Description: This book responds to the absence of a comprehensive consideration of the implications of culture for children's peer relationships. Although research in this field has burgeoned in recent years, cultural issues have often been overlooked. The chapters tap such issues as the impact of social circumstances and cultural values on peer relationships, culturally prescribed socialization patterns and processes, emotional experience and regulation in peer interactions, children's social behaviors in peer interactions, cultural aspects of friendships, and peer influences on social and school adjustment in cultural context. The authors incorporate into their discussions findings from research programs using multiple methodologies, including both qualitative (e.g., interviewing, ethnographic and observational) and quantitative (e.g., large scale surveys, standardized questionnaires) approaches, based on a wide range of ages of children in cultures from East to West and from South to North (Asia, South America, the Mid-East, Southern Europe, and ethnic groups in the US).
Brief description: Xinyin Chen received his Ph.D. from University of Waterloo in 1992. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario. He has received a William T. Grant Scholars Award and several other academic awards. In collaborating with his international colleagues, he has been conducting several large-scale, cross-cultural longitudinal projects in Canada, China and other countries. He is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD), and the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). He has published a number of book chapters and articles concerning culture, children's social behaviors and peer relationships, and parental socialization practices. His work has been published in major developmental journals such as Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly and International Journal of Behavioral Development.
Review Quotes: "This comprehensive volume taps such issues as the impact of social circumstances and cultural values on peer relationships...The authors incorporate into their discussions findings from research using multiple methodologies."
Adolescence