When we engage with others, whether to provide care, play, talk, learn, or teach, we take on different roles. The root word for “reciprocity” is to receive. The dimension of Reciprocity is trying to capture the many different forms of giving and receiving within an interaction.
We identify three common modes of the roles of engagement in joint, reciprocal activities.
X: Interaction with one-sided direction from an adult and children resist or disengage.
Y: Interaction with one-sided direction from an adult and children comply or engage.
Z: Interactions where the adult and child(ren) share a balanced, reciprocal partnership (it is difficult to tell who is directing or who is following).
Note: For both X and Y, a child can be the one doing the one-sided direction as well. As our colleague Dr. Dana Winters often says, “Don’t be stuck on the sizes of the heads.”
In cultures where individual agency and initiative are particularly valued, there is a tendency to prefer “child-directed” or “youth-led” interactions over “adult-led” or “adult-directed” ones. However, in our own fieldwork and others’ cross-cultural research, we find that it is developmentally necessary for children to experience diverse modes of Reciprocity. Often, adults do have to lead and direct, even when children are resistant. Sometimes, children are quite happy to follow adults’ lead to learn and emulate and find a great sense of “mattering” by contributing to adults’ activities rather than initiating their own. That is why we did not put a “child-led” illustration at the Z end of the dimension. Our analysis of engagement roles considers the specific activity contexts rather than adhering to culturally-specific preferences or ideologies.
What is important is not the particular mode we happen to be in at the moment, but how and why (developmentally) we move between the modes.
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