

further limiting US children’s opportunities to participate in

the productive activities of their families.

Now, middle childhood is spent predominantly in school,

and the role of this institution (along with restrictions on child

access to work) is so taken for granted that children’s learning

is often equated with school learning. Many features of current

middle-class early child-rearing practices may be preparatory

for subsequent entrance into the specialised setting of school

and eventually into the mature world of work. We suggest that

if community arrangements restrict young children’s access to

work activities, alternate societal arrangements may develop in

which adults create and enter specialised settings centred on

children, in activities that may ‘‘prepare’’ children for the adult

world from which they are largely excluded—and for school on

the way.

Specialised child-focused activities in early childhood as preparation for schooling

Research suggests that young middle-class US children may

regularly participate in specially designed child-focused activ-

ities in which adults engage young children as peers in child-

focused conversations, enter into children’s play, and involve

children in lessons (Heath, 1982; Rogoff, 1990; Rogoff,

Mistry, Gröncü, & Mosier, 1993). These cultural practices

may prepare children for school and later participation in work.

Middle-class European American adult interaction with

preschool children frequently resembles the teaching style of

school, where children are often given lessons organised

specifically for their learning, out of the context of productive

activity (Heath, 1986; Olson, 1985; Rogoff et al., 1993). Other

common practices include adults engaging young children as

conversational peers, accommodating their speech to facilitate

children’s involvement, and focusing conversation on child-

related topics (Harkness, 1977; Heath, 1982; Ochs &

Schieffelin, 1984; Rogoff et al., 1993; Schieffelin, 1990;

Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986; Snow, 1979). Middle-class adults

also regularly engage toddlers and preschool-age children in

the initiation–reply–evaluation sequence widespread in

schools, asking questions to which the questioners know the

answers (Heath, 1982, 1986; Mehan, 1979; Ochs & Schieffe-

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2003, 27 (3), 264–274 265

266 MORELLI ET AL. / WORK OR SPECIALISED CHILD-FOCUSED ACTIVITIES

lin, 1984; Rogoff et al., 1993; Schieffelin & Eisenberg, 1984;

Wells & Montgomery, 1981). Besides familiarising children

with the discourse formats commonly used in schools, these

specialised forms of communication may teach children about

activities to which they do not have regular access.

Middle-class European American adults may also use

adult–child play to create special learning situations to prepare

young children for school (Haight, 1991; Haight & Miller,

1993; Rogoff et al., 1993; Whiting & Edwards, 1988).

Toddlers and preschool-age children also are encouraged to

play at scholastic themes—a specialised child context con-

sidered to provide children with opportunities to learn school

skills such as literacy (Christie, 1991; Jacobs, 1982; Pellegrini

& Galda, 1991).

In contrast, in communities in which children spend much

of their day in contact with or actually taking part in the work

of their family, the skills and goals of mature activities may be

more readily apparent to young children (Goody, 1989;

Jacobs, 1982; Rogoff, 1981; Scribner & Cole, 1973). It may

not be necessary for adults to organise lessons or specialised

forms of conversation, or to enter into child play to teach

children the ways of work (or of school work—preparatory for

‘‘real’’ work). Instead, children may be expected to keenly

observe the activities around them in order to learn (Briggs,

1991; Collier, 1988; Fortes, 1938/1970; Gaskins, 1999;

Heath, 1983; Rogoff et al., 1993; Ward, 1971).

In such communities where children have many opportu-

nities for involvement in mature activities, conversation

between children and adults usually occurs for the sake of

sharing necessary information; adults rarely use modified forms

of speech or focus conversation on child-oriented topics to

engage children in talk (Blount, 1972; Heath, 1982; Ochs &

Schieffelin, 1984; Ward, 1971). Similarly, adults seldom play

with children—other children are considered more suitable

playmates—and when play does occur between adults and

children, it tends not to be fashioned into an educational

exercise (Bloch, 1989; LeVine, 1990; Rogoff, 1990; Schieffe-

lin, 1990; Ward, 1971).

The research suggests a relation between young children’s

segregation from work and their involvement in specialised

child-focused activities. To our knowledge, the present study is

the first systematic study testing this idea by comparing young

children’s everyday access to work versus involvement in

specialised child-focused activities in different cultural com-

munities.

A study of contrasting cultural traditions: Children’s access to work or involvement in

specialised child-focused activities

Our study time-sampled access to work and involvement in

specialised child-focused activities of 2- to 3-year-olds in two

middle-class US communities and in two communities where

5-year-olds typically make regular contributions to family

productive activities. The two middle-class communities that

we studied are from very different regions of the United States:

West Newton is near Boston, Massachusetts, and Sugarhouse

is a neighbourhood of Salt Lake City, Utah.

We focused on European American middle-class commu-

nities because children of this background have often served

implicitly as the contrast with children in nonindustrial

communities. If we find similar practices in these two different

communities, it would provide important supportive evidence

for our thesis of a middle-class European American cultural

pattern. We are not attempting to generalise to US child-

rearing. Further research would be needed to determine the

generality to middle-class communities of other ethnic

heritages (within the US or elsewhere) or to European

American groups whose schooling and economic circum-

stances contrast with the middle class.

