video record
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Description
This programme compares cognitive development of children in three different cultures: rural Kenya, rural Guatemala and urban Japan.
Metadata describing this Open University video programme
Module code and title: E362, Cognitive development: language and thinking - birth to adolescence
Item code: E362; 01
First transmission date: 16-03-1979
Published: 1979
Rights Statement:
Restrictions on use:
Duration: 00:22:48
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Producer: Chris Cuthbertson
Contributors: Jerome Kagan; John Oates; Neil Warren
Publisher: BBC Open University
Keyword(s): Assessing size; Clay balls; Cognitive development; Coloured liquid; Guatemala; Japan; Kenya; Memory tests; Rural; Urban
Footage description: John Oates introduces the programme from the studio. He explains that it uses film material recorded by Jerome Kagan to compare cognitive development in different cultures. Before this film starts Oates briefly discusses the usefulness of cross-cultural studies with Neil Warren, Reader in Social Psychology at the University of Sussex. Sequences 2 to 6 comprise Kagan's film. It starts with a wide variety of shots showing children from Asia, Africa and South America, over which the object of the film is briefly being stated Then film showing families and homes in a Japanese town, a Kenyan village, and a remote Guatemalan village. The commentary describes the circumstances of families in each location. Film of babies in all three cultures responding to various touch stimuli. The commentary emphasises the universal nature of babies' reactions to such stimuli. Similar shots are then used to compare small children's fear of strangers and unfamiliar objects and their feelings of separation anxiety. In all examples babies from Japan, Kenya and Guatemala react the same. The development of small children's play with toys is compared and found similar. A test is shown to demonstrate their use of symbolic metaphors, in which they identify different card designs as being either 'happy' or 'sad', or 'male' or 'female'. Other tests are shown, in which children from all three locations match geometric shapes and guess the nature of objects only partly delineated on paper. A number of memory tests are demonstrated with children between the ages of 4 and 6. The children have to remember different objects hidden under cups, blankets and boxes. The tests are identical in Japan, Kenya and Guatemala. Some tests for children over 6 are shown. These involve selecting 2 identical drawings from a number of similar-looking ones. The commentary is with the changing attitude to mistakes of children as they get older. Other tests involve assessing the relative sizes of clay balls and glasses of coloured liquid. Over some film showing children in a variety of activities the commentary ends by the very similar nature of cognitive development vastly differing cultures. Oates and Warren discuss Kagan's film in the studio. They consider the implications of the film's message that children's cognitive development is the same in different cultures. They do make the point however that in older children the rate of development may differ.
Master spool number: HOU2987
Production number: FOUE009X
Videofinder number: 4330
Available to public: no