Review_Author: Kellie Anderson
Book_Author: Artin Goncu
Book_Title: Children's Engagement in the World
Reference: 1999, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Date: 3/13/00
Time: 10:21:14 PM
Remote Name: 128.175.143.95
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Children's Engagement in the World: Sociocultural Perspectives. (1999) Artin Goncu, Ed.
This book is a collection of chapters written by various scholars in the fields of psychology and education. The authors all subscribe to a sociocultural viewpoint, which is to say that they all believe that child development cannot be studied in isolation, but rather that it must be studied in situation in context. The book is organized into four sections. First, an overview is presented by the editor, which describes the guiding principles and themes by which the book was organized. The subsequent sections examine children's engagement in the world, in play and in planning, math and literacy. The majority of the chapters consist of original field (vs. laboratory) research which describes children's development in relation to their culture.
In the first chapter, Artin Goncu (the editor) notes several important unifying characteristics of this volume. First, he offers a critical review of mainstream psychology as it relates to the study of child development. Mainstream psychology, he argues, has always been focused on the discovery and characterization of the generic, universal child. Traditional psychology has tried to homogenize the experiences of children from different cultures, and attempted to create a single unifying picture of "child development". These characterizations have proven to be inadequate, however, because they do not sufficiently describe real individual children. Thus, Goncu (and others) argue that in order to understand a child's development, one must examine the cultural context of the child, and conceptualize culture as a system of meanings. Cross-cultural comparisons, therefore can only be made once one has established that the meanings in each culture are roughly commensurate with each other. Goncu then goes on to draw from and expand upon Vygotsky's theory, including the concept of the zone of proximal development. Subsequently, he then defines children's development as a "process of socialization into the existing system of meanings in their culture" (p. 12). Finally, Goncu notes that in order to study children's development, it is essential to use an interdisciplinary approach. That is, in order to adequately understand the system of meanings, researchers need to draw upon a multitude of disciplines (e.g., sociology, psychology, anthropology etc.).
The remaining chapters in the book are all related to the central theme that Goncu described. Several chapters are worthy of mention, because of either interesting findings, or interesting methodology that were utilized. For instance, chapter 2, (Children's Daily Lives in a Mayan Village) is noteworthy because of the three cultural principles of engagement they describe. Not only do they provide an interesting framework from which to view the Mayan families, but it also helps to conceptualize the differences between the Mayan culture, and the middle class European-American culture. Additionally it was interesting to note that this is a culture whereby very little play occurs. Thus chapter 2 supported the importance of examining child development in situation in context because here was a radically different structure than what the "generic, universal child" was supposed to be experiencing.
The chapters in section 3 (Children's Engagement in Play) also asked several interesting research questions related to children's play. For instance, it is not sufficient to know whether or not children in different cultures engage in pretend play. Additional questions to be considered include: who plays with whom (e.g., mother, other children/siblings), what value is placed on play (e.g., for learning, for amusement), and during what activities do mother-child interactions occur (e.g., during work activities, care-giving activities). Again, these guiding questions serve to both highlight differences in other cultures, as well as underscore the priorities in what has been thought of as traditional western culture (i.e., middle class European-American).
Finally, section 4 examined children's engagement as it related to planning, math and literacy. Within the math chapter, it was interesting to note how much "math" occurs outside of the formal classroom, and how different cultures utilize and value math skills at different ages. The concept of scaffolding was also described well in this chapter, as several examples were utilized to demonstrate how parents and adults naturally modify their instructions in order to match the developmental needs of the child. Although scaffolding is a concept that is discussed in many chapters of this volume, the dot counting example contained in this chapter was an excellent example of scaffolding. The literacy chapter also provided some vignettes in which teachers could begin to see how they could utilize social conversations to provide alternate meanings to classroom texts and assignments. Although not intended to be a "how to" chapter, the literacy chapter could be utilized to stimulate a discussion regarding incorporating a sociocultural perspective into the classroom.
Overall, this book had many strengths, particularly in relation to our recent class discussions. Instead of providing a theoretical discourse regarding the sociocultural perspective, the chapters provide examples and research, which help to concretize the concepts for the reader. In addition, although this book is a scholarly volume, it is written largely in user-friendly language. Thus, it is likely to be understood by a wide audience both in and outside the university setting. Finally, it also contains numerous references and discussions of Vygotsky's theory (particularly the zone of proximal development), which enhanced my understanding of his theory. One suggestion for improvement would be to have included either more chapters that lend themselves to practical interpretation (e.g., the literacy chapter), or a summative chapter that discussed the implications of all of the research. It should be noted that this is not necessarily a fair criticism of the book, because the authors and editor covered exactly what they said they would cover. However, for my own understanding, I feel that I need to challenge myself to consider what the implications of the sociocultural perspective are - not only in theory but in practice as well.