Joint Book Reading across Cultures: A Comparison of Surinamese-Dutch, Turkish-Dutch, and Dutch Parent-Child Dyads

Abstract

This article reports about in-depth analyses of how parents from different cultural groups mediated a simple narrative text to their 4-year-old children. The sample included 19 Surinamese-Dutch, 19 Turkish-Dutch, and 19 Dutch low-SES dyads. The sessions videotaped in the families' homes were transcribed and coded with a detailed behavioral coding system that maps the function and content of parent and child behaviors. In addition, the sessions were rated on four 7-point scales for how parents interacted with their children in terms of supportive presence. Overall the study supports the hypothesis that when reading is less important for the parents personally, they are less inclined to deviate from the text in order to negotiate meaning. Their children initiated more interactions than other children did, but low-cognitive-demand behaviors such as naming details or identifying pictures of characters characterized these interactions. The ethnic groups also differed in how parents interacted with their children, but these characteristics of the reading session were not related to parental literacy.