Efe foragers of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly

Zaı̈re) and San Pedro, a Mayan town in Guatemala, were

chosen as the two other communities because ethnographic

findings indicate that children begin to participate responsibly

in work activities of their community by age 5 (Morelli, 1997;

Mosier & Rogoff, 2000; Rogoff, 1981). Moreover, these

communities are familiar to the researchers, who had done

extensive prior research in them, providing background

information and skills important for the planning and inter-

pretation of the study.

In many respects, the Efe and San Pedro communities are

quite distinct. They differ with regard to means of subsistence

(foraging versus agriculture and commerce), access to modern

technologies, and formal schooling. The Efe are nonliterate,

whereas in the past two decades people in San Pedro have

shifted from schooling involving only a few grades to greater

involvement of the younger generation in Western schooling. If

these two communities have similar contrasts with the two

middle-class communities, despite the great differences be-

tween them, it will provide strong evidence for our claim that

access to or segregation from work is an important part of

cultural child-rearing ecologies. We do not imply that the Efe

and San Pedro represent their nations. Rather, we examine the

patterns that may occur in common across these two distinct

communities as a way of beginning to investigate the relation of

young children’s access to mature community activities and

their involvement in specialised child-focused activities.

We focused on 2- to 3-year-olds in order to examine cultural

variations in early access to work and involvement in

specialised child-focused activities, as precursors to the age at

which children begin to carry out in earnest their community’s

work and schooling roles. By about 5 years of age, US middle-

class children are required to spend a large proportion of their

time in school; in the other two communities, 5-year-olds

participate in the work of their family and either do not attend

school or attend a few hours of school per day, often for a

limited number of years (Morelli, 1997; Rogoff et al., 1993).

We expected that 2- to 3-year-olds in the middle-class

communities compared with the two other communities would

have less access to work (and be less likely to emulate adult

work in play) and greater involvement in specialised child-

focused activities—lessons, adult–child play (and scholastic

play), and conversations with adults on child-related topics.

The research team

All investigators were from US middle-class communities and

have lived in the West Newton and Sugarhouse regions. The

first author has worked with the Efe for over 20 years, living

among them for 6 years to conduct ethnographic and

psychological research. She is fluent in Swahili (a language

used for commerce and understood by many Efe) and has

some understanding of KiEfe, the native language of the Efe. A

local woman fluent in KiEfe and Swahili who has worked with

her on similar projects over the years accompanied her to all

observational sessions.

The second author has studied San Pedro for over 20 years

(with 2 years in residence to conduct ethnographic and

psychological research) and is familiar with the native Mayan

language, Tz’utujil, and conversant in Spanish (used by many

people in San Pedro). The second author accompanied the

third author (fluent in Spanish) to San Pedro to introduce her

to townspeople and to a local female research assistant (a

speaker of both Tz’utujil and Spanish), who accompanied the

third author to all observational sessions.

The children and their families and communities

Twelve children ranging in age from 27 to 46 months (M ¼ 38 months) from each community took part in the study; in each

community, half the children were girls and half were boys. Efe

and San Pedro families were recruited through social visits to

families, many of whom were known to the research team. All

the Efe and San Pedro families were indigenous to their area,

and all who were asked agreed to participate. The West

Newton and Sugarhouse families were identified using the

local birth register. Each family received a letter inviting them

to participate in the study, and a few days later was contacted

by phone to determine if the family met the criteria for

selection: The child’s primary caregivers had to be US born,

and mothers had to have completed at least 12 years of formal

education. Most West Newton and Sugarhouse families who

were asked to take part in the study did so (24 of 30).

The Efe. The Efe of the Ituri Forest of the Democratic

Republic of Congo are a short-statured, forest-dwelling people

who obtain subsistence materials by gathering, hunting with

bows, and working for a neighbouring farming community.

Most Efe live in transient camps of about 5 to 17 people from

one or several extended families. In this study, all children’s

mothers lived in camp; four of the children’s fathers were away

(honey-gathering and hunting) for part of the study.

Efe children wander freely about the camp where most

activities (including tool-crafting, cooking, and entertainment)

take place in clear view. Children also have access to private

events—they are allowed to enter most huts uninvited. Outside

the camp, children often accompany women (and sometimes

men) who are gathering food, collecting firewood or water, or

working in gardens. At night, children can choose to sleep with

their parents or in the hut of a favourite relative or friend

(Morelli, 1997; Morelli & Tronick, 1992).

The Efe have had little experience with formal schooling, in

part because of their nomadic way of life. Of the families

observed, none of the Efe mothers, fathers, or children had

attended school or had easy access to literacy-related materials.

The 12 Efe children averaged 37 months of age (range 27 to

45 months). Three of them were first-born, three were second-

born, and six were third- to sixth-born. Families averaged 3.8

children (range 2 to 7).

