**3. Results and discussion**

the child socialization goals and the strategies for its consecution, possibly inspiring public policies more adequate to the reality of this population in social vulnerability conditions.

The study was conducted in the largest institution for the care of children zero to six years in poverty and social vulnerability in a city located in northern region of Brazil. Participants were 20 mothers and 20 grandmothers when they visited their children at the host institution. Semistructured interview was conducted with two questions in order to collect data on participants sociodemographic (age, education, occupation and marital status) informations, the age and sex of the child and the socialization goals and strategies designed to reach them. The interview brought the following questions: "What qualities do you want in your child or grandchild as an adult?" and "What do you think is necessary so that he can develop these qualities?".

Mothers and grandmothers answered the questions contained in the questionnaire individu‐ ally and their responses were audio recorded with their agreement. Then, answers were transcribed and subjected to content analysis according to defined categories from previous studies. As in the study of Bandeira, Seidl-de-Moura and Vieira (2009), the first question involved categories previously used by Harwood et al. (1999): self-improvement (AA) - longs for the child to become self-reliant and independent, and fully develop their talents and skills as an individual; Self-Control (AC) - expect a child to develop the ability to control negative impulses, such as greed, aggression or self-centeredness; Emotionality (iN) - you want the child to develop the capacity for emotional intimacy with others, and to be loved; Social Expectations (ES) - can become a hardworking, honest and law-abiding meeting with so expectations arising from the life of society; and Good Behavior (BC) - brings the concern that the child behaves appropriately, relate well with others, and is likely to play the roles expected with satisfaction (good father, good mother, good wife, good husband, among others), particularly when

The answers to the first question were also organized according to another system categories: 1) Maverick (understands the notion of the self as fundamentally distinct and unique, values independence, autonomy, self-esteem, happiness, and exercises self-control to become a better person; crave self-improvement and self-overcoming); 2) sociocentric (recognizes the con‐ struction of the self as dependent on its relationship with other beings; involves the notion of social interdependence; emphasizes the importance of respect between people, the social network, the membership in a given group or community). Thus, we considered responses that reinforce an individualistic perspective those that fall into the categories of self-improve‐ ment and self-control as the sociocentric when they could be enrolled in categories such as

The next moment, the answers to the second question were classified to reveal different possible strategies for action: Self-centered (CS), when mothers or grandparents saw them‐ selves as role models for their children and grandchildren or other positive references, calling themselves the task of disciplining, advising, teaching by demonstration or participation;

**2. Method**

120 Parenting in South American and African Contexts

referring to living with the family.

emotions, social expectations and good behavior.

Socio-demographic characteristics of participants

Most of the twenty informer mothers lived in Belém, aged between 15 and 45 (M=27), had from one to seven children whose ages ranged between nine months to 11 years, and 80% of them didn't finish Elementary School. From the reasons for sending their children to shelters, the most common were: family negligence, abandonment, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. On the other hand, the twenty grandmothers aged between 37 and 70 years old (M=50.95), 57% didn't complete Elementary School, and 24% were illiterate. In what concerns to their profes‐ sional occupation mothers and grandmothers were involved in informal jobs activities.

For the question "What qualities would like your child to have as an adult?" 61 valid answers were given by mothers and 64 by grandmothers, which represents an average of 3.05 and 3.04 for each group. In Table 1 the percentages were presented for each category of socialization goals analyzed.

It may be observed that mothers and grandmothers value four of the five categories in the same order. The social expectation category had a higher percentage, followed by proper demeanor, self-maximization, and emotionality, self-control was mentioned only by the mothers.

The social expectation category was the most mentioned one by mothers and grandmothers of children in institutional shelter. As examples of responses related to this category were the concern that their children have a profession in the future, attend college, are hardworking, study hard, and have a good character, in other words, that they manage to make something out of their lives. How strongly they emphasize the importance of education for their children and grandchildren socialization may be linked to the fact that these mothers and grandmothers


by the strength of a cultural model that is especially present in the most prosper, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic western societies (Henrich et al., 2010), that disseminated individualism and competitiveness as values that must be essential for the construction of the self. These are societies that, according to these authors, give importance to autonomy and professional accomplishments, in view of new demands of a capitalist society that needs to increase the individual's productive potential. These mothers and grandmothers hope their children self-maximize and are able to accomplish everything they couldn't for several reasons, chiefly, low income, little education, and little access to education and health services for them and their family members. In other words, they design for their children's future socialization goals based on achieving high education levels and a different job than the current one: socially

