Grandmothers: A Learning Institution - Basic Education and Policy ...

eties grandmothers play the leadingrole in transmitting to young childrencultural values and practices. Animportant activity related to this roleis story-telling, through which grandmotherspass on to their grandchildrenthe cultural values and traditionsthat are specific and special to eachsociety. Their role as “culture-transmitters”is critical to maintaining bothindividual and collective cultural identifyin an increasingly culturally-homogenousworld.• Grandmothers’ child-rearing expertiseis acquired over a lifetime.When young girls are growing up,they are taught by older female familymembers how to carry out certainchild-care tasks based on the normativesocio-cultural practices. Thisteaching is done by the older femalesin the household, including theirmothers, aunties and grandmothers.For example, in most cultures whenyoung women give birth, they areunder the authority and guidance ofsenior women in the family on howto care for their infants.With theirfirst child, young mothers are verydependent on these senior advisors.As their knowledge increases theybecome less dependent, though stillunder the supervision of grandmothersand aunties in the family. By thetime women become grandmothersthemselves, they have considerableexperience related to all aspects ofchild bearing and raising. Withincreased age comes more knowledgeand experience and, at thesame time, more confidence in theirown expertise.• In all cultures grandmothers areinvolved in multiple aspects of thelives of children and families at thehousehold level.The available literature from Africa,Asia, Latin America, and The Pacificprovides examples of grandmothers’involvement in multiple facets of childand family growth and development.They are interested in promoting thecomprehensive well-being of theirgrandchildren. As such, their roleincludes psychological, cognitive andpsycho-motor stimulation of youngchildren, teaching related to hygiene,moral and cultural development, andpromotion of good health and nutrition.• The roles of grandmothers appear tobe universal whereas much of theirknowledge and practices are culturallyspecific.There is often a tendency to noticethe differences in the child development-relatedpractices of grandmothersfrom different socio-cultural contextsand to overlook the fundamentalcommonalities between them.While grandmothers’ culturally-relatedtraits differ greatly from one societyto another, there appears to beconsiderable similarity in their coreroles across cultures.• Grandmothers are both directly andindirectly involved in promoting thewell-being of children.Grandmothers are directly involvedGRANDMOTHERS:THE LEARNING INSTITUTION15