Greener Journal of Educational Research Vol. 10(1), pp. 12-25, 2020 ISSN: 2276-7789 Copyright ©2020, the copyright of this article
is retained by the author(s) |
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Dimensions of African Cultural Heritage on the
Psycho-Emotional Development of Children:
Modelling the Emerging Theory of Indigenous Emotion Regulation
Adjustment by P F. Shey and Tani E. Lukong (2018).
Tani Emmanuel Lukong Ph.D
Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty
of Education, University of Buea, Cameroon
ARTICLE INFO |
ABSTRACT |
Article No.: 020220032 Type: Research |
Issues connected with child development are appearing on national and
international agendas with greater prominence and frequency. However, the
international image of children is becoming increasingly homogeneous and
Western-derived, with an associated erosion of the diversity of child
contexts. The discipline of child development has long been criticised for
its failure to appreciate the importance of culture in its formulations. To
provide a useful picture of Africa’s early childhood ideas and practices, an
understanding of the indigenous patterns of childcare arrangements is
required. In the African context, children play a critical role in their own
development, and have a responsibility for their own ‘self-education.’
Indigenous pedagogy permits toddlers and youngsters to learn in
participatory processes in the home, community, religious service, peer
culture, and other activity settings through ‘work-play’ activities, with
little to no explicit didactic support. They are expected to demonstrate
competence and learning at key points of life, but often without direct
instruction. The operative approach that facilitates a growth in emotional,
intellectual and functional abilities is not instruction but participatory
pedagogy. They take part in on-going activities as well as observing and
learning from adults. This paper critically portrays the role of African
cultural heritage in promoting context specific competences in children to
adapt and effectively regulate their emotions. Ponderings and articulations of
this paper are anchored on the emerging theory of indigenous emotion
regulation adjustment by P F. Shey and Tani E. Lukong (2018). The author
conclude that his role is to introduce a ‘stutter’ into a powerful
international narrative, thereby creating a space for other ideas and
perspectives, in this case from Africa, to be heard and considered. it
reiterate the need for the Minority World to help the Majority World in its
quest for child well-being, by supporting Africa’s efforts to hear its own
voices and seek its own way forward.
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Accepted: 04/02/2020 Published: 11/04/2020 |
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*Corresponding Author Tani Emmanuel Lukong E-mail: elukongt@ gmail.com |
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Keywords: |
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Children grow up in a developmental
niche as part of the broader culture. The socialization goals for emotion regulation
aim to foster the development of culturally acceptable emotional behaviours
which adhere to cultural values. The resulting cultural fit can be understood
as cultural emotional competence (Friedlmeier & Trommsdorff, 2002).
However, research on emotion regulation and related concepts is usually based
on Western studies, usually of adult (student) samples from WEIRD (Western,
Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies (Heckman, J. J. and
Masterov, D. V. 2004). Therefore, studying emotion regulation
adjustment during childhood and adolescence in an indigenous setting should
orient on new perspectives for socialization.
Research in early adolescents peer relations provides
evidence suggesting that social competence is a necessary construct for
cultural adjustment across the lifespan (Parker, 1998). Specifically,
children's social and emotional adjustments have been linked to social
competence within the general peer group, as well as within friendship
relations. Theoretical assertions have associated the importance of healthy
peer relations and social competence with social and emotional well-being in
adolescence and later adulthood. Unfortunately, empirical investigation of this
hypothesis is limited primarily to short-term longitudinal research across
single developmental transitions (e.g. late adolescence to adulthood). This
paper fills this gap with a long-term, follow-up in which the developmental
significance of social competence and problem solving skills can be assessed
Tani. E. Lukong, (2017).
Adolescence
is a great opportunity for researchers to examine emotion regulation because of
the physical, psychological, and social transformations that occur during this developmental
stage. A major ability to adjust emotional developmental task involves
acquiring. For example, learning to regulate anger or frustration through peer
interaction, modelling and guided participation which allows individuals to
persist at tasks even when they encounter obstacles to their goals (e.g. in a
school or during cultural activities).
In contrast, there is little research
particularly in Cameroon on how indigenous socialisation strategies are
directly linked to early adolescence emotion regulation adjustment. The emotion
self-regulation ability of early adolescents thus has not been examined
systematically in previous studies. This book aimed to examine the interplay
among specific indicators of indigenous strategies of socialization such as
indigenous proverbs, and indigenous games within an eco-cultural setting which
dictate emotion regulation adjustment with ardent attention on social
competence and problem solving through an indigenised conceptual model of the
Nso people of Cameroon. Thus, social competence and problem solving skills are
the main indicators of Emotion regulation adjustment that this study focused
on.
Cultural heritage is
disappearing from many African and Cameroonian communities often due to rapid
changes in their lifestyle which is also hindering the process of transferring
knowledge from the elders to younger members of the community. According to
Shey and Lukong, (2018), there are four main factors that are contributing to
the extinction of cultural heritage in Cameroon especially among the Nso
people:
1)
Local communities have not
been sensitised to know how important is the knowledge they possess as they
consider their own cultural heritage as backward and as a hindrance to them in
accessing economic wealth;
2)
Many communities do not
know how to go about identifying and protecting their knowledge systems;
3)
There are no specific
national laws that help communities protect their knowledge systems in a way
that reflects their traditions and customs;
4)
The deterioration in the
use of indigenous languages in everyday conversation.
As signatory to the UNESCO
Convention for the safeguarding cultural heritage (2003), Cameroon is now
required by Article 12 (section 1) of the convention to undertake an inventory
of all the cultural heritage sites present in the country, which should be
regularly updated. For this reason, there is need to map out existing types of
cultural heritage in Cameroon to know their status and initiate measures for
protection and enhancement.
