ABSTRACT
Sara Harkness and Charles Super created the developmental niche framework to better explain the role of culture in shaping human development. Across cultures, children deal with a variety of stressors. Other stressors are more culture-specific or region-based, such as natural disasters, disease, racism, exposure to violence, economic crises, family emigration, sex discrimination, and forced marriages. Children’s support networks help them cope with stress and develop the skills they will need to be a competent adult within their own culture. Cigdem Kagitcibasi stressed the importance of a fit between home culture and school environment for the academic success and well-being of children. According to Carrie Rothstein-Fisch and Elise Trumbull, it is critical to structure classrooms and curricula such that they avoid putting the students’ home culture in conflict with their school culture. Ethnography provides detailed, culture-specific information that allows to identify patterns and possible universals.
