6 Discussion
6.2.2 The Norwegian and U.S. societies
The Bioecological Model of Development highlights the many relevant factors and processes that need to be considered in the study of child development. The Norwegian and U.S. societies have different macrosystems. The more distal systems indirectly affect proximal processes, such as those taking place in the family and in ECEC (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). For this reason, it is essential to conduct research across countries and to perform comparison studies in order to identify any country-specific associations.
6.2.2.1 Norwegian and U.S. children’s level of self-regulation A recent review documented that East Asians outperformed their Western peers on directly assessