The concepts of individualism and collectivism, introduced in Week 1, are important terms to keep in mind when studying human development and socialization. As a reminder, individualist cultures prioritize concern for self or immediate family. Collectivist cultures are more oriented to the larger community group and emphasize traditions. Both types of cultures have many more characteristics, and any given culture does not necessarily belong exclusively in one category.

As you might expect, parenting styles and expectations for family members in individualist cultures are often different from those in collectivist cultures. For this Assignment, you will analyze collectivism and individualism as it applies to parenting styles.

To prepare:

• Review Chapter 8 in your course text. Pay particular attention to the sections on norms, customs, and childcare; parental values and expectations; and late adulthood.
• Review the concepts of individualism and collectivism from Chapter 1 of the course text. Also, review the Week 4 media piece in the Learning Resources.
• Consider this scenario: Imagine you are watching a reality television show in which two sets of parents trade places and take their same roles in the other family. Keep these details in mind:
• One family is characterized as coming from a collectivist culture,
• The other family is characterized as coming from an individualist culture.
• Each family has one 1-year-old, one 8-year-old, one 14-year-old, and two grandparents living in the household.
• In trading places, each set of parents must interact with the grandparents in the new household and parent the children in the new household.
• Consider what the outcomes would be in each household based on the differences between collectivist cultures and individualist cultures. For example, individualists often take advantage of childcare, while collectivists almost never leave children with someone outside of the family.  How might this difference impact the swap?

Submit a 2- to 3-page paper in which you do the following:

• Explain the differences in parenting style of “collectivist” and “individualist” parents.
• Give two examples of ways that collectivists and individualists would likely differ in their expectations about how the household will be run and how they will interact with their children. Be specific to the age group (infants vs. eight-year old vs. teens, etc.) and avoid broad statements such as “collectivists expect their children to be group oriented.” Some examples:
  • What would collectivists vs. individualists expect each child’s role in the family to be?
  • How would collectivists vs. individualists deal with their children?
  • How would collectivists vs. individualists expect their children to respond?
• In light of the differing styles and expectations, analyze points of conflict that would arise with the children when the parents swapped households and why (i.e., how the collectivist parents would respond to each of the individualist children, and how the individualist parents would react to each of the collectivist children).
• Compare the grandparents’ role in the collectivist family to the grandparents’ role in the individualist family.
• Analyze conflicts that the grandparents’ roles could cause when the parents swapped households and how the “new” mother and father might wish to change the existing roles.
• Describe how you think the show would end. Will anyone (i.e., parents, children, grandparents, or people watching the show) learn something from the experience?
• Is it possible to change cultural values? Explain your ideas and your reasoning.