Culture and Early Interactions

In the late 1960s, after a period of intense acceleration of the pace of research on human infancy, a number of investigators - some anthropologists, some psychologists, some psychiatrists and paediatricians, and even a few ethologists - developed the conviction that certain contributions to the understanding of infancy would come from, and perhaps only come from, cross-cultural and cross-population studies.
This book, originally published in 1981, represents part of the first fruit of that conviction, and its impressive range of chapters justifies not only the belief itself but also the several rationales behind it.

Edited by Field, Tiffany; Sostek, Anita; Vietze, Peter; Leiderman, P. Herbert

Melvin Konner Foreword. Preface. Part 1: Cultural Contexts 1. James S. Chisholm Residence Patterns and the Environment of Mother-Infant Interaction Among the Navajo 2. Anita Miller Sostek, Peter Vietze, Martha Zaslow, Laura Kreiss, Fransje van der Waals and Donald Rubinstein Social Context in Caregiver-Infant Interaction: A Film Study of Fais and the United States Part 2: Cultural and Socioeconomic Status 3. Tiffany M. Field and Susan M. Widmayer Mother-Infant Interactions Among Lower SES Black, Cuban, Puerto Rican and South American Immigrants 4. Candice Feiring and Michael Lewis Middle Class Differences in the Mother-Child Interaction and the Child's Cognitive Development Part 3: Cultural Values 5. Ross D. Parke, Karin Grossmann and Barbara R. Tinsley Father-Mother-Infant Interaction in the Newborn Period: A German-American Comparison 6. John W. Callaghan A Comparison of Anglo, Hopi and Navajo Mothers and Infants 7. Barbara Fourcher Fajardo and Daniel G. Freedman Maternal Rhythmicity in Three American Cultures 8. Suzanne Dixon, Edward Tronick, Constance Keefer and T. Berry Brazelton Mother-Infant Interaction Among the Gusii of Kenya Part 4: Growth and Developmental Status of Infants 9. Charles M. Super, John Clement, Lea Vuori, Niels Christiansen, Jose O. Mora and M. Guillermo Herrera Infant and Caretaker Behavior as Mediators of Nutritional and Social Intervention in the Barrios of Bogota 10. Mary Martini and John Kirkpatrick Early Interactions in the Marquesas Islands 11. Guy Reed and P. Herbert Leiderman Age-Related Changes in Attachment Behavior in Polymatrically Reared Infants: The Kenyan Gusii Part 5: Methodological Considerations 12. Martha Zaslow and Barbara Rogoff The Cross-Cultural Study of Early Interaction: Implications from Research on Culture and Cognition. Author Index. Subject Index.