San Pedro. San Pedro is a modernising Mayan agricultural

town in Guatemala. Occupations are increasingly commercial

and townspeople now have access to many forms of

technology. Most of the 8000 town residents were born in

San Pedro. Households typically include extended family

members; seven of the households in this study did. All

mothers and 10 of the 12 fathers were living at home

(information for 1 father was not available).

Children may move freely about the neighbourhood by the

age of 3 or 4 years, visiting and observing neighbours who are

going about their daily routines, often in outdoor courtyards

(Rogoff, 1981). At night, children continue to be a part of

adult social life and fall asleep with the rest of the family or

when sleepy (Morelli, Rogoff, Oppenheim, & Goldsmith,

1992).

Schooling in San Pedro has become much more widely

attended and valued in recent years, although it is still seen as a

‘‘foreign’’ institution. Instruction is primarily in Spanish, the

national language, not in the local Mayan language used at

home. Two decades before our study, 25% of local children

did not attend school, and the others often attended for only

three grades. At the time of our study, most children attended

half-day sessions beginning around the age of 6 years;

continuing through six grades was not unusual. We attempted

to select families with little maternal schooling in order to

represent the more traditional population of this rapidly

changing town. Seven mothers never attended school; the

other five attended school for four grades or less (M ¼ 0.9 grades). Most fathers had some schooling (M ¼ 3.3 grades).

Most of the mothers’ primary work was family and

household care; eight of them also earned income by weaving,

embroidering, or selling goods. Only one mother worked away

from the home (as a nurse’s aide). Eight fathers worked away

from home (in work such as agricultural labour and carpentry).

One father worked at home (as a small business owner) and

two harvested crops away from home but prepared their

harvest at home for sale.

The 12 San Pedro children averaged 35 months of age

(range 30 to 41 months). Two of them were first-born, one was

second-born, and nine were third- to thirteenth-born. Families

averaged 4.6 children (range 2 to 13).

Two middle-class European American communities. We selected

neighbourhoods in West Newton, MA, and Sugarhouse, UT,

where household socioeconomic conditions and extensive

schooling were representative of middle-class living for each

region. In both communities, most households were single-

family dwellings with yards and segregated places for children

to play during the day. At night, children’s separation from

many adult activities continued, with children typically going

to sleep earlier than their parents, usually in their own rooms.

All but two families participating in this study were nuclear; all

mothers and all but one father were living at home.

The parents had a great deal of formal schooling. In both

communities, mothers’ formal schooling averaged 16 years

(range 12–20); fathers averaged 17 years (range 12–24 in West

Newton and 12–25 years in Sugarhouse). Parents often

prepared young children for school by providing books and

educational toys and sometimes by sending them to preschool

or daycare (five West Newton children and five Sugarhouse

children attended preschool or daycare).

Employment for almost all the fathers and about half of the

mothers occurred away from home. All except one of the

middle-class fathers worked away from home (in work such as

an attorney, consultant, and teacher). Six West Newton

mothers had paid employment (in work such as a therapist,

consultant, and data-processing manager); five of them worked

outside of the home. Seven Sugarhouse mothers worked

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2003, 27 (3), 264–274 267

268 MORELLI ET AL. / WORK OR SPECIALISED CHILD-FOCUSED ACTIVITIES

outside the home (in work such as a nurse, teacher, and

administrative assistant).

The 12 West Newton children averaged 40 months of age

(range 35 to 45 months). Three of them were first-born, five

were second-born, and four were third- to fifth-born. Families

averaged 2.9 children (range 2 to 5). The 12 Sugarhouse

children averaged 39 months of age (range 31 to 46 months).

Four of them were first-born, four were second-born, and four

were third- to sixth-born. Families averaged 2.8 children

(range 1 to 6).

Procedure

In our first visit, we asked about family background, the child’s

daily routine, and individuals or institutions whose permission

was needed in order to observe the child when outside of the

home. Families were given the opportunity to examine the

wireless microphone used to amplify what was said to and

around the child.

We time-sampled children’s activities by observing them

wherever they went from the time they awoke in the morning

until the time they went to sleep for the night. Children were

observed in three 4- to 5-hour sessions (morning, afternoon,

and evening) on 2 or 3 days within a 7-day period, for a total of

12–15 hours. The days and times of observations were selected

randomly by the researcher; all families agreed to the suggested

times (on only one occasion was a session rescheduled, because

the child became ill).

Observations were limited to weekdays in San Pedro, West

Newton, and Sugarhouse, because in these communities

(unlike among the Efe), on the weekend, most parents broke

from weekday work routines and many families attended

religious services or went on excursions. Focusing on weekdays

seemed likely to provide the most comparable data, because

the local range of work is more usual on weekdays in these

three communities.

Coding of work and specialised child-focused activities

The children’s activities were recorded using a version of spot

observation, a method of gauging time allocation (Bernard,

1988; Munroe & Munroe, 1971; Rogoff, 1978). The observer

recorded the activities of interest that occurred during a 20-

second window of time every 6 minutes (a ‘‘scan’’). Children

were also watched between scans to glean contextual informa-

tion essential for making coding decisions. The average

number of scans was 109 (range 83–126), and did not differ

significantly across the four communities. Data analysis

included only times when children were awake (M ¼ 100 scans).

