title: Children's activities and their meanings for parents: a mixed-methods study in six Western cultures.
abstract: Theoretical perspectives and research in sociology, anthropology, sociolinguistics, and cultural psychology converge in recognizing the significance of children's time spent in various activities, especially in the family context. Knowing how children's time is deployed, however, only gives us a partial answer to how children acquire competence; the other part must take into account the culturally constructed meanings of activities, from the perspective of those who organize and direct children's daily lives. In this article, we report on a study of children's routine daily activities and on the meanings that parents attribute to them in six Western middle-class cultural communities located in Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United States (N = 183). Using week-long time diaries kept by parents, we first demonstrate similarities as well as significant differences in children's daily routines across the cultural samples. We then present brief vignettes--"a day in the life" --of children from each sample. Parent interviews were coded for themes in the meanings attributed to various activities. Excerpts from parent interviews, focusing on four major activities (meals, family time, play, school- or developmentally related activities), are presented to illustrate how cultural meanings and themes are woven into parents' organization and understanding of their children's daily lives. The results of this mixed-method approach provide a more reliable and nuanced picture of children's and families' daily lives than could be derived from either method alone.
authors.affiliation: Center for the Study of Culture, Health, and Human Development, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-2058, USA. sara.harkness@uconn.edu
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Harkness
authors.forename: Piotr Olaf
authors.initials: PO
authors.lastname: Zylicz
authors.forename: Charles M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Super
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Welles-Nyström
authors.forename: Moisés Ríos
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Bermúdez
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bonichini
authors.forename: Ughetta
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Moscardino
authors.forename: Caroline Johnston
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Mavridis
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005195:Family Relations / Q000208:ethnology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007558:Italy / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands / Q000208:ethnology; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D011044:Poland / Q000208:ethnology; D013030:Spain / Q000208:ethnology; D013548:Sweden / Q000208:ethnology; D014481:United States / Q000208:ethnology