Xu Examines Parental Perspectives on Children’s Social Learning Across Four Cultures
Posted: 6/25/2026 ()
In a new article published in Frontiers in Psychology, CSDE Affiliate Jing Xu(Anthropology) and co-authors surveyed 303 parents and guardians from BaYaka and Bandongo communities in the Republic of the Congo, Scots in Tayside, United Kingdom, and Chinese Americans in the Greater Seattle Area to examine parental perspectives on children’s social learning. Across all four cultures, parents consistently reported that children should learn from adults through imitation and teaching, but from peers through collaboration. BaYaka and Bandongo parents more often said children should learn tasks, while Scottish and Chinese American parents focused on qualities and values. The findings reveal cross-cultural regularities in social learning mechanisms alongside systematic differences in content, underscoring the importance of cultural context in studying how, what, and from whom children learn.