Learning a new way of teaching? The impact of schooling on the teaching approach of Quechua parents and older siblings

This dissertation examined the impact of schooling (total years of schooling) on verbal teaching (i.e., all teaching that occurs through verbal means) in the home. All participants came from two traditional Quechua communities where most teaching occurs through non-verbal demonstration, where schooling is a relatively recent phenomenon, and where confounds with schooling (e.g., SES) can be held relatively constant. Seventy-five teacher-child dyads were observed during three semi-structured tasks (N = 225). Teachers included parents and older siblings with varying levels of schooling (0--7 years for parents and 3--9 years for older siblings). Task 1, a culturally familiar task, was to weave a new design based on traditional guidelines. Task 2, a hybrid task, was to assemble a textile puzzle. Task 3, a school-oriented task, was to assemble a Peruvian map puzzle. In addition, interview and naturalistic data gathered from a subsample of participants, was examined to assess parental beliefs about teaching, learning, and schooling, as well as natural patterns of communication during cooking and dinner time. OLS regression analysis revealed that schooling has a positive impact on the rate of verbal teaching exhibited by individuals, controlling for other important factors (beta = .16, t = 3.65, p < .001). Thus, schooling impacts patterns of interaction by promoting use of the verbal register that is characteristic of schooling even in the context of interaction with young children in the home (Laosa, 1981; LeVine, LeVine & Schnell, 2001). This effect was found for all three tasks, suggesting that the impact of schooling on verbal teaching is the same for both traditional and school-oriented tasks. By contrast, the qualitative analysis failed to reveal an impact of schooling on parental beliefs or natural patterns of communication. The impact of low-levels of schooling on verbal teaching seems to be generalizable to tasks of varying cultural familiarity but it affects verbal teaching, not cultural beliefs or other forms of communication besides teaching. These findings underline the unintended consequences of schooling on verbal teaching and cultural transmission.