ABSTRACT

Most parents have some basic philosophy of child-rearing, and most hold certain principles and values which they consider important and which they hope to implant in their children. This chapter attempts to set the child in his social and material context; to show some of the more systematic ways in which this context may vary, particularly according to the socio-economic group in which the child finds himself; and to indicate too some of the more haphazard variations of environment. At an earlier stage it shows that social context was already having its influence upon the baby's experience before he was four weeks old; by four years, he is beginning to know his way about his own restricted world of relationships, sanctions and norms, and he has a fair idea of its accepted behaviour patterns and of its ways of dealing with deviance.