Observational learning and enculturation

Abstract

Participatory learning as a central mechanism of enculturation is put into question based on ethnographic research conducted in a rural village in the Western Pacific country of Samoa. The paper investigates the role of observational learning in the transmission of crucial social knowledge in Samoa allowing children to become active participants in their cultural environment. The sample consists of 28 children aged between 4 and 12 years, 152 parental belief questionnaires as well as numerous semi-structured interviews. The research on learning individual fishing was conducted with a sample of 22 boys between 5 and 12 years of age and their older male relatives. Experimental testing of children over a two-year period was combined with semi-structured interviews of caretakers and other adults as well as older children, parental belief questionnaires (multiple choice and short answer responses), and ethnographic observations of children’s daily life. Our data show that observational learning is both a pervasive and potent mode of social learning in the Samoan context. Samoan children learn a range of different values, practices and beliefs via observation and without the benefit of extensive social scaffolding and intensive instruction. These results are particularly relevant to educators as the number of multicultural students in Western classrooms increases. Children, who grow up in a family and community environment that emphasises observational learning, may be at a great disadvantage in Western classrooms that emphasise active participation and dyadic instruction. The possibility exists that these children might not have learnt how to acquire knowledge effectively from such an environment.

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