Peer Relationships in Cultural Context

Description

This book responds to the absence of a comprehensive consideration of the implications of culture for children's peer relationships. Although research in this field has burgeoned in recent years, cultural issues have often been overlooked. The chapters tap such issues as the impact of social circumstances and cultural values on peer relationships, culturally prescribed socialization patterns and processes, emotional experience and regulation in peer interactions, children's social behaviors in peer interactions, cultural aspects of friendships, and peer influences on social and school adjustment in cultural context. The authors incorporate into their discussions findings from research programs using multiple methodologies, including both qualitative (e.g., interviewing, ethnographic and observational) and quantitative (e.g., large scale surveys, standardized questionnaires) approaches, based on a wide range of ages of children in cultures from East to West and from South to North (Asia, South America, the Mid-East, Southern Europe, and ethnic groups in the US).

Xinyin Chen received his Ph.D. from University of Waterloo in 1992. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario. He has received a William T. Grant Scholars Award and several other academic awards. In collaborating with his international colleagues, he has been conducting several large-scale, cross-cultural longitudinal projects in Canada, China and other countries. He is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD), and the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). He has published a number of book chapters and articles concerning culture, children's social behaviors and peer relationships, and parental socialization practices. His work has been published in major developmental journals such as Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly and International Journal of Behavioral Development. Doran C. French is a Professor and Department Chair of Psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1980. He has published articles and book chapters on various aspects of children s peer relationships including cross-age interaction, sociometric status, developmental psychopathology, school adjustment, aggression, and friendship. His research on culture and peer relationship dates from the time of his Fulbright fellowship in Indonesia. Since that time, he has collaborated with colleagues in Indonesia and S. Korea to study social status, aggression, conflict and friendship, work that has been published in Child Development, Social Development, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, and the Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology. Barry H. Schneider is Professor of Psychology and Vice-Dean of Research (Social Sciences) at the University of Ottawa, Canada, where he has taught since 1981. Since that time, he has received several professional awards, including Professor of the Year, Bea Wickett Award for an outstanding contribution to mental health in education, and fellow status with the Canadian Psychological Association. In addition to his research in Canada, he has worked in Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Hungary, and Italy. Dr Schneider is the author of three books, Friends and Enemies: Peer Relations in Childhood (London, Arnold, 2000); Children's Social Competence in Context: The Contributions of Families, Schools, and Cultures (Oxford, Pergamon, 1993); and The Gifted Child in Social Context (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1987). He is also the senior editor of two edited volumes in peer relations: Social Competence in Developmental Perspective (with Attili, Nadel & Weissberg; Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer, 1989) and Children's Peer Relations: Issues in Asssessment and Intervention (with Rubin & Ledingham, New York: Springer Verlag, 1985.

'This book is a valuable source of needed cultural knowledge. ...this is a good reference source for practitioners.' Psychologist