There is therefore the need
to re-emphasise the role played by culture in shaping what constitutes social
behaviour within African cultures and Cameroon in particular. This need was
echoed by the 1995 National Education Forum in Cameroon. According to the forum
documents (Tchombe, M. T (2006)), the neglect of local and
national cultural values especially as concerns languages, was named as one of
the reasons, inter alia, that justified the holding of the 1995 National Educational
Forum. The Forum focused on the definition of the place of national languages
and cultures in the education system. As a follow up to the 1995 National
Education Forum, Law No 98/004 of 14th April 1998 states in section 5 (1), (3)
and (8) that the objectives of education shall be to train citizens who are
firmly rooted in their cultures, but open to the world, and respectful of the
general interest and common will; promote national languages and provide
physical, sports, artistic and cultural training for the child.
More significantly,
Cameroon’s many ethnic groups have a well-developed and sophisticated folklore
which embodies their history, traditions, world view and wisdom. Their legends
recount the movement of people to and from the rift valley, into the highlands,
the grasslands and the lake regions to their present settlements (Argenti,
2010).
The African continent is culturally complex and fluid
with diverse cultures, natural environment and different ways of living, but
sub-Saharan Africa is generally known for its rich oral traditions and proverbs
which are the most widely and commonly used in this tradition of oral arts.
Cultural value orientations concerning interpersonal relationships and emotions
help to create and enforce norms concerning emotion regulation, which in all
cultures serve the purpose of maintaining social order (Argentti, 2010).
Personality and early experiences with caregivers lay the
foundations for interpersonal relationships, and adolescence is the time when
individuals first begin to test the stability of this foundation by
establishing significant relationships outside of the family (Shey and Lukong,
2018). An adolescent’s success in these new relationships is rooted in his or
her ability to regulate emotional experiences, even as he or she spends
increasing time away from direct contact with the caregivers who, in ideal
circumstances, provide the foundations of emotion regulation.
Historically, there has been much debate
about the function of emotions. For example, Hebb saw emotions as neural
activation states without a function. However, recent research provides
evidence that emotions are functional. Emotions have a facilitating function in
decision making (Oatley and Johnson- Laird, 1987), prepare a person for rapid
motor responses (Frijda, 1986), and provide information regarding the on-going
match between organism and environment (Schwarz and Clore, 1983).
Emotions also have a social function. They
provide us information about others’ behavioural intentions, and script our
social behaviour (Davis, P. M. 1991).
Social functions of proverbs include (1) explain human behaviour, (2) serve as
a guide for moral conduct, (3) explain social behaviour, (4) serve to ensure or
criticize conduct, (5) give shrewd advice on how to deal with situations, (6)
express egalitarian views, and (7) express finer human qualities or emotions,
such as generosity. Thus, proverbs serve as a basic teaching tool and a
fundamental means for approaching life for the oral culture.
In the past two decades, psychological
research has started to focus more on emotion
regulation (Thompson, 1990). In brief, emotion regulation is the process
humans undertake in order to affect their emotional response. Recent
neurological findings (such as bidirectional links between limbic centres,
which generate emotion, and cortical centres, which regulate emotion) have
changed the consensus that emotion regulation is a simple, top-down controlled
process Gross, J. J. (1998)
Emotion regulation is
defined “as the process of initiating, avoiding inhibiting maintaining, or
modulating the occurrence, form, intensity, or duration of internal feeling
states, emotion related physiological, attentional processes, motivational
states, and/or behavioural concomitants of emotion in the service of
accomplishing affect-related biological or social adaptation or achieving
individual goals” (Eisenberg & Spinard, 2004). These researchers highlighted
the fact that children’s effortful control, children's emotion regulation is
common in developmental research. Effortful control has been found to be a
measurable key component of emotion regulation (Erny,
P. 1981).
Interest in emotion regulation has a long history, yet
the field only began to emerge as an independent field of scientific study in
the last decades of the 20th century (Gross, 1998). Since then, the field has
grown exponentially, as is evident in the number of scientific publications, books,
conferences, and training programs that are now devoted to the topic. The field
of emotion regulation is no longer emerging, it is maturing. This maturation
brings with it a shift. Different questions come into focus, novel questions
arise, and different challenges come to the forefront. This special section
reflects the shift that is taking place as the field matures.
Early contributions to the field of emotion regulation
originated in the developmental literature (Campos, Campos, & Barrett, 1989),
and were quickly pursued by research in the adult literature. Research on
emotion regulation has continued somewhat independently within these two
traditions since then (Thompson, 2007). This disconnect may have been due, in
part, to the fact that, within each tradition, researchers were working on
establishing emotion regulation as an independent topic worthy of attention.
Several decades of research have resulted in an impressive body of knowledge
and a deeper understanding of the nature of emotion regulation. This ripening
of the field carries with it two important implications.
First, there is no longer doubt that emotion regulation
has important consequences for health and adaptive functioning. Instead, the
field is now ripe for bridging different perspectives by uncovering and
evaluating the basic assumptions that are guiding each perspective. Since
emotion regulation concerns the regulation of emotion, any theory of emotion
regulation is necessarily derived from basic assumptions about the nature of
emotion. Such assumptions dictate the conceptualization of emotion regulation
and the research questions that follow (Campos et al., 1989). To facilitate
progress and integration, it is important to explicitly identify core
assumptions about the nature of emotion and understand how they shape different
programmes of research in the field.
Secondly, research on emotion regulation is no longer a
subsidiary of research on emotion. Instead, research on emotion regulation now
holds the promise of informing our understanding of emotion. As research in the
field becomes more integrative and interdisciplinary it could potentially test
assumptions about emotion. To illustrate the two points highlighted earlier, A
large proportion of adolescents suffer different maladaptive problems such as
depression, suicidal attempts (Burton, N. (2008), aggressiveness and antisocial
behaviour (Straub,
J. (2006).There is a clear and well established
relationship between parental behaviours during their children’s childhood and
early adolescence and their children’s maladjustment during late adolescence.
