Learning to be an American parent: how cultural models gain directive force

When John Whiting came to publish his dissertation research on childrearing practices in a New Guinea tribe (Whiting 1941), he titled the work “Becoming a Kwoma.” The title was deliberately chosen to express the idea that children are not born with an understanding of their cultural identity, but that they must learn to think and act like members of a particular social group. This theme has received renewed attention under the rubric of “the acquisition of culture” (Schwartz 1981, Harkness 1990), drawing metaphorically from the field of child language to suggest the kinds of mental processes that may be involved in the child's learning of the culture. In both recent models of culture acquisition and earlier formulations of “childhood socialization,” the role of parents is taken as central.