ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore the ideas and values that give directive focus to the socialization of children—especially Nso children—in the Bamenda Grassfields of Cameroon, shaping their affective, social, and cognitive development. We highlight the continuity across generations in the face of discontinuities introduced by such factors as formal schooling, urbanization, and the economic necessity for parents, especially mothers, to relinquish their traditional roles and participate instead in the labor force. Familial values foreshadow the content and mode of cultural transmission and, eventually, the pattern of intelligence children acquire and cherish. In other words, children in every culture are socialized to acquire the intelligence that already exists in their own culture (Ogbu, chapter 18, this volume). Thus, by studying socialization values in any culture, we can gain insight into the ideas or notions that give directive force (D'Andrade, 1984) to the process of socialization in that culture.