Our coding scheme was conceptually derived, in order to

examine our thesis. Its development was aided by our extensive

knowledge of the communities, comments of community

members, and conversations with indigenous assistants in the

Efe and San Pedro communities. The activities we report on

include work, lessons, play, and free-standing conversation;

these activities were mutually exclusive and each was noted at

most once per scan, even if they occurred more than once in

the 20 seconds.

Work. Work involved paid or nonpaid activities that

contributed to the production of goods and services as well

as to the maintenance of the household or other setting. The

kinds of work that were commonly coded include: harvesting

peanuts, weaving, selling fruit to passersby, roasting food on an

open fire, flattening dough to make tortillas, washing dishes,

and putting away toys. We were most interested in whether

work was accessible to the child—when work occurred in a way

that the child could have watched or listened to it with only

slight changes in posture or location, or the child was involved.

When the child was involved in work, we noted whether the

child was participating directly in or observing it (i.e., closely

watching, listening, or attending to an event—judged by

observing the child’s posture, gaze, and actions). To help

decide whether a child’s activity was work, we considered

whether the activity would have been regarded as work if an

adult were involved in it; we also included assigned errands

such as asking a child to fetch a pot for cooking or to bring her

mother the newspaper.

Separately from our recording of work, we also recorded

instances in which children emulated adult work in their play

(e.g., playing store or pretending to cut firewood; see definition

of play below). This could have involved adult partners, but

seldom did.

Specialised child-focused activities. Children’s involvement in

specialised child-focused activities included school-like in-

struction (lessons) and adults 1

interacting with children in

situations focused on children’s interests or on schooling (adult

involvement with children in play, especially scholastic play,

and in free-standing conversations on child-related topics).

Lessons involved purposely teaching a child about something

or how to do something, preparing the child with a way to act

in the present and in future situations. The researcher had to

be able to identify a ‘‘curriculum’’, although this need not have

been made explicit to the child. Lessons could be scholastic

(e.g., counting; labelling colours), work (e.g., how to use a

mortar and pestle or how to tell when bread has been kneaded

enough; such lessons almost never occurred in the context of

ongoing work), interpersonal (e.g., shaking hands; giving up

your seat for someone), or skill/nature about the technical,

natural, or spiritual world (e.g., how to tie shoelaces; when the

seasons change; how to worship).

Play with adults involved recreation (including scholastic

play as well as pretend play, games, and rough-and-tumble

play) of the sort that is studied in the play literature, which is

often characterised as being intrinsically motivating or non-

literal (Uzgiris & Raeff, 1995). We excluded adult recreation

(e.g., adult card games and television programmes) because of

our focus on specialised child-focused activities. An adult

needed to be more involved than simply suggesting that a child

engage in play (e.g., not ‘‘Why don’t you go play with your

brother?’’).

We also specifically examined scholastic play. It involved any

literacy- or numeracy-related activity that was clearly intended

for entertainment (without an explicit focus on teaching), such

as singing alphabet songs or reading a story to a child. (If the

intent was to instruct the child, the lesson category was used.

For example, singing alphabet songs is scholastic play whereas

the following is an example of a lesson: ‘‘What shape is this?

Yes, an m. Do you know any other word that begins with an

m?’’)

1 Adults were defined as at least 16 years old. We also checked the extent to

which youths aged 11 to 15 entered into children’s play or engaged in free-

standing conversation with them on child-related topics; this was rare in all

communities.

Free-standing conversations with adults on child-related topics

involved exchanges (of more than a few words) that were not

integral to the conduct of work, play, or lessons (e.g., telling a

child how to hold a carrot as he slices it would not be coded as

free-standing conversation). Because of our interest in specia-

lised child-focused activities, we targeted free-standing con-

versations with at least one adult, in which the topic focused on

children’s activities, interests, or needs. Thus, an adult chatting

with a child about how the child spent her day was coded as

focused on a child-related topic, but times that a child joined

an ongoing adult conversation on an adult-related topic were

not. The adult role needed to extend beyond simply suggesting

that the child engage in conversation (e.g., not ‘‘Why don’t you

tell your sister about what happened at preschool today?’’).

Reliability

Because not all members of the research team were familiar

with all the languages and sites, reliability training and

estimates were carried out in middle-class US communities.

Reliability was estimated before and during this study by

extensively observing children in homes and child-care

arrangements, and by observing videotaped recordings of

children’s daily activities. Information collected during relia-

bility sessions was not included in data analysis. Reliability

coefficients indicated excellent reliability—Cohen’s Kappa

ranged from .87 to 1.0.

We are confident that the Efe and San Pedro coding is

comparable with coding in the US communities. By the time

the Efe and San Pedro data were collected, the observers (the

first and third authors) had achieved excellent levels of

reliability by working together on US data. In addition,

questions regarding observations in San Pedro were checked

by consultation with the other authors in person and by phone.

The first author took extensive field notes of the observations

of Efe children to review coding decisions with the co-authors

on her return.