Socialization Goals of Mothers and Grandmothers of Children in Institutional Shelter Situation in the North of Brazil

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/57328

123

The category emotionality also shows up in the mothers' and grandmothers' speech expressing their hope for their children and grandchildren to be respectful, but also to be respected. To be treated with respect and, likewise, give respect to others is a moral value yet to be harvested in the preparation of children for living socially, mainly among popular sections and/or those who live away from most important urban nuclei (Moinhos et al., 2007; Silva & Magalhães, 2011; Westphal et al., 2011), essentially because it contributes to cultivate reciprocity in family relations, as pointed out by Sarti (2010). The self-control category was mentioned only by mothers when demonstrated apprehension their children wouldn't be able to control negative

Admitting that individualist dimension gathers the self-maximization and self-control categories, and the sociocentric dimension includes the social expectation, emotionality and proper demeanor categories, Table 2 shows the general distribution of the answers given by

**Categories Mothers (n=20) Grandmothers (n=20)**

Individualist 4 6 3 5 Sociocentric 57 94 61 95 Total 61 100 64 100

**Table 2.** Response percentage of mothers and grandmothers according to the individualist and sociocentric

It is observed that both mothers and grandmothers mentioned predominantly traces of a sociocentric cultural model, appreciating more the posture of interdependence and the esteem for collectivity, as it was identified among agriculturalist mothers from Cameroon, and from villagers from India, studied by Keller et al. (2005), and other studies made in Brazil, including

In the analysis of the second question "What do you think it is necessary for him/her to develop these qualities?", 42 strategies were mentioned by mothers and 38 by grandmothers, grouped

*F* **%** *f* **%**

impulses, which may lead to aggressive behavior towards parents, for example.

mothers and grandmothers in these dimensions.

the North region (Silva & Magalhães,2011).

recognized and better paid.

categories.

**Table 1.** Response percentage of mothers and grandmothers in the socialization goals category.

see in education the possibility for their children to enter the school environment and reach social mobility through college education, as well as the opportunity for them to live with people different from their context, which may mean to broaden their social support network. The mentions about work demonstrate their will to see their children and grandchildren grow up with financial independence, for the mothers and grandmothers work on their own and don't have regular income. Mentioning work regards the possibility of having an increase in their income, hence, having their purchasing power increased, being treated with more dignity by the value provided by it, increasing self-esteem, and having the respect of others. Therefore, the goal of becoming a worker in the future seems to be based more on the feeling of dignity than on the notion of citizenship.

Sarti (2010) considers that underprivileged people attribute moral value to work, making it dignifying, since it enables social mobility through work and personal dedication. Therefore, work is considered an instrument that enables family life and makes it dynamic. Consequently, the interviewed women long for their children and grandchildren to become hardworking in the future, so they can contribute for the success of a collective project that is to improve its own life, as well as enabling the family to have social mobility, because it is expected from them to payback for the time and resources dedicated to their upbringing and care.

Secondly, it appears the category proper demeanor that gathers the goals from mothers and grandmothers that are concerned their child learn to have good manners in the social life, to relate to other people in a collaborative manner, and to perform the expected roles. The emphasis on this category can be explained by the preoccupations mothers and grandmothers have if they will be able to follow rules and norms established by the society and in agreement to the collective environment. For them, once the child is familiar with social norms it will easier to distinguish what is adequate from what is not. This is considered an important socialization goal because it represents the best way of living in society, especially in family.

In the continuance, the category self-improvement mentioned by the participants, gathered answers that demonstrate their concern with the children's and grandchildren's wellbeing once they are adults. This category gathers some characteristics regarding a better future, as for example, to be happy, to have a profession, among others. This kind of concern may be justified by the strength of a cultural model that is especially present in the most prosper, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic western societies (Henrich et al., 2010), that disseminated individualism and competitiveness as values that must be essential for the construction of the self. These are societies that, according to these authors, give importance to autonomy and professional accomplishments, in view of new demands of a capitalist society that needs to increase the individual's productive potential. These mothers and grandmothers hope their children self-maximize and are able to accomplish everything they couldn't for several reasons, chiefly, low income, little education, and little access to education and health services for them and their family members. In other words, they design for their children's future socialization goals based on achieving high education levels and a different job than the current one: socially recognized and better paid.