Children’s emotional competence is a key
skill-set in early adolescents, supporting children’s development of social
skills and affecting their risk for maladjustment. Emotional competence in
early years consists of children’s ability to express and regulate emotion
consistent with cultural or societal expectations and children’s ability to
understand the causes and consequences of their own and others’ emotions
(Camras, &Witherington, 2006).
Social competence in early adolescents is
best understood as children’s ability to engage in social interaction, attain
social goals, make and maintain friendships, and achieve peer acceptance
(Parker, 2006). Emotional competence underpins children’s social competence in
that successful social interaction and friendship formation requires that
children express and regulate their emotions appropriately while applying their
knowledge of emotions to respond properly to peers’ emotions and behaviours
(Denham, 1990).
Conversely, delays or disruptions in early
adolescents’ development of emotional competencies have serious, negative
implications for children’s transition to peer contexts like college) (McCarthy
& Chabay, 2000. Children with poor emotional competence and who lack social
skills have more difficulty forming peer relationships and benefit less from
the educational environment of school than do children with stronger emotional
and social skills (Foster & Hester, 2000).
A growing body of evidence suggests that
children’s emotions and emotion-related processes influence emerging social
competencies and emotional/behavioural maladjustment. For instance, socially
competent children demonstrate appropriate levels of positive affect during
social exchanges, and such positive affect facilitates the initiation of social
exchanges and friendship formation (Denham, 1990). Additionally, children who
are able to adaptively regulate negative emotions and balance their expression
of positive and negative affect maintain social relationships better
(Fabes& Eisenberg, 1992) and are viewed as friendlier, less aggressive, and
less sad by their teachers (Denham & Burger, 1991).
Emotionally competent children also are better
liked by their peers (Denham, 1990) and are more likely to respond pro-socially
to peers’ emotions In contrast, children who experience difficulties
controlling their expression of negative emotion tend to have difficulty
managing their anger during conflict situations, making them poor play partners
(Denham et al., 2003). Likewise, children who express high levels of negative
emotions are rated by teachers as less socially competent and are more likely
to experience peer rejection (Denham et al., 2003). Clearly, children’s
emotions and emotional competence play a significant role in their
relationships with peers.
Parents all over the world hold specific
beliefs about proper care and handling of children (Pence, A. and McCallum M.
1994). These parental ideas or parental ethno
theories (Super & Harkness, 1996) may be assumed to express conceptions on
the nature of children, parenting, and development, specifying how to become a
competent adult in a respective environment (Deeds & Chung, 1999). Thus, ideas
about childcare practices are related to developmental goals. Although
inter-individual differences are prevalent with respect to parenting goals and
practices in every culture (Denham et al., 2003).
Independent and interdependent construal’s of the self as
individual value orientations are understood by developmentalists as specifying
different developmental goals which are correlated with different socialisation
contexts and parenting styles during different stages of development (Shwederet al., 1998). Parental
ethno-theories may thus be conceived of as the mediating links between these
cultural meta-models and behavioural contexts and practices (Harknesset al., 2000).
It may therefore be expected that cultural communities
who differ with respect to these value orientations also differ with respect to
the nature of parental ethno theories. Differences in cultural expectations for
the timing of developmental milestones have further supported differences in
the attention to behaviours which may be related to independent and
interdependent value orientations (e.g. an early focus on cognitive
achievements as compared to an early focus on social achievements; autonomous
as compared to symbiotic relational orientations; (Harkness et al., 2000).
Culture provides meaning to intend and to actually
demonstrated behaviours and its consequences including emotional responses;
these interpretations affect future behaviour orientation. The main features of
culture are a homogeneous set of shared values, norms, and beliefs. Since time
immemorial Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKSs) were used by societies in Africa
and the rest of the world for various purposes, depending on the needs of the
society in question. Until recently, IKs were colonised by other knowledge’s
from outside indigenous communities Lukong (2015).
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the advent of colonisation brought
in foreign knowledges, the so-called “scientific knowledge” that denigrated IKs
as unscientific, untried and untested for education and social development.
African tribal groups are historically oral societies, where verbal modes of
communication help people to point to what they meant and say what they could
not put into written words. Theirs is a world where sounds carry ideas and
images without any other intermediary in the process of communication. They
picture ideas and images vividly in their mind’s eyes rather than through
letters and written words. This shows that the world of “orality”is a world of
talk. One strong underlying factor behind the African oral custom has to do
with the fact that the origins of most of the African tribal groups are
involved in obscurity. As such, the commonly received accounts are for the most
part purely legendary. Also, many of their languages were unwritten and all
that is known is from traditions carefully handed down through traditional
historians, who are family members and functioned as historical storage and
transmission.
In a typical African family, the elders would
gather the young people and children around the fireplace at night and narrate
the stories, histories, and events that made them a proud and memorable people.
Through these verbal arts, Africans transmit their beliefs, heritage, values,
and other important information. So among the Africans, these forms of verbal
arts are extremely important and effective means of communication, which have
provided the following generations with wisdom.
In every cultural community, parents want to
pass on strategies that will promote the survival of their children and foster
their cultural competence (Keller, 2003, 2007). Socialisation strategies embody
cultural curricula (Nsamenang, 1992) that represent the accumulated knowledge
of prior generations within that environment. Socialisation strategies are
hierarchically patterned. The most abstract level consists of socialization
goals that express the developmental achievements that parents aim at, such as
becoming an autonomous, self-reliant individual and/or becoming a socially
interrelated person who is able to maintain harmony in their relationships.
