1. The Development of Children, Seventh Edition
Cynthia Lightfoot,
Michael Cole,
and Sheila R. Cole
Chapter 10:
Contexts of Development

2. Chapter Overview The Family Context Nonparental Child Care
Neighborhoods and Communities
Media Contexts
Contexts, Risks, and Resilience

3. Contexts of Development
Nested, interacting ecosystems

4. Contexts of Development
resources for positive growth
challenges to health and well-being

5. I. The Family Context Family structure influences development
Culture influences family structure

6. Biocultural Origins of Family
Family Structure
The social organization of a family.
Common forms:
Nuclear
Extended

7. Family Structure Nuclear families
Families consisting of parents and their children.

8. Extended Families Extended families
Families in which not only parents and their children, but other kin share a household.
Biological/Evolutionary Perspective
Allocaregiving
Cooperative breeding

9. Parenting Practices Parenting goals The survival goal:
ensuring their children’s survival
The economic goal:
ensuring they will be economically productive adults
The cultural goal:
sharing the group’s values

10. Parenting Styles Diana Baumrind’s three patterns of parenting:
Authoritative
Authoritarian
Permissive

11. Authoritative Parents behavior exert some control use reasoning
express warmth

12. Authoritarian Parents behavior focus on obedience and control
use physical punishment
tend not to express warmth

13. Permissive Parents behavior express warmth
fail to set standards or exert control

14. The Role of Siblings Complex relationship Influential factors Intimacy
Conflict
Influential factors
Culture
Age
Gender
Family’s emotional climate

15. Family Diversity Immigrant Families Single-Parent Families
Gay and Lesbian Parents

16. Immigrant Families Rates: Cultural variations
Approximately 22 percent of U.S. children have immigrant parents
Cultural variations
Parenting styles
Values

17. Single-Parent Families
Rates:
About half of all children born in U.S. for at least a portion of their lives
Effects on children:
Behavioral
Social
Academic

18. Gay and Lesbian Parents
Increasing numbers
Research
Limitations
Parents’ reluctance to discuss, fear of discrimination
Lack of reliable information on gay- and lesbian-parent families
Still, paints overall positive picture

19. Factors Impeding Development
Poverty
Adolescent parent(s)
Abuse

20. Poverty Approximately 1 in 5 children Effects: Housing Health care
Education
Safety

21. Poverty Subsequent difficulties mental and physical health problems
problems in intellectual development

22. Adolescent Parents
United States among the highest rate in the industrialized world
Children are
More aggressive
Less self-controlled
Less intellectually advanced
Replace Table 10.2 with Figure Teen birth rate (per 1, ) in the industrialized world

23. Abuse
What constitutes abuse?
This Table is now Table 10.2

24. Causes of Abuse Parent’s childhood experience Stresses on the family
Only 30% of those abused as children become abusers
Stresses on the family
Poverty, drug abuse, education
Child’s age, gender and ethnicity
Cultural acceptance

25. I. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Using Bronfenbrenner’s model (Chapter 1), analyze the ecology of Alexis and her baby as described in the box about the Louisiana swamp nurse.
Describe features of the microsystems, exosystems, mesosystems, and macrosystems.
If you lack specific information about the features of a system, try to speculate on the basis of features in the other systems.

26. II. Nonparental Child Care
By age 4, 86 percent of children in the United States experience regular nonparental care.

27. Three Forms of Nonparental Care
Home child care
in the children’s own home
Family child care
in someone else’s home
Child-care centers
organized facilities supervised by licensed professionals

28. Developmental Effects of Child Care
Physical and intellectual effects
Increased stress
Intellectual development at least as good as home care
Can improve intellectual development, especially for low SES

29. Developmental Effects of Child Care
Social and emotional effects
Positive effects:
more self-sufficiency and verbal expressiveness
Negative effects:
more aggressive behavior
Importance of warm, responsive caregivers

30. II. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Imagine that you are preparing to have or adopt your first baby, and you are debating about when to return to work.
To help you decide, outline the arguments for and against enrolling your baby in a child-care center.
Based on the evidence of your arguments, what do you decide to do?

31. III. Neighborhoods and Communities
Community resources
Social capital
- children’s quality of life
- mental health outcomes
Community and culture
Distressed communities
Economic disadvantage
Physical and social disorder

32. III. Apply – Connect – Discuss
A newly elected mayor campaigned on promises to tackle the problems affecting a distressed community in his city. He has put you in charge of a task force and wants you to develop a plan for reducing social disorganization.

33. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Generate a list of possible community programs that you think might help reduce social disorganization, and explain why and how they would improve the lives of children in the community.

34. IV. Media Contexts Variety of media contexts
Forms of mass communication
Print Media
Television
Interactive Media
Replace table 10.5 with table (time spend using media and in other activities)

35. Television
Most common media form used

36. Television Concerns: Distinguishing between appearance and reality
Violence
Social stereotyping

37. Interactive Media Developing cognitive skills Concerns:
Divided attention
Spatial imagery and representation
Concerns:
effects on relationships
effects of violent action

38. Interactive Media

39. IV. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Some argue that exposure to violent and aggressive interactive games causes children to be more aggressive. Others believe that such games are a symptom, not a cause, of the fact that our species and/or society is inherently aggressive, and that exposure is unlikely to make much difference.

40. Apply – Connect – Discuss
What is your own position on this classic chicken-or-egg debate?
What evidence supports your position?

41. V. Contexts, Risks, and Resilience
Prevention science
Seeks to protect children from harm and promote their well-being by identifying risk factors as well as protective factors.

42. Contexts, Risks, and Resilience
Risk factors
Personal and environmental characteristics that increase the probability of negative outcomes.
Protective factors
Factors that may be sources of children’s resilience.

43. Resilience Resilience
The ability to recover quickly from the adverse effects of early experience or persevere in the face of stress with no apparent special negative psychological consequences.

44. Public Policies International Organizations
Government laws and programs such as those designed to promote the welfare of children and families
International Organizations
Individual Government programs
Head Start, WIC

45. V. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Visit the Web site of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) at
What are the priorities of the organization (see “What We Do”)?
Explore the most recent report of the State of the World’s Children.