Book
Playing on the mother-ground: cultural routines for children's development
Guilford press • New York • Published In 1996 • Pages: xii, 240
By: Lancy, David F..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This book provides ethnographic account of childhood among the Kpelle of Liberia as observed in 1967-1973. The focus is on the processes through which children, who are 6-13 years old, learn the skills they need to succeed as adults. It argues that Kpelle children, unlike their counterparts in Western soceities,are not instructed but rather learn through observation and imitation. They author shows this through a careful documentation of child conversation and interaction in a wide variety of settings including playing, farming, hunting and gathering, marketing, weaving, building and making medicine and smithing. The author also uses this evidence to reflect on limits of Western psychological theories when applied to non-Western soceities.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Techniques of socialization
- Childhood activities
- Games
- Transmission of skills
- Family relationships
- Division of labor by gender
- Education system
- Students
- Sociocultural trends
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Kpelle
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2009
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Western Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Anthropologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Teferi A. Adem; 2007
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1967-1969, 1973
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1950-1996
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Liberia
- NotesAdditional notes
- David F. Lancy
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-230) and indexes
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 96033423
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Children, Kpelle-Education/Children, Kpelle-Games/Children, Kpelle-Cultural assimilation/Learning, Psychology of/Child development-Liberia-Gbarngasuakwelle/Child psychology-Liberia--Gbarngasuakwelle/Gbarngasuakwelle (Liberia)-Social life and customs