Results

As background, we note that children in all four communities

were usually in voice or visual range of at least one adult: 98%

of the scans for the Efe, 74% for San Pedro, 84% for West

Newton, and 81% for Sugarhouse. However, West Newton

and Sugarhouse children often were in the company of just one

adult (60% and 53% of the scans), whereas Efe and San Pedro

children’s access to adults was rarely limited to only one adult

(14% and 39% of the scans).

We relied on one-way analyses of variance and Tukey-B

post hoc tests to compare the four communities in children’s

access to work and involvement in specialised child-focused

activities; significance levels were at the p 5 .05 level unless otherwise indicated.

2

Children’s access to work

The findings support our primary hypothesis of differences

between the middle-class communities and the other two

communities in young children’s access to or segregation from

work. Although the children in all four communities had some

access to work, children in the two middle-class European

American communities had less access to work than those in

the Efe and San Pedro communities. (See Figure 1; the

community difference was significant, F(3, 44) ¼ 53.0, p 5 .001.) West Newton and Sugarhouse children spent a

significantly smaller percentage of scans in settings with

ongoing work (30% and 29%; SD ¼ 9 and 10) than did Efe and San Pedro children (73% and 52%; SD ¼ 12 and 9). The difference between Efe and San Pedro children was also

significant.

Children from the four communities also differed in the

extent to which they observed the work of others, F(3, 44) ¼ 7.48, p 5 .001. Efe children spent about a quarter of their scans observing work (26%, SD ¼ 11)—significantly higher than in West Newton (13%, SD ¼ 8) and Sugarhouse (12%, SD ¼ 4). San Pedro children observed work to an intermediate extent (in 19% of the scans, SD ¼ 7)—more often than West Newton and Sugarhouse children and less often than Efe

children; these differences, however, were not significant.

Not surprisingly, the 2- to 3-year-olds rarely actually

participated in work (4% to 7% of scans across the four

communities; differences were not significant). Children at this

very young age have yet to participate extensively in the work of

their community.

However, there were striking community differences in the

extent of scans in which these young children emulated work in

their play, such as making tortillas out of dirt, pretending to

shoot animals with a bow and arrow like their elders, and

‘‘comforting’’ dolls, F(3, 44) ¼ 6.4, p 5 .001 (see Figure 1). West Newton and Sugarhouse children emulated work three to

four times less often than Efe and San Pedro children (in 4%

and 3% of the scans, SD ¼ 3 and 2, vs. 12% and 15% of the scans, SD ¼ 11 and 12; differences were significant between the two middle-class communities and San Pedro, and

between Sugarhouse and the Efe). The differences in extent

of emulation of work are consistent with differing opportunities

to observe mature work.

Children’s involvement in specialised child-focused activities

Lessons. Differences occurred across the four communities in

the extent to which children were involved in lessons, F(3, 44)

¼ 7.1, p 5 .001 (see Figure 2). West Newton and Sugarhouse children were more likely to be involved in lessons than were

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2003, 27 (3), 264–274 269

2 Analyses of gender revealed only one statistically significant difference. As

no gender differences were predicted and the number of comparisons were

many, we consider the one difference spurious.

Figure 1. Children’s access to work and emulation of work in play.

270 MORELLI ET AL. / WORK OR SPECIALISED CHILD-FOCUSED ACTIVITIES

Efe or San Pedro children (4% and 3% of the scans, SD ¼ 3 and 4, vs. 0.6% and 0.4% of the scans, SD ¼ 0.9 and 0.9). All 12 Sugarhouse and 11/12 West Newton children were involved

in lessons, compared with only 5 Efe and 3 San Pedro children.

The lessons of the West Newton and Sugarhouse children

usually took place when children were at their home or a

relative’s home (88% and 90% of the lessons), and most of

them had to do with skill/nature training and interpersonal

behaviour. Lessons for these children were not primarily a

preschool phenomenon.

Children’s involvement in play with adults. The communities

differed in the extent of adult–child play, F(3, 44) ¼ 22.7, p 5 .001 (see Figure 2). West Newton and Sugarhouse children

more often played with at least one adult (17% and 16% of

scans; SD ¼ 5 and 8) than Efe or San Pedro children (4% and 3%; SD ¼ 4 and 3). The community differences remained even when the extent of play with any partner was considered, F(3,

44) ¼ 17.3, p 5 .001. At least one adult was involved in about half of the children’s play with any partner in West Newton

and Sugarhouse (62% and 50%; SD ¼ 17 and 27); this was significantly more than the adult involvement in 25% of

children’s play among the Efe and 10% in San Pedro (SD ¼ 20 and 10).