Socialization goals are translated into a system of parental ideas beliefs
(Cheah & Chirkov, 2008), or ethno theories (Super & Harkness, 1996).
These ideas are expressed in behavioural strategies, consisting of contexts or
activity settings with actual behavioural interactions and communications.
To understand emotional regulation adjustment
in cultural context, we need to compare environments that differ in eco-social
characteristics and reproductive strategies. It is assumed that different
environmental conditions are represented in different cultural models. We
expect that these differences are expressed in different socialisation
strategies of emotion evaluation with consequences for children’s development
of emotion regulation. The Nso eco-social context is represented in traditional
farming villages ‘void of–Western world experiences of technological advancement.
The economy is subsistence based with little economic diversity among families
and clans. The population is small scale, with person-to-person interactions in
a dense social network. Formal education, if at all available, is basic.
Lifestyle is characterized by hierarchical family systems based on age, gender
and communal work. Reproduction starts early and comprises of many offspring
(Keller, 2007).
The Cameroonian Nso farmers represent such a
traditional farming community. The average rural Nso family consists of about
seven members with about three living children(Keller, 2007). Mothers’ age at
first birth is between17 and 20 years (Argentti, 2010). Mothers have about
seven years of formal education with fathers sometime seven less (Keller, 2007;
Yovsi, 2003). Nso people are governed by Cameroonian national authorities but
also reined by their own traditional rulers, who are organised along a strict
hierarchy with the “Fon” representing the highest local authority.
Religious and philosophical concepts have
their place within Nso traditional worldviews. Cosmovision, to a large extent
according to a typical Nso indigene, dictates the way land, water, plants,
humans and animals are to be used. It also prescribes how inhabitants are to
behave, how decisions are taken, problems are solved. and how rural people
organise themselves in meeting community goals. Obviously, Christianity, Islam
and western education have influenced the cosmovision of the Nso people
especially those with formal education. For the Nso people in the North West
region of Cameroon, the human world, the natural world and the spiritual world
are linked.
Source:
Tani. E. Lukong 2015 (developed from elders’
Explanation
of Nso cosmic order).
The natural world provides the habitat for
the spirits and sends messages from the spiritual world to the human world. The
spiritual world provides guidance, punishment and blessing to the human world.
People therefore have to relate to both the natural and the spiritual world.
Indigenous knowledge is thus intertwined with the Nso cosmic notion and
adherence to their cultural values.
According to the Nso people, the spiritual
world (Gods, spirits, ancestors), the human world (including spiritual and
political leaders), and the natural world (sacred groves, ritual crops and
animals, food items and cash crops) are interrelated. Often a hierarchy between
divine beings, spiritual beings, men and women, and natural forces are
frequently indicated. These cosmovisions give rise to several rituals in which
elders, priests, soothsayers and spiritual leaders play a prominent role. This
explanation is related to this study in that, virtually all principles and ways
dictated by such natural rules as handed down from generation to generation
shape not just parenting qualities, but also how children need to behave and
relate with one another in a peaceful manner.
Emotions are closely interwoven with
experiences, evaluations, and regulations of self, relationships, and
situations. Thus, the socio-cultural context constitutes the meaning and the
expression of emotions (Markus & Kitayama, 1991. The expression of positive
emotionality can consequently be understood as the foundation of individual
uniqueness and independence. On the one hand, while Emotional neutrality and
control of emotional displays; on the other hand, can be understood as the
instantiation of social relatedness and interdependence. We therefore regard
the expression of positive emotionality as a vital part of a socialization
strategy toward autonomy. We expect that the expression of emotionality is not
supported as a valued behavioural expression in the socialization strategy
toward relatedness.
The interrelated value orientation that has
been developed mainly with respect to East Asian cultures (Markus &
Kitayama, 1991) has also been identified in traditional rural areas across
other parts of the world. Also traditional African cultures in general (Zimba,
2002) and the cultural community of the Nso in Cameroon in particular
(Nsamenang, 1992; Nsamenang & Lamb, 1994; Tchombe, 1997; Yovsi, 2001) have
been described in terms of a high appreciation of interrelatedness in their
conceptions of relationships and competence .
The documentation of family life and
socialisation patterns among the Nso cultural community reflects a high esteem
of harmonious and hierarchically organized relationships between family members
and a wide social reference group, mostly the village. Childcare is aimed at
instilling acceptance of the moral authority of parents and obedience (Yovsi,
2001). Compliance, conformity, and respect are the major socialisation
instructions (Yovsi & Keller, 2001). Mothers, especially primiparae, are
often taught basic child psychology by elderly and experienced women or by
their mothers-in-law. These instructions range from spiritual communication to
health concerns, when, for example, body movements, especially during sleep,
are believed to express messages from the ancestors identifying specific
signals of illnesses.
The infancy or ‘wan’ period sees the child
under the strict surveillance and overprotection of the mother, siblings,
grandmother, and other family and community members. The child undergoes
traditional rituals as he or she proceeds through infancy (e.g. burial of the
placenta, ritual messaging, bathing and oiling) which is believed to influence
the life of the child and the mother.
The infant is carried almost the whole day on
the lap, back and loins of his or her caretakers and co-sleeps with the mother
and the other siblings. A special sensitivity exists towards negative signals
of the child which are attended to immediately, mainly with breastfeeding. A
major focus is being laid on motor stimulation which is supposed to contribute
to the development of muscle strength and early achievement of motor milestones
(Yovsi &Voelker, 2002; Super, 1981). Early motor competence is considered
to support children’s responsibility training enabling them to contribute early
on to the subsistence of the family by performing daily chores.
