Child Development and Socialization in a Bicultural Context: Native Americans.

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the general issue of cultural domination of an ethnic minority group (American Indians) and develop a model of how such domination affects the development of a minority child. Specifically, the problem is to describe, within a dominant-subordinate cultural framework, processes by which an individual (1) perceives differential value assessments of cognitive objects which are normatively referenced to particular cultures (2) demonstrates (attitudinally or behaviorally) his own assessment of the cognitive object with reference to the bicultural environment and (3) the role of ethnic history in the developmental process. Data were collected by utilizing a series of case histories from fifteen American Indians of full blood, mixed full blood, and mixed blood ancestry. Each history consisted of a questionnaire which surveyed social, political, economic, and educational attitudes; and an in-depth, open interview focusing on child rearing practices and perceptions of cultural differences. The results provided a basis for (1) a proposed model for theoretical analysis which describes socialization as the product of both single and multi-generational processes, and (2) a model of bicultural development in which the individual develops interactively with his environment. Being culturally divergent, it provides him with different value systems. How he develops cognitive and affective strategies to cope both with changing environments and with the changing cultural context is the purpose of the model of bicultural development. In the model, the individual encounters conflict, resolves the conflict by reflective abstraction, and is prepared to meet additional conflict as he experiences differential value systems. The cumulative effect is that the individual learns to evaluate functional and dysfunctional behaviors relative to identity (traditional, marginal, assimilated). This dissertation represents a combination of psychological and historical analysis in order to describe individual development as a product of single and multi-generational processes. The historical component reflects the impact of long-term external influences of cultural domination as precepts which are part of the inter-generational transmission of values and attitudes.