The purpose of this book is to present the argument that parents' thoughts about childrearing, and the ways in which they interact with children to achieve particular parenting or developmental goals, are culturally determined. Within any culture, children are shaped by the physical and social settings within which they live, culturally regulated customs and childrearing practices, and culturally based belief systems. The psychological meaning attributed to any given social behavior is, in large part, a function of the ecological niche within which it is produced. Clearly, it is the case that there are some cultural universals. All parents want their children to be healthy and to feel secure. However, healthy and unhealthy, at least in the psychological sense of the term, can have different meanings from culture to culture. In an effort to shed light on the culture of parenting and on parenting from a cultural and cross-cultural perspective, a group of internationally esteemed scholars from Asia, Europe, and North America exchanged information at a workshop sponsored by the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development. in June 2003. The chapters in this book are drawn from the presentations of a diverse collection of researchers, each of whom presents a unique perspective on cultural manifestations of parenting beliefs and behaviors and parent-child relationships as well as on cross-cultural comparisons related to these topics.

The purpose of this book, is to present a rather simple argument. Parents' thoughts about childrearing and the ways in which they interact with children to achieve particular parenting or developmental goals, are culturally determined. Within any culture, children are shaped by the physical and social settings within which they live, culturally regulated customs and childrearing practices, and culturally based belief systems. The psychological "meaning" attributed to any given social behavior is, in large part, a function of the ecological niche within which it is produced. Clearly, it is the case that there are some cultural universals. All parents want their children to be healthy and to feel secure. However, "healthy" and "unhealthy," at least in the psychological sense of the term, can have different meanings from culture to culture.