LI, Biology and Culture

1
LI, Biology and Culture

• Life span development is a dynamic
  co-construction of biological and cultural
  processes occurring simultaneously within
  different time scales (microgenetic, ontogenetic,
  phylogenetic) and across different levels
  (neurobiological, cognitive, behavioral,
  sociocultural).

2
LI, Biology and Culture

• Phylogenetic time Culture affects genes
  (cultural change modifies long term biological
  natural selection process)
• (ex. urban living and stress resistant genes).

3
LI, Biology and Culture

• Ontogenetic time Culture affects social
  situational context (values, norms, language,
  etc. transmitted through social interaction),
  which affects individual ontogeny over the life
  span.
• ex. infant sleep in industrial vs. traditional
  cultures.

4
LI, Biology and Culture

• Microgenetic time Culture affects
  moment-to-moment activities experience
  (genetic, neuronal, cognitive, behavioral)
• ex. Asian childrens use of abacus enhances
  mental calculation music training affects brain
  function.

5
LI, Biology and Culture

• Development involves feed-downward
  (culture-biology) and feed upward
  (biology-culture) interactive processes.
• Plasticity exists at all levels and at all ages.
  

6
QUINTANA ET AL.Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in
Child Development

• Introduction to special issuefocus was on
• Normative development in context
• Intergroup relations and attitudes
• Identity development

7
QUINTANA ET AL.

• Trends in research represented in special issue
• Distinguishing race/ethnicity and cultural
  effects
• Distinguishing culture and immigration status
  effects
• Finding proximal mediators of demographic effects
• Focus on context (neighborhood, racial density,
  etc.)
• Need to study normative development
  nonethnocentrically
• Ethnic/racial identitymultidimensional and fluid
• Acculturation/acculturation conflict
• Intergroup relations/attitudes
• Methodological advances
• Research-community collaboration
• Measurement of ethnicity/race variables

8
QUINTANA ET AL.

• Challenges
• Theoretical Need theory of context effects
• Measurement Need explicit, not proxy measures
• Content Much research to be done
• Cultural validity Sampling, constructs/measures,
  analyses