From an African point of view, a sense of self is only
attained through the community in terms of being interconnected and enacting
one’s social role (Nsamenang, 2006). Identity is defined in terms of status in
lineage, clan, and community (Mbaku, 2005). Development is interpreted as the
acquisition and growth of competencies required to fully engaging in society
and family life. Children are expected to assume social responsibility as a
primary value and children’s competencies are defined in accordance with their
social maturity. Intelligence is conceived as responsibility and social
maturity, not an abstract, cognitive ability (Nsamenang, 1992b).
The majority of the Nso can be considered to represent a
typical non-Western society, following an interdependent cultural model aiming
at interconnecting individuals in the community. However, influences of the
Western world are found in various domains as well. Whilst it is plausible to
treat the Nso as a community extremely different from Western societies, it is
at the same time necessary to take a careful look at variances within the Nso
community. Social changes due to modern globalisation seem to have had an
impact on the traditional family structure and gender roles. Shifting observed
and described by Mbaku (2005) are a decrease in family size, an increase in
female participation in the labour market, the emergence of new childrearing
patterns influenced by Western ideas, and accelerated migration from rural to
urban areas. The older generation believes that children should be seen but not
heard, i.e. not question parental advice. The younger generation of Nso parents
admit children to be seen and heard, i.e. they allow children to have their own
opinion.
In less than ideal developmental
circumstances, emotion regulation may fail to develop adequately, and
adolescents may find themselves in states of periodic or chronic dys-regulation
that are implicated in adolescent internalising and externalizing problems.
Morris and colleagues (2007) proposed a theoretical model that grounded emotion
regulation between developmental circumstances and adolescent adjustment.
Specifically, they emphasized the importance of emotion regulation as a
mediating factor between multiple aspects of adolescent development (e.g.
adolescent temperament, parenting, attachment, and observational learning) and
adolescent adjustment (including internalising and externalizing symptoms;
Steinberg, 2007).
Emotion
regulation has been described as a complex, multifaceted phenomenon which
develops through the integration of several behavioural and biological
processes (Thompson &Goodwin, 2007). It involves intrinsic and extrinsic
processes that operate to monitor, evaluate and modify emotional reactions,
especially intensive and temporal features, to accomplish one's goals.
Intrinsic and extrinsic processes can be thought of as physiological,
cognitive, behavioural, and social human processes, that represent individual
response domains within an individual or in connection to his/her environment
(Garber & Dodge, 1991). Therefore, the terms processes and domains within
the emotion regulation framework become interchangeable. A number of theories
address adolescents’ socio-emotional development, but for the purpose of this
book, we focus on the Emerging Theory of Indigenous Emotion Regulation
Adjustment (Shey and. Lukong, 2015).
This theory is developed on the premise that,
Cultures are not homogenous entities, and socialisation and developmental
outcomes can comprise distinctive and relational facets depending on
situational conditions (Shey and Lukong, 2018), The development of the
proposed theory of emotion regulation adjustment reavels and presents yet
another paradigm shift in conceptualising socialisation processes in a
naturally and cosmic dimension. This model was developed mainly based on the
findings revealed by the socialisation strategies exhibited by Nso people of
the North West Region of Cameroon. The theorythus is consistence in
explaining the link between major concepts of African Epistemology such as
indigenous strategies of socialization and emotion regulation adjustment within
a cultural setting. The indigenous theory of emotion regulation
adjustment was consistently tested through the following hypotheses alongside
intensive ethnographic study among the Nso people. The hypotheses include:
1)
Children’s emotional competence can be
represented as a cultural function consisting of children’s emotional expressiveness,
emotion regulation, and emotion understanding of indigenous values and norms.
2)
Elders and Parents’ socialisation behaviours
through communal apprenticeship process significantly is related to children’s
acquisition social competence and contextually approved behaviours.
Specifically, parents’ supportive socialization behaviours will be positively
related to children’s social competence, negatively related to children’s
internalizing problems and externalizing problems within cultural settings.
3)
Culturally supportive emotion socialisation
behaviors will be positively related to children’s emotional competence.
4)
Children’s emotional competence will be
positively related to children’s social competence, negatively related to
children’s internalising and externalizing unapproved cultural behaviours.
5)
Children’s emotional competence will mediate
relationships between indigenous socialization strategies and emotion
regulation adjustment
The theory posits that,
cultural values and norms that enhance culturally acceptable behaviours are the
first context in which children learn about emotions and serve as a rehearsal
stage for children’s developing emotional skills. These relationships are
enhanced through contextual processes such as guided participation, role
modelling, direct instruction etc. This proposed theory by the author or
researcher is supported by an abundance of empirical work which has linked
children’s social, emotional, and behavioural adjustment both in terms of
competencies and maladjustment with the quality of cultural parenting values
received during the early childhood that promotes children’s emotional, social,
and even cognitive development during adolescence (Steinberg, 2007).
The major functions of culture
is to maintain social order, cultures create rules, guidelines, and norms
concerning emotion regulation because emotions serve as primary motivators of
behaviour and have important social functions. The proposed indigenous theory of emotion regulation adjustment
posits that, early adolescence like any life span developmental stage, relies
remendously on emotional competence, a keyskill set embedded within the
cultural milieu which helps in supporting children’s ability to regulate their
emotions through indigenous socialization strategies such as proverbs,
traditional games, folktales, storytelling, legends etc.
These culturally sensitive
strategies of socialisation were observed among Nso people as accelerators and
enhancers of social competence skills, problem solving skills and affecting
their potentials for cultural adaptation and integration. Based on the study,
emotional competence in early adolescence consisted of children’s ability to
express and regulate emotion consistent with parental/societal expectations and
children’s ability to understand the causes and consequences of their own and
others’ emotions.
