FRS 004 — Sec. 010 — (2 units) — CRN 92661 — M 10:00-11:50am — 145 Young
What's Best for Baby? Perspectives on Early Infant Care

Instructor: Kristin Lagattuta, Department of Psychology, College of Letters & Science

Description: In this seminar we will explore how ideas about infant childrearing practices are influenced by culture, historical time period, and human biology. The main text for the course will be Meredith Small’s (1999) book entitled, Our babies: ourselves: How biology and culture shape the way we parent. This book examines parental practices such as responses to infant crying, infant feeding, and sleeping arrangements through the lens of biology and culture. We will also consider historical and modern texts on parenting and child development (historical = books and articles written prior to 1955) to analyze the degree to which current advice about the “best way to parent” has changed over the past 50 years. The goal of the seminar is to get students to think critically and reflectively about their own views of infants and early child care and the sources of these beliefs.

Format: In addition to participating actively in weekly discussions, you will be required to complete two projects: (1) interview a person who was raised for all of most of their childhood in a culture outside of the United States and be prepared to present and discuss your findings in class; (2) research a historical popular press book or magazine article on some issue in child rearing (e.g., discipline, feeding, sleeping) and compare it to current thinking in a short in-class oral presentation. Grading: Grades will be based on student participation in discussions and oral presentations (60% weekly participation; 20% interview project; 20% historical project).

About the Instructor: Professor Kristin Lagattuta is a member of the faculty in the department of psychology. Her research focuses on the development of social cognition in early childhood—particularly young children’s knowledge about connections between mental states and emotions. Some current projects include: young children’s causal knowledge about worry, children’s understanding about decision-making and emotions in rule situations, children’s beliefs about mental and behavioral strategies for coping with fear, and early concepts about prayer, emotion, and coping.