The Everyday Lives of Young Children : Culture, Class, and Child Rearing in Diverse Societies

This book is based on observations of everyday activities and interactions of three-year-olds around the world. The focus is on how and where children spend their time, and who they are with, as they are learning what it means to be a part of their culture.

Where do young children spend their time? What activities are they involved in and who do they interact with? How do these activities and interactions vary across different societies and cultural groups? This book provides answers to these questions, by describing the lives of three-year-olds in the United States, Russia, Estonia, Finland, South Korea, Kenya and Brazil. Each child was followed for the equivalent of one complete waking day, whether at home, in childcare, on the streets or at the shops. Graphic displays and verbal descriptions of the children's everyday activities and interactions reveal both the ways in which culture influences children's lives and the ways in which children play a role in changing the cultural groups of which they are a part. This book also has a clear theoretical rationale and illustrates why and how to do cultural-ecological research.