Social
competence and problem solving skills in early adolescence was best understood as
children’s ability to engage in social interaction, attain social goals, make
and maintain friendships, and achieve peer acceptance through their constant
engagement in the playing of indigenous games. Emotional competence underpins
early adolescence social competence in that, successful social interaction with
elders, parents and friendship formation requires that children express and
regulate their emotions appropriately while applying their knowledge of
emotions to respond properly to peers’ emotions and behaviours (Shey and
Lukong, 2018). Conversely, delays or disruptions in children’s development of
emotional competencies have serious, negative implications for early
adolescence transition to peer contexts during indigenous games, storytelling,
folktales, legends (Shey and Lukong, 2018).
Early
adolescence with poor emotional competence and who lack social competence in
areas of sensitivity to others’ needs, humility, respect for elders, sense of
appreciation, self-awareness, self-control, role modelling, collaborative
spirit, sense of collectivity, sense of unity, tolerance, and care for elders
have more difficulty forming peer relationships and benefit less from the
educational environment of elders which is abundantly rich in cultural norms,
values and enhance culturally acceptable behaviours than do children with
stronger emotional and social competence and problem solving skills. (Shey and
Lukong, 2018).
Accordingly,
cultural values and norms that enhance culturally acceptable behaviours are the
first context in which children learn about emotions and serve as a rehearsal
stage for children’s developing emotional skills. These relationships are
enhanced through contextual processes such as guided participation, role
modelling, direct instruction etc. This theory is supported by an abundance of
empirical work which has linked children’s social, emotional, and behavioural
adjustment both in terms of competencies and maladjustment with the quality of
cultural parenting values received during the early childhood that promotes
children’s emotional, social, and even cognitive development during adolescence
(Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, & Swank, 1998; Landry, Smith, Swank, Assel,
& Vellet, 2001).
Supportive cultural values
of problem solving skills such as (avoidance, forgiveness, compromise,
dialogue, solicit for elders) embedded in a positive affective indigenous
environment predicts lower levels of externalizing problems solving potentials.
Though responsive, sensitive parenting and consistent supportive discipline are
frequently studied dimensions of parenting, such general parenting practices
have been proven as poor predictors of children’s emotional competencies as
outlined by (Tchombe and Lukong, 2015)..
Based on this theory,
parents’ responses to children’s emotions are parenting styles embedded within
the Nso culture, such emotion-related parenting behaviours were conceptualized
as part of parents’ emotional socialization patterns learned from indigenous
knowledge system. Parents socialize children’s emotions through their responses
to children’s emotions, their discussion of emotion, and by providing models of
how to express and regulate emotions. Nso cultural parenting values teach
children through indigenous socialization strategies, emotional competence and
reduce children’s risk for emotional/behavioural maladjustment by teaching
children how to understand and adaptively manage/express emotions in a variety
of situations.
Alternately,
adolescence who fails to learn cultural values and norms through proverbs and
indigenous games, their emotional competence are likely to have poorer social
competence, problem solving skills and greater emotional/behavioural
instability. Therefore, emotional competence according to the theory involves
the ability to recognise and understand one’s contextual emotions and the
emotions of others as well as the ability to regulate, express, and use one’s
emotions in culturally/socially appropriate, adaptive ways. (Shey and Lukong,
2018).
The
theory further states that, If adolescence emotional competence mediates the
impact of indigenous emotion-related socialisation practices on adolescence
social competence and problem solving competence, then intervention efforts
that enhance both emotion-related cultural emotional competence may be most
successful in promoting children’s social competence, problem solving skills
and reduce risk for emotional/behavioural problems.
Figure
4, depicts the emerging theory guiding the present investigation and specifies
how indigenous socialisation strategies enhance emotional competence in
adolescence. Specifically, Nso cultural values model emotional competences,
that are supportive and encouraging strategies in response to their children’s
emotions, help their children understand emotions and are more
culturally/socially competent with fewer emotional / behavioural problems. Nso
elders and parents socialized adaptive emotional expression, emotion regulation
skills, and emotional understanding through proverbs, storytelling, myths, legends,
cultural music and dances, cultural festivals, and indigenous games which
demonstrate greater emotional competence among their children. Higher levels of
emotional competence through social competence and problem solving skills,
supports children’s social competence, such that, emotionally competent
children should be better able to compromise, share, and maintain positive
interactions with peers and have fewer adjustment problems within their
cultural settings. (Shey and Lukong, 2018).
Indigenous
socialisation strategies among Nso people (oral tradition) are key constituent
of children’s everyday life and the means through which they participate in the
process of knowledge production and transmission. Through interpretation of
oral tradition, children produce knowledge and are able to regulate their
emotions effectively in the process of socialisation, during interaction,
children transmit knowledge in adherence to their specific cultural values that
promote not only emotion regulation adjustment, but also contribute to their
holistic development within the ecological setting. In this process, children
make oral tradition part of their everyday life and understand their social
world through it. It was also revealed that, rural children are embedded in intricate
cultural practices, social orders and practices of generation-based division of
labour and social responsibility. (Shey and Lukong, 2018). At the heart of the
theory is the emerging concept of “Interdependent Reciprocal Determinism”. This
concept is an integral part of the emotion regulation adjustment theory which
described the stage of emotion regulation adjustment alongside mechanisms that
aid in procuring the optimal stage of “cultural selfhood”.