Children’s scholastic play also showed community differ-

ences, F(3, 44) ¼ 11.8, p 5 .001. West Newton and Sugarhouse children more often played at scholastic themes

than Efe or San Pedro children (6% and 6% of scans, SD ¼ 5 and 5, vs. 0.2% and 0.1%, SD ¼ 0.4 and 0.3). Almost all the West Newton and Sugarhouse children (22/24) were involved

in scholastic play, whereas only 2 of the Efe and 1 of the San

Pedro children ever were. The community difference in

involvement in scholastic play remained even when differences

in the extent of play were taken into account, F(3, 44) ¼ 11.9, p 5 .001. In West Newton and Sugarhouse, the proportion of play devoted to scholastic themes averaged 10% and 11% of

children’s play (SD ¼ 9 and 7), whereas this type of play made

up almost none of Efe and San Pedro children’s play (0.9%

and 0.2%, SD ¼ 2 and 0.6). West Newton and Sugarhouse children’s scholastic play

usually involved at least one adult (in 72% and 78% of

scholastic play) whereas it never did for Efe and San Pedro

children. Scholastic play amounted to 4% and 5% of the scans

(SD ¼ 4 and 5) for West Newton and Sugarhouse, F(3, 44) ¼ 9.1, p 5 .001 (see Figure 2). Moreover, a substantial proportion of the middle-class children’s play with adults was

scholastic play (24% and 32%), supporting the idea that adult

entry into play with children may often be preparatory to

children’s school participation.

It is telling that the Efe and San Pedro children almost never

engaged in scholastic play (averaging 0.2% and 0.1% of scans)

whereas emulation of work (in 12% and 15% of scans)

accounted for almost half of Efe children’s play and more than

a quarter of San Pedro children’s play. In contrast, middle-

class children of both communities engaged in scholastic play

somewhat more often than they emulated work in their play (in

6% vs. 3–4% of their scans).

Children’s free-standing conversations with adults on child-related

topics. Most of the West Newton and Sugarhouse children’s

free-standing conversations (on any topic, other than con-

versation integral to ongoing work, lessons, or play) included at

least one adult. Adults participated with West Newton and

Sugarhouse children in 76% and 65% of their free-standing

conversations (SD ¼ 12 and 20), compared to 31% and 36% for Efe and San Pedro children (SD ¼ 35 and 31), F(3, 42) ¼ 8.2, p 5 .001.3

The extent to which children participated with adults in

free-standing conversation on child-related topics (other than

3 West Newton and Sugarhouse children were more often involved in free-

standing conversation with adults on any topic (other than conversation integral

to ongoing work, lessons, or play) than were Efe or San Pedro children (23% and

19% of the scans, SD ¼ 8 and 9, vs. 6% and 3%, SD ¼ 5 and 2), F(3, 44) ¼ 28.9, p 5 .001.

Figure 2. Children’s involvement in specialised child-focused activities.

conversation integral to ongoing work, lessons, or play)

differed as expected across the four communities, F(3, 44) ¼ 37.1, p 5 .001 (see Figure 2). West Newton and Sugarhouse children more often participated in adult–child free-standing

conversations about child-related topics than did Efe or San

Pedro children (17% and 12% of the scans, SD ¼ 6 and 6, vs. 1% and 2% of the scans, SD ¼ 2 and 2; differences between West Newton and Sugarhouse children were also significant).

All 24 West Newton and Sugarhouse children engaged in

adult–child free-standing conversation on child-related topics,

compared with 9 Efe and 7 San Pedro children. It appears that

adults are especially likely to enter into free-standing conversa-

tion with young children in the middle-class communities, and

that their free-standing conversations often focus on child-

related topics.

Discussion

The findings support our expectations relating involvement in

specialised child-focused activities to segregation of children

from the range of mature work of their communities. In both

middle-class European American communities, young children

had relatively less frequent access to adult work, along with

greater involvement in specialised child-focused activities—

lessons, play with adults (especially scholastic play), and free-

standing conversation with adults on child-focused topics. In

the Efe and San Pedro communities, despite great differences

in economic and schooling practices, work was often accessible

to young children, who more frequently emulated adult work

in their play and rarely engaged in specialised child-focused

activities.

Our findings point to the importance of considering child-

rearing traditions that include access to and responsible

involvement in work as an important alternative pattern to

segregation into specialised child-focused activities to prepare

for later integration into school and adult activities. Of course,

these are not mutually exclusive patterns—children in each

community sometimes participated in both of these kinds of

activity. However, the two patterns’ relative prevalence in the

different communities supports the idea that they are distinct,

coherent community-level cultural/historical ways of arranging

children’s everyday lives.

Children’s access to work

Most wage-earning labour in West Newton and Sugarhouse

took place in locations not easily accessible to children. This

practice not only limits the extent of work that middle-class

children can view and enter, but it also restricts them to

primarily domestic household or daycare chores (such as

cooking, washing dishes and clothes, and tidying up) that

represent a narrow range of the work of middle-class US adults

(Mosier & Rogoff, 2000). Even when the children accom-

panied adults outside of the home or childcare setting, the

activities generally involved a small range of work—going on

errands (such as purchasing food and clothing) and transport-

ing children to and from childcare settings or children’s

exercise classes.

The fact that societal workplace arrangements segregate

middle-class adults from children during much of the week

when the full range of mature work occurs is central to our

thesis. We believe that the separation of the work world of

adults and the specialised childcare and education settings of

children have great importance for understanding middle-class

child-rearing practices.