The category emotionality also shows up in the mothers' and grandmothers' speech expressing their hope for their children and grandchildren to be respectful, but also to be respected. To be treated with respect and, likewise, give respect to others is a moral value yet to be harvested in the preparation of children for living socially, mainly among popular sections and/or those who live away from most important urban nuclei (Moinhos et al., 2007; Silva & Magalhães, 2011; Westphal et al., 2011), essentially because it contributes to cultivate reciprocity in family relations, as pointed out by Sarti (2010). The self-control category was mentioned only by mothers when demonstrated apprehension their children wouldn't be able to control negative impulses, which may lead to aggressive behavior towards parents, for example.

see in education the possibility for their children to enter the school environment and reach social mobility through college education, as well as the opportunity for them to live with people different from their context, which may mean to broaden their social support network. The mentions about work demonstrate their will to see their children and grandchildren grow up with financial independence, for the mothers and grandmothers work on their own and don't have regular income. Mentioning work regards the possibility of having an increase in their income, hence, having their purchasing power increased, being treated with more dignity by the value provided by it, increasing self-esteem, and having the respect of others. Therefore, the goal of becoming a worker in the future seems to be based more on the feeling of dignity

Social Expectancy 77 73 ProperDemeanor 15 19 Sefl-maximization 4 5 Self-control 2 0 Emotionality 2 3 Total 100 100

**Table 1.** Response percentage of mothers and grandmothers in the socialization goals category.

**Mothers (n=61) Grandmothers (n=64)** *%* **%**

Sarti (2010) considers that underprivileged people attribute moral value to work, making it dignifying, since it enables social mobility through work and personal dedication. Therefore, work is considered an instrument that enables family life and makes it dynamic. Consequently, the interviewed women long for their children and grandchildren to become hardworking in the future, so they can contribute for the success of a collective project that is to improve its own life, as well as enabling the family to have social mobility, because it is expected from

Secondly, it appears the category proper demeanor that gathers the goals from mothers and grandmothers that are concerned their child learn to have good manners in the social life, to relate to other people in a collaborative manner, and to perform the expected roles. The emphasis on this category can be explained by the preoccupations mothers and grandmothers have if they will be able to follow rules and norms established by the society and in agreement to the collective environment. For them, once the child is familiar with social norms it will easier to distinguish what is adequate from what is not. This is considered an important socialization goal because it represents the best way of living in society, especially in family.

In the continuance, the category self-improvement mentioned by the participants, gathered answers that demonstrate their concern with the children's and grandchildren's wellbeing once they are adults. This category gathers some characteristics regarding a better future, as for example, to be happy, to have a profession, among others. This kind of concern may be justified

them to payback for the time and resources dedicated to their upbringing and care.

than on the notion of citizenship.

**Categories**

122 Parenting in South American and African Contexts

Admitting that individualist dimension gathers the self-maximization and self-control categories, and the sociocentric dimension includes the social expectation, emotionality and proper demeanor categories, Table 2 shows the general distribution of the answers given by mothers and grandmothers in these dimensions.


**Table 2.** Response percentage of mothers and grandmothers according to the individualist and sociocentric categories.

It is observed that both mothers and grandmothers mentioned predominantly traces of a sociocentric cultural model, appreciating more the posture of interdependence and the esteem for collectivity, as it was identified among agriculturalist mothers from Cameroon, and from villagers from India, studied by Keller et al. (2005), and other studies made in Brazil, including the North region (Silva & Magalhães,2011).

In the analysis of the second question "What do you think it is necessary for him/her to develop these qualities?", 42 strategies were mentioned by mothers and 38 by grandmothers, grouped accordingly to the following categories: centered in the self, centered in the child, or centered in the context.

might be limited. Such apparent contradiction may be happening in a less proportion due to the lack of knowledge on how indispensible the adult supervision is in the early years, and more due to socio-economic conditions and traditional habits of the culture they are inserted, and they need to be responsible for the child's care and education. After all, to offer a stable and responsive care pattern from mothers and grandmothers depend, initially, on how the society and culture they are inserted define these terms, and secondly, on material conditions

Socialization Goals of Mothers and Grandmothers of Children in Institutional Shelter Situation in the North of Brazil

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/57328

125

In this sense, the strategies centered in the context emphasize the importance of available resources in the family and social environments as fundamental strategies to achieve the designed socialization goals, either attenuating what might be prejudicial for the child, or potentiating the help from support networks formed by people and institutions (as it is the case of those sent to shelters and preschool). It is considered here the child's closest environ‐ ment, in other words, the closest to the person in development, regarding the most remote dimensions, involving the resources the society may provide to this task in different forms (including the cultural valorization of socialization goals from parents and other family

Some studies indicate that it must not be strengthened the idea of a single procedure and/or more efficient one to lead parents and other primary caretakers to reach the socialization goals designed by them, for it is important to know the strategies they can easily make use of, or the ones they need to request support. Likewise, it is necessary to take into consideration the ecocultural conditions that guide the conception of a dominant parenthood in the context these goals were planned, the personal characteristics of the child, and the parental ethnotheories, and, clearly, mainly in the cases involving extreme poverty and other social vulnerability situations, the available means in the social support network that might help mothers and

The present study aimed at approaching in an exploratory fashion the socialization goals of mothers and grandmothers of children in shelter institutions that lived in the North region in Brazil. Such aspects that constitute the parental ethnotheories in this society and culture were approached from evidences regarding what these caretakers long for their children and

In this sense, the results obtained bring contributions to the scarce literature destined to the discussion of this particular subject. Nonetheless, it is necessary to note some limitations of this study, such as the size of the sample. The parental cognition about the socialization goals were studied through their responses to two open questions, which demanded the analysis of the content of the participants' responses. Although the procedure for analyzing the content has been used in several investigations and are bringing relevant and consistent results, new instruments might be developed and/or adapted to be used in future studies, with bigger groups of parents (mother and father) and grandparents (grandmothers and grandfathers),

grandmothers in the task of raising and educating today, but looking at the future.

grandchildren, and the strategies planned by them to achieve these purposes.

that enables to rethink practices and/or potentiate protection measures.

members, as grandparents).

**4. Final considerations**


**Table 3.** Response percentage of mothers and grandmothers in socialization strategies categories.

The data indicate the convergence between the strategies used by mothers and grandmothers, first regarding the ones linked to the centered in the self category, secondly to the ones giving emphasis to factors associated to the context, and finally, to everything that concerns exclu‐ sively to the child's characteristics. These data are in agreement to the study of Moinhos et al. (2007), Bandeira et al. (2009), Diniz e Salomão (2010),, in which the most reported strategy was the one regarding the attributions from their role as primary caretakers and main family reference for the child. Those mothers and grandmothers believe the primary caretaker's role that was given to them by society makes them responsible for providing affection and daily attention to the children. It is necessary to note that such way of thinking stood out in the moment they watched their children and grandchildren being taken away from their daily lives and were living in a shelter institution, temporarily, for their ability to protect them, and educate them, was being questioned from the social and judicial standpoint, according to the child social protection legislation.

To what concern the strategies centered in the child, it is noted that mothers and grandmothers delegate to their children and grandchildren the responsibility to develop certain qualities, as illustrated in some statements.


These statements also show that the participants transfer to their children and grandchildren the responsibility to reach the socialization goals designed by them. If, on one hand, it implies the notion of an active child who is capable of searching its own self-maximization, on the other hand, it suggests that the mothers' and grandmothers' comprehension of how the acquisition of abilities in the child socialization process takes place, chiefly in the early years,

might be limited. Such apparent contradiction may be happening in a less proportion due to the lack of knowledge on how indispensible the adult supervision is in the early years, and more due to socio-economic conditions and traditional habits of the culture they are inserted, and they need to be responsible for the child's care and education. After all, to offer a stable and responsive care pattern from mothers and grandmothers depend, initially, on how the society and culture they are inserted define these terms, and secondly, on material conditions that enables to rethink practices and/or potentiate protection measures.

In this sense, the strategies centered in the context emphasize the importance of available resources in the family and social environments as fundamental strategies to achieve the designed socialization goals, either attenuating what might be prejudicial for the child, or potentiating the help from support networks formed by people and institutions (as it is the case of those sent to shelters and preschool). It is considered here the child's closest environ‐ ment, in other words, the closest to the person in development, regarding the most remote dimensions, involving the resources the society may provide to this task in different forms (including the cultural valorization of socialization goals from parents and other family members, as grandparents).

Some studies indicate that it must not be strengthened the idea of a single procedure and/or more efficient one to lead parents and other primary caretakers to reach the socialization goals designed by them, for it is important to know the strategies they can easily make use of, or the ones they need to request support. Likewise, it is necessary to take into consideration the ecocultural conditions that guide the conception of a dominant parenthood in the context these goals were planned, the personal characteristics of the child, and the parental ethnotheories, and, clearly, mainly in the cases involving extreme poverty and other social vulnerability situations, the available means in the social support network that might help mothers and grandmothers in the task of raising and educating today, but looking at the future.