(Shey
and Lukong, 2018)
Shey and Lukong, 2018, through the concept of Interdependent Reciprocal
Determinism, recognizes the prominence of communal relationships that occur
amid social competence, emotional competence and emotion socialisation. The
discrete (cognitive), and the eco-cultural dynamics stimuli in understanding
how individuals learn to adhere to cultural norms, and values. To him,
emotional competence in childhood consists of children’s
symbiotic/interdependent ability to express and regulate emotions consistent
with cultural/parental/societal expectations and children’s ability to
understand the traditional sources and significances of their own and others’
emotions (Shey
and Lukong, 2018). Thus, Social competence in childhood is
best understood as children’s ability to engross in social interaction, attain
cultural goals, make and maintain friendships, and achieve communal and peer
acceptance. Emotional competence which underpins children’s social competence
is based on successful cultural interaction and friendship formation through
indigenous socialisation dynamics which requires children to express and
regulate their emotions properly while applying their mastery of indigenous
knowledge on emotions to respond properly to emic realities (Shey and Lukong, 2018).
Conversely, delays or disruptions in children’s
development of emotional competencies have serious, negative implications for
children’s transition to eco-cultural selfhood and peer contexts like the
exhibition of knowledge acquisition in traditional routines, norms and values
that shape the Nso people understanding of the cosmos metaphysical (ontology)
and the cultural cosmology which emanates from the physical, human/social and spiritual situations of indigenous Nso
societies. We must however note that these three indigenous contents do not
exist in isolation. Children with poor emotional competence who by extension
lack the true acquisition of indigenous socialization skills have more
difficulty forming not only peer relationships but communal dynamics of
cultural integration and thus cannot perform certain traditional rite and
rituals. Those are called cultural neonates (Lukong, 2018).
According to the theory, Parents, compound heads,
cultural diviners, chiefs etc socialise children’s emotions through their
responses to children’s emotions, their discussion and understanding of
emotion, and by providing models of how to express and regulate emotions based
on contextual priming and initiation to ontological beliefs (Shey and Lukong, 2018). Quite possibly, Nso communities that specifically
teaches children cherished ontologies about cosmic dimension deemed relevant
for the acquisition of eco-cultural selfhood both promotes emotional
socialisation, social competence, emotional competence and reduces children’s risk of becoming cultural
neonates for the rest of their lives. It is imperative to note that the concept
of cultural neonate is not developmentally restricted to a particular age.
Adults like children could be considered cultural neonates. This stage is
characterize of poor emotion regulation adjustment, which is vivid in lack of
symbiotic/interdependent priming. Therefore teaching children how to understand
and adaptively manage/express emotions in a variety of eco-cultural situations
is imperative for eco-cultural selfhood. Consecutively, indigenous communities who
fail to foster children’s emotional competence are likely to have children who
are cultural neonates (Shey
and Lukong, 2018).
Therefore, the theory of Emotion Regulation
Adjustment addresses how, throughout an eco-cultural milieu, children are
co-participants in social and cultural life. The theory anchors human aptitude
to regulate contextual emotions as partly determined by the social ecology in
which the development occurs and by how the human being learns and develops
through the understanding and adherence to the world around them. A major
concept of Emotion Regulation Adjustment theory is Interdependent Reciprocal Determinism, defined as the ability to
emotionally regulate culturally satisfactory behaviours which largely depend on
symbiotic/interdependent contextual understanding (Attentation) of the
ancestral forces emanating from the physical, human/social and spiritual
situations. The interaction between emotion socialisation, social competence
and emotional competence are culturally interdependent (Shey and Lukong, 2018). The process
depicts individual development as a function of more social and with less
biological tenets. The non-exclusion of nature assumes that biology to a lesser
degree underpins Interdependent Reciprocal Determinism.
The biological camaraderie that the human
species share in the genetic code plays out into a mystifying diversity of
specific individuality across eco-cultures. Thus, contextualist theorists
stress how different emic pathways and intelligences are situated in the
socio-ecological contexts and cultural systems in which children are nurtured.
The empirical grounding of this theory is based on data from the Nso people of
Cameroon, with supportive evidence in other parts of Africa. For example the
universality of social ontogenesis offers an innovative impetus to
conceptualize and generate developmental knowledge that empowers. It is a
learning paradigm that permits the study of human development in the context of
children’s engagement of cognition when they are participants in cultural
communities. This can expand visions and databases beyond restrictive
Eurocentric grids (Nsamenang, 2005). The embedded knowledge, skills, and values
children learn from these curricula are not compartmentalized into this or that
activity, knowledge, or skill domain, but are massed together as integral to
social interaction, cultural life, economic activities, and daily routines
(Nsamenang, in 2005).
According to Shey and Lukong, 2018, the theory of indigenous Emotion Regulation Adjustment
is based on five emic stages. These stages are interrelated and interwoven. The
usage of developmental ages to connote various stages is simply for
comprehention purposes. Indigenous stages of emotion regulation adjustment are
not static. A child or an adult at any stage could demonstrate tenets of other
stages. Spiritual-transitional ceremonies are evident in all the five stages.
These are:
1)
Spiritual initiationhood
2)
Communal apprentiship
3)
Symbiotic/interdependent attentation
4)
Cosmic authentication and
5)
Eco-cultural selfhood
Stage One: (Birth to
Approximately 7years) Spiritual initiationhood
According to the emotion regulation
adjustment theory, there are symbolic routines and repetitive activities and
actions through which Nso People make connections with what they consider to be
the most valuable dimension of life (cosmic realities eg ancestral
interventions). They are associated with significant events or places in
individual and communal lives. Spiritual initiations/rituals set aside specific
times and places and provide us opportunity to ponder their meaning and to
connect emotionally. Such spiritual meaningfulness include: birth/naming rites, adulthood rites, marriage rites, eldership rites, and ancestorship rites. Through such
initiations, Nso children are accepted and dedicated to the ancestral world
using the newborn name to connote blessings, cohesion, love, peace, etc.
According to this theory, the process of spiritual intuition is a lifelong one
which is interwoven in the other processes.