Still, it is worth asking if our decision to observe children

during the weekdays (and not weekends) affected the amount

of work available to the US children. We do not believe so. We

selected weekdays because in three of the communities, most

of the local range of work takes place during this time. We were

interested in children’s access to the range of adult work, and

not just household chores. Moreover, middle-class parents

nowadays are doing fewer household chores on the weekend,

to free up time to spend with their children (Bianchi, 2000;

Bond, Galinsky, & Swanberg, 1998). In our data, middle-class

children who stayed home with their mothers during the day

did not have greater access to or involvement in adult work

than children who spent part of their day in preschool or

daycare settings. Middle-class parents of toddlers have

reported that they commonly tried to do housework while

the child was napping, to avoid interference (Rheingold,

1982). Thus we feel confident that inclusion of weekend times

would not reduce the differences between the communities.

In contrast with the European American middle-class

pattern of separation of work and home life, many of the work

activities in the Efe and San Pedro communities occurred in or

around camp or home, in settings that were easily accessible to

children. Even when Efe and San Pedro family members

worked outside of the camp or home, 2- to 3-year-olds were

allowed to come along and sometimes help out. As a result, Efe

and San Pedro children had more opportunities to be in the

presence of adult work than children in the two European

American middle-class communities, and Efe children ob-

served work more frequently than West Newton and Sugar-

house children.

The San Pedro pattern, though similar to the Efe, may be in

transition between integration of children in adult activities

and greater segregation. This idea is supported by decades of

ethnographic research in San Pedro along with the fact that the

amount of work accessible to and observed by the San Pedro

children was intermediate between the Efe and the two middle-

class communities. Compared with 15 years earlier, many

more San Pedro parents work outside the home and schooling

is rapidly increasing, with more children completing more

grades. Local people report that in middle childhood, although

children still work, they are less involved in the family’s work

than in previous eras and are more focused on schoolwork

(Magarian, 2001).

In all four communities, the 2- to 3-year-olds’ actual

participation in work was limited, which is not surprising given

their very young age. Even so, the type of work that young Efe

and San Pedro children did included relatively mature kinds of

contribution. Young Efe children, for example, kindle the fire,

prepare and cook food, and mind younger children. San Pedro

2- to 3-year-olds do errands in the neighbourhood and sell fruit

or other items.

Rather than directly participating in much work at these

young ages, the Efe and San Pedro children emulated adult

work in their play. This was much more common than in the

two European American middle-class communities. Playful

practising of adult work, which they have plentiful opportunity

to observe, may be an important way for the Efe and San Pedro

children to enter into more contributory roles within a few

years.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2003, 27 (3), 264–274 271

272 MORELLI ET AL. / WORK OR SPECIALISED CHILD-FOCUSED ACTIVITIES

Our focus on a very young age was based on interest in

studying children’s routine activities well before age 5–7 years.

By this older age, the arrangements and engagements of

children become clearly distinguished by compulsory schooling

in the US and by substantial roles in family work in

nonindustrial societies (Caldwell, 1982; Hawkes, O’Connell,

& Blurton Jones, 1995; Nag, White, & Peet, 1978; Rogoff et

al., 1975). In middle-class communities, school attendance

and work prohibitions restrict productive contributions in

middle childhood, and work may often be seen more as a way

to teach responsibility than as a way for children to contribute

to household subsistence (Goodnow, 1996; White & Brinkerh-

off, 1981), except, perhaps, when adult work is centred in the

home (Beach, 1988). We were interested in the precursors to

these distinct patterns. Our results do show differences in the

extent of access to and emulation of mature work and

involvement in specialised child-focused activities.

Specialised child-focused activities

Our findings are consistent with the idea that in communities

where children’s access to work is limited, specialised child-

focused activities may prevail as ways to help prepare children

for subsequent involvement in school and work (Hareven,

1988; LeVine & White, 1987; Rogoff, 1990, 2003). Lessons in

early childhood—more frequent among West Newton and

Sugarhouse children than among Efe and San Pedro chil-

dren—may familiarise children with this specialised instruc-

tional format used regularly in schools (Heath, 1986;

Schieffelin & Eisenberg, 1984). Gaining familiarity with this

format may prepare young children for learning in formal

educational settings, independent of the particular information

contained in each lesson.

Adults’ frequent involvement in children’s play in West

Newton and Sugarhouse (compared to the Efe and San Pedro)

may reflect views of some middle-class European American

parents that adult involvement in children’s play provides

adults with a chance to teach children (Farver & Howes, 1993;

Haight, 1991; Haight & Miller, 1993; Whiting & Edwards,

1988). Indeed, scholastic play—regarded as helpful in prepar-

ing children for school (Christie, 1991; Haight, 1991; Heath,

1982; Jacobs, 1982; Pellegrini & Galda, 1991)—comprised

about a quarter to a third of West Newton and Sugarhouse

children’s play with adults.

