**4. Mothers' ideas about their children: What are the characteristics of Brazilian children according to their mothers?**

Complementing data presented on mothers' goals for their children's development and their related practices of care, mothers' ideas about their children were the focus in Seidl-de-Moura et al. (in press) study. Considering mothers' answers to the request to describe their children, we could infer the most valued characteristics, and thus the predominant cultural model indicated in these descriptions.

A group of 94 mothers from two Brazilian cities (Rio de Janeiro and Itajaí) participated. An open question was used, based on studies by Harkness and Super (2005). As part of a larger study, mothers were interviewed individually and asked to talk about their target child, describing him/her. The instruction was: "Tell me about your son/daughter. How would you describe him/her?" Mothers could talk freely about their children and were not limited in the number of descriptors they could use. All the adjectives and expressions reported in the description were listed and constituted the *corpus* for analyses. For data reduction, we followed two kinds of procedures: a) the same from the studies that use the SGI (Seidl-de-Moura et al., 2008, 2009); b) the ones from Harkness and Super (2005). Similar to the procedures adopted by the latter researchers, we analyzed the adjectives and expressions used, the ones most frequently used, and the patterns that could be inferred. The analyses in the first case were conducted in a similar way as the ones related to socialization goals, although the categories were not previously defined, as in the SGI studies. Rather, the categories emerged from data. The steps in data reduction in this case were the following: first, through repeated readings of mothers' descriptions of their children, common patterns or categories were identified; descriptors were then classified based on these categories; the frequency of use of each category for each participant was computed; finally, a score for each category was obtained for all participants, dividing the frequency of descriptors used in each category by all the descriptors.

large and diverse country of the "majority world", and it has undergone important socialdemographic and economic changes in the last 10 years. Thus, we consider it especially

Brazilian Mothers' Cultural Models: Socialization for Autonomy and Relatedness

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/57083

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The studies reviewed in this chapter have the advantage of being developed by a cooperative network of researchers from different parts of the country and from different institutions. They have focused on a variety of aspects both from mothers' ideas, beliefs, values, language and practices, using a variety of instruments, such as inventories, interviews and behavioral observation. In addition, they had participants from urban centers of different population sizes in all the country's regions, in a total of 16 contexts, which we believe to be unusual in the

Based on the evidence of the studies reviewed, we can argue that developmental trajectory of autonomous-related selves is somewhat privileged in Brazil. Our results indicate that, in general, both autonomy and relatedness are valued by Brazilian mothers in their conception of their children, their narrative styles, their socialization goals, and their practices. However, this model shows variations depending on social-demographic and cultural variables and

Parental educational level is one important example of these variables. As observed in the studies, women with higher educational levels tend to value their children's autonomy. They have self-maximization goals for their children, and they want them to succeed and be happy. At the same time, it seems that this increase in educational level does not decrease some of the relatedness tendencies that may have cultural origins and be associated to our African and

Education is associated to another important variable: urbanization. Although the country has a vast territory, most of its population lives in urban centers. We have verified that population size of mothers' cities is another factor that can modulate the importance attributed to autonomy and relatedness. Larger cities present typical conditions of post-industrial complex societies that lead to goals of autonomy: increase in the number of potential in-groups and of competition, decrease of loyalty among individuals of any of these in-groups, less social support from extended family, more isolation, etc. (Velho, 1987, Simmel, 1973, Triandis, 1989). In these contexts individuals have the opportunity to focus on their own personal goals

Finally, we have the cultural mixture that constitutes Brazilian people. Our three basic origins – Portuguese, Indigenous and African people – have been mixed with people from different immigration waves across the centuries. First, second and third generation immigrants married Brazilians and are well integrated to society. Thus, the influence from these different cultures, many of them oriented towards autonomy and independence (i.e., Germans), have been tempered by the relatedness tendency of our ancestors, in varying degrees and forms.

Differences in the products of the relationship between autonomy and relatedness can be observed in the results of our studies, according to varied levels of urbanization (size of

rather than on the goals of any group they might belong (Triandis, 1989).

population), diverse predominant cultural influences, and educational levels.

cannot be considered as presenting a fixed or unique form.

appropriate to study this dynamics.

literature.

Indigenous heritage.

It was observed that the adjectives most frequently used were "*intelligent*" and "*active*", as well as "*loving*" and "*caring*". Children were described with more positive than negative tempera‐ ment characteristics, and with more externalization than introversion characteristics. The adjectives were further categorized as relating to autonomy and relatedness. Analyses have indicated no significant difference between the proportions of descriptors in the two catego‐ ries, indicating a tendency for valuing both aspects equally.