This is a stage in which neophytes advance
their skills and understanding through participation with more skilled partners
in culturally organized activities. The extended value of the apprenticeship
prototypical is that it includes more people than a single expert and a single
novice: the apprenticeship system often involves a group of novices (peers) or
elders who serve as resources for one another in exploring the new domain and
aiding and challenging one another. the existence of the traditional Nso
children’s indigenous games and songs, folktales, myths, stories and proverbs
have greatly contributed in a holistic development of children through the
Apprenticeship process, which is the understanding, modeling and reproduction
of contextually relevant knowledge system.
According to this theory, this stage refers
to the indispensable Social interactions and channels of message transmission
about acceptable behaviours amid the Nso clan. Members of Nso ethnic group
speak the same language (Lamnso), which is usually adopted in the transmission
of cultural practices, norms and values. In this case the value of knowing
(attentation) not only how children grow up thinking, but also feeling and
acting in a given society cannot be overemphasised. Children must be able
through this process to pay attention, understand and target developmental
phenomena in context.
In stage four, individuals show cultural
capabilities in order to reproduce the appropriate or contextually approved
behaviours. Indigenous socialisation abilities are able to transform a cultural
neonate into a cultural selfhood. Despite the fact that the individuals have
maintained a mental picture of the learned cultural knowledge, ontologies and
cosmic realities, approved behaviours are performed correctly. Lastly, by
observing and deliberately doing exercises against certain behaviors,
individuals can facilitate the learning process, at least can start the
necessary cultural enhancement through the rites of adulthood, marriage and
eldership in the community.
This is the most advanced stage of Emotion
Regulation adjustment that relies on cultural adaptation. Eco-cultural selfhood
the optimal stage of peer emotion regulation contexts. It is a stage with a
totality of maximal understanding or harmonious social competence, emotional
competence and emotional socialisation. It is an exhibition stage of knowledge
acquisition in traditional routines, norms and values that shape the Nso people
understanding of metaphysical realities (ontology) and the cultural cosmic
beliefs which emanates from the physical,
human/social and spiritual situations of indigenous Nso societies.
The idea of the Indigenous Emotion Regulation Adjustment
Theory combines the three elements of Africanhood (epistemology, ontology and
cosmology) into a framework for thinking about children and adult regulation of
emotion in cultural context (Shey and Lukong, 2018). It can be
used to organise information about children's social, cognitive and personality
development and to focus investigations for improving the lives of children and
families. Although it is not a theory of development per say in the formal
sense, the Indigenous Emotion Regulation Adjustment Theory provides a framework
for understanding how cultures guide the process of emotion development. By
using this structure, it is possible to see how the cultural environments of
particular children are organised-to see how the culture is presented to the child
at any particular time. This theory adds to the many Africentric reflections in
explaining development from an eco-cultural perspective. Zukow (1989) laments
“It is unclear if developmental psychology that is ordained for universal
applicability has matured beyond excluding ‘‘95% of the world’s children”. It
is apparently clear that Eurocentrism of the discipline pulls Africans ‘‘away
from their roots, away from their own knowledge, and away from their own
knowledge holders, into a crevasse of dependency on others whose values and
understandings have been shaped in very different cultures, histories and
environments’’. Indigenous psychologies have a task to stand to enrich the
discipline if developmental researchers could perceive their role first and always
as a learner. Accordingly, we have proposed a theory of indigenous emotion
regulation adjustment as a learning posture (Lukong, 2018) ‘‘to stir up
interest and systematic exploration of distinctly indigenous patterns of
development so that developmental research in Third World contexts may
fertilise and expand the visions, methods, and knowledge of psychology beyond
current (Western) moulds’’ (Nsamenang, 1992).
CONCLUSION
This article articulates the relevance of
indigenous knowledge systems, with particular reference to Nso socialisation
dynamics as a yardstick for emotion regulation adjustment. It discusses the
concept of indigenous knowledge systems and how it affects emotional regulation
within African societies. Particular reference is made to emotional regulation
within childhood and adolescents, with the necessity of social adjustment
within childhood as a stepping stone for what happens during adolescence. The
paper emphasises on the decline in the use of African indigenous knowledge
systems and little research that has been carried on this topic. Based on
experiences from research amongst the Nso people of Cameroon, there is
therefore to understand emotional regulation from an Africentric perspective,
guided by theoretical perspective “Indigenous
theory of Emotion Regulation Adjustment” that is grounded within social
orientations that are contextual and relevant to Africans.
These possibilities should not be considered
in isolation from other perspectives but should form part of a respectful,
generative process that opens new channels for discussion and dialogue. Our
role, we believe, has been to introduce a ‘stutter’ into a powerful
international narrative, to create a space for other ideas and perspectives, in
this case from Africa, to be heard and considered. The purpose of the stutter
is not to exclude, but to include ours is not an isolationist argument. The
argument, instead, is for recognition and inclusion of diversity. There is much
the Minority World can do to support the Majority World in its quest for child
well-being, for funds and influence reside in the West in
disproportionate quantities. Those powers should not be used to ‘show the way’
(the legacy of Social Darwinism, colonisation, and far too much of the
development movement), but to support Africa’s efforts to hear its own voices,
among others, and to seek its own way forward. It will find that way
through children who understand and appreciate multiple worlds, through young
scholars that frame their own contextually sensitive research questions, and
through leaders that appreciate the riches of the past, as much as the
possibilities of the future.
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Cite this Article: Lukong TE (2020).
Dimensions of African Cultural Heritage on the Psycho-Emotional Development
of Children: Modelling the Emerging
Theory of Indigenous Emotion Regulation Adjustment by P F. Shey and Tani E.
Lukong (2018). Greener Journal of
Educational Research, 10(1): 12-25. |