Children in West Newton and Sugarhouse were also more

often involved in free-standing conversations with adults

(compared to Efe and San Pedro children). This finding is

consistent with other research indicating that middle-class

adults engage as conversational peers with young children,

focusing on children’s own activities and opinions (Rogoff,

1990; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). For example, West Newton

and Sugarhouse adults often asked children to describe their

daily activities (e.g., ‘‘Tell me what you did in preschool

today.’’) and their feelings about people and events (e.g., ‘‘Did

you have a nice time playing on the swings?’’). This practice

may reflect the belief that adult conversation with children

helps to prepare children for the verbal demands of school

(Beals & Tabors, 1995). What is more, adults may have to

depend on child-related topics if they wish to converse with

children who have limited access to many adult activities.

Adults who often spend stretches of time apart from their

children may also need to rely on children’s accounts to learn

about their children’s day.

Among the Efe and in San Pedro, as in some other

communities, adults expect children to learn mostly by

observing and participating in mature activities with adults

and other children, 4

not by teaching them through lessons or

other specialised child-focused activities designed to facilitate

children’s later entry into mature activities. Because these

children are integrated in adult activities, it would seem

superfluous to prepare them using specialised child-focused

activities for a world of which they are already a part.

Toward understanding community-level patterns

Our research provides the first systematic comparative study

examining variation among communities in societal arrange-

ments of children’s settings and daily routines. Future work

will need to include more than four communities to clarify the

relative contributions of different community-wide features

that relate to the differences between communities in the

extent to which children are routinely integrated in work or are

segregated from it but engaged in specialised child-focused

activities. To be more certain of the relations that we

postulate—between community-wide segregation from work

and community traditions of preparation of children for later

inclusion in mature life through specialised child-focused

activities—would require examining several dozen commu-

nities to have a reasonable sample size of communities.

With our aim of examining variations among communities

in cultural practices, it was important to select communities

that were rather homogeneous with regard to features such as

extent of maternal schooling and ethnic heritage. Future work

could examine individual differences within communities,

which might or might not parallel differences between

communities. Research with greater within-community hetero-

geneity and sample sizes could address within-community

questions, such as differences within San Pedro children’s

activities associated with the extent of their mothers’ schooling.

(We explored this and other within-community variations, but

the sample of 12 families with limited variability did not yield

information.)

It would be particularly interesting to examine the pattern of

children’s integration in work over time in communities in

which the prevalence of schooling is rapidly increasing. With

increased involvement in schooling (which of course relates to

other changes such as reliance on commercial work), commu-

nities like San Pedro and the Efe are likely to change in some

respects in the direction of the pattern of activities of the

middle-class communities. Our speculation is consistent with

observations of differences associated with increases in school-

ing in discourse patterns of caregivers and children in San

Pedro (Chavajay & Rogoff, 2002; Rogoff et al., 1993),

immigrant African families in France (Rabain-Jamin, 1989),

and Mexican families (Richman, Miller, & LeVine, 1992).

It would also be interesting to examine how widespread the

‘‘middle-class’’ cultural pattern is. We expect that it would also

occur among the middle class of other ethnic heritages in the

4 It would be of interest to examine how children’s siblings and peers form a

part of the system in the patterns that we have identified, to augment the focus of

the present study on the relationship between children’s integration in the adult

world or adult entry into specialised preparatory settings for children. The roles

of siblings and peers with young children seem to vary with segregation of

children from the adult world and emphasis on formal schooling, with its age

grading (Angelillo, Rogoff, & Morelli, 2003; Heath, 1983; Weisner & Gallimore,

1977; Zukow, 1989).

US and in other nations, given the cultural contact involved in

formal schooling as well as in television and other electronic

communication (Rogoff, 2003). However, middle-class com-

munities may also sometimes involve children in a fuller range

of mature ‘‘real-world’’ activities, within or outside of school.

Learning in middle-class communities may not necessarily

emphasise preparatory activities out of the context of involve-

ment in mature productive activities. For example, some

school ‘‘communities of learners’’ connect with the adult world

through joint adult–child productive projects and children’s

forays into places and issues of importance in the adult world

(Brown & Campione, 1990; Dewey, 1915; Moll, Tapia, &

Whitmore, 1993; Rogoff, Goodman Turkanis, & Bartlett,

2001).

In sum, the present study contributes observations support-

ing the thesis that there are important cultural and historical

differences in communities’ arrangements of young children’s

inclusion in the adult world or reliance on specialised child-

focused activities. Young children in the two middle-class

European American communities had limited access to the

range of adult work but were often involved in specialised

child-focused activities that may help prepare them to

participate in school, which in turn is designed to prepare

them for eventual involvement in the mature productive

activities of their communities. In contrast, in communities

like the Efe and San Pedro, where children are more integrated

in the mature life of the community, children may seldom be

involved in specialised child-focused situations to teach them

about the adult world, since they are already a regular part of it.

We hope that the findings of this study aid developmental

research in getting beyond treating current ‘‘mainstream’’ US

practices as normative, instead treating them as cultural

patterns of arrangements for children’s learning and develop-

ment.

Manuscript received August 2001

Revised manuscript received September 2002

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