Sociological and Psychological Theories on Child Development

During my weekly assignment, the theories interested me the most are child development theory and culture concepts. These theories are what boosted my interest in reading chapter 2 which is culture and society, and chapter 3, intitule Socialization, the life course, and aging. In everyday conversation, we rarely distinguish between the term “culture” and “Society, “but the terms have slightly different meanings, and the distinction is important to a sociologist. (Little) Different theories in sociology explain to us the society we live in “ Buy reading chapter 2 on culture and society, I had a full understanding of why culture is what identify ourselves for example, by the way we behave, cloths, and our beliefs.  The notion of culture is widely used in sociology and other social sciences. Culture is one of the most distinctive properties of human social association. (Anthony Giddens) The second theory interested me is the theory of child development, this made me learn more about the twist of child development and how I can ameliorate my parenting style as a mother of 3 kids and a future nurse.

   Child development theories focus on explaining how children change and grow throughout childhood. Such theories center on various aspects of development including social, emotional, and cognitive growth. (Cherry)

 Many sociologists play a great contribution to this theory of child development. For example, the sociologist G.H. Mead gave attention mainly to how children learn to use the concepts of “I” and “me”. The sociologist Charles Horton Cooley demonstrated the importance of other individuals for shaping a child’s sense of self. And Jean Piaget focused on cognition how children learn to think about themselves and their environment. (Anthony Giddens)

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I strongly agree with those theories. Initially, Piaget print out the cognitive theory as social child development theory, in which development necessary precedes learning; he emphasized the stages of cognitive development during which the children learn to think about themselves and their environment.  Piaget suggests that children move through four different stages of mental development; which is a sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stages, and formal operational stages. (Anthony Giddens)  On the other hand, I would say that the culture concept makes sense to me too and draw the big picture on how we live in society. As a refugee immigrated in America This concept helps me to re-evaluate myself emotionally, psychologically and socially. This show me who I am and how I can borrow elements of American culture and fight to survive and have a decent life, despite my own different culture and behavior.

Overall, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development help me to understand more about my children’s intellectual growth and know how they are changing according to their stage. And the culture concept help me to learn more about myself and help me to understand others.

During my assignment on both theories interested me the most. I found both theories accurate, reliable and scientifically make sense; theory is a way to way to explain different aspects of social interactions and to create a testable proposition, called a hypothesis, about society. (Allan) Child development theory and culture concept help our society to understand how biologically and culturally factors influence our behavior. The book of Essential of sociology especially in chapter 2 and 3 explain and support those theories. It gives us the different ideas of culture for example Culture appropriation, culture as material goods, value and norms, language, non-material culture, speech, and writing. (Anthony Giddens)

Before doing this assignment, I didn’t know much about child development stages, I learn about how jean Piaget explicit those stage from the 0 age to 15 years. The first cognition as a human thought process involving perception, reasoning, and remembering; the second involve sensorimotor stage and the child exploring the environment; the preoperational stage in which the ego is developed, followed by the concrete stage the child acquired the basics abstraction, and finally the formal operation stage in which the child develop further abstraction and hypothetical reasoning.

In this reflection assignment, as a mother of three kids and as an immigrant from Africa especially in the poorest country, those theories give me the knowledge for a sufficient understanding what is going on with me and around me, as I am trying to survive and copy the new culture I live with, but also how I can observe the development of my children as they grow older. Furthermore, the sociologist Jean Piaget explain more and learn from him different stage of child development and how to emphasize different aspects of socialization.

Additionally, I learn how culture and society are inseparable and the role does culture play in society. Teaching me about other cultures help me to understand myself and be good American citizens. The concept of culture is vast and the best ways to learn more about it is to focus on the differences within and among cultures.

The major sociological perspective best explain my answer is the functionalist perspective, also known as functionalism, this especially explain how culture in the society maintain similar values and beliefs and engage in similar types of work.  The sociological perspective is a behavior that connects one with society. This perspective explains the culture by which we change our style of living in, though our behavior, action buy which the society guide us and change our behavior according to different situation (Mishra).

While answering the contribution of child development in sociology, in which early childhood behavior makes a great contribution in family, society, and world in general. This confirms that family relationships constitute one of the most, if not the most, influential factors in early childhood development. (BOYD) I notice that many keys factors play into a child’s development. I think the perspective play role in this theory is also functionalism, it is focused on the macro-level of social structure, rather than the micro-level of everyday life. (Crossman)

  Work cites

1)      Giddens,Duneier,Appelbaum, and Carr: “The essential of Sociology Seventh Edition”, W.W. Norton& Campany,Inc. 2019.

2)      Denise Boyd, Helen Bee : “Lifespan Development Seventh edition Pearson”, Pearson, 2015.

3)      William Little: ” Introduction to sociology 1^st Canadian Edition” October 2012.

4)      Houghton Muffin Cliffsnotes: “Culture and Society” June 2016.

5)      Kendra Cherry: “Child Development Theory and Examples” july 31,2019.