Overview

By thoroughly analyzing unfolding interactions between children and caregivers in a variety of societies and cultures, we seek to uncover the processes of how a child is incorporated into a society and culture’s relationships after the child is born (or in some cases, before the child is born), as well as the accompanying processes of social and cultural reorganization. The societies and cultures being studied include Botswana, Namibia, Mali, Cameroon, Japan, the United States, China, Singapore, and Malaysia. Research fields that inform our approach include sociology (ethnomethodology and conversation analysis), anthropology (linguistic anthropology, the anthropology of children, and the language socialization approach), developmental psychology (social/cultural approaches); and linguistics (pragmatics).