Dr. Allegra Midgette, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University, recently published a paper in the journal Childhood about how children conceptualize and experience care across cultures.
The team included postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lucretia Fairchild of TAMU and researchers from Finland and Taiwan. Midgette met Dr. Juliene Ferreira, the study’s researcher from Finland, due to mutual connections in Brazil, and the pair have been collaborating for over five years due to their shared research interests.
They interviewed 66 children aged six to eight years old and found culture impacted whether care included factors such as helping the vulnerable, being kind, nice, and helpful, being able to call for help, accompanying others, playing with and letting one play, and respecting personal space. Children across cultures associated care with helping others and being together.
The study was approved by the Ethics Committees of Texas A&M University, Tampere University and National Chung Cheng University. This research was funded in part by a grant awarded by the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan Grant Award Number: 111-2410-H-142 -021, and has gone on to inspire Midgette’s Fulbright Fellowship in Finland, hosted by Ferreira.