Parental Ethnotheories

The individual papers in this special collection exemplify the current standard and the very best research practices by using cultural group variation to make interesting discoveries about parenting and childhood development. They employ careful methods and clearly defined samples. Each paper addresses the impacts of pathways on development and the nature of well-being in children as well as parents. Peggy Miller and colleagues examine the culture-specific nature of "self-esteem" so pervasive in contemporary United States discourse. Tamis-LeMonda argues that childrearing values are an important area for research on parental goals and the meaning of parental behaviors while Amy Miller and Robin Harwood highlight the widely varying, and locally specific, cultural information embedded in feeding and playing with a baby. Marc Bornstein compares the cultural influences on parent and child play between agrarian, southern Italy and the more urban, industrial north. Lastly, Cynthia Garcia Coll and colleagues examine parental involvement in the schools of different immigrant families in Providence, Rhode Island.