Independence and interdependence as guiding values of the socialization in early childhood

Abstract

This article presents a series of recent cross-cultural investigation turning their attention to the study of socialization goals and practices that guide mothers in the relation to their children. It begins by highlighting the increasing importance attributed to social and emotional experiences of children during the first years of life, specifying the role played by the mother as an agent of socialization and how membership in a culture affects the exercise of this role. The goals and practices of socialization are addressed from twoglobal evaluative positions, independence and interdependence, which significantly shape the social relations that are built in a cultural community. We study how the predominance of one or the other position affects the socialization of children, concluding that rather than being antagonistic they are complementary, since each cultural community must find some kind of solution to the tension that exists between the needs and interests of the individual and the social group, all of which require some degree of education both to independence and towards interdependence.