Women's schooling is strongly related to child survival and other outcomes beneficial to children throughout the developing world, but the reasons behind these statistical connections have been unclear. In Literacy and Mothering, the authors show, for the first time, how communicative change plays a key role: Girls acquire academic literacy skills, even in low-quality schools, which enable them, as mothers, to understand public health messages in the mass media and to navigate bureaucratic health services effectively, reducing risks to their children's health. With the acquisition of...

Born with the destiny of becoming a Mayan sacred midwife, Chona Perez has carried on centuries-old traditional Indigenous American birth and healing practices over her 85 years. At the same time, Chona developed new approaches to the care of pregnancy, newborns, and mothers based on her own experience and ideas. In this way, Chona has contributed to both the cultural continuities and cultural changes of her town over the decades.

In Developing Destinies, Barbara Rogoff illuminates how individuals worldwide build on cultural heritage from prior generations and at the same time...

The concept of self-esteem is a fixture in the psychological and moral landscape of American society. This is especially true in the arena of childrearing: images and references to self-esteem are ubiquitous in academic, educational, and popular media. Yet, until now, little has been known about what self-esteem means to parents or how self-esteem infiltrates everyday practices.

Self-Esteem in Time and Place reveals how self-esteem became a touchstone of American childrearing in the early years of the 21st century. At the heart of this book is the Millennial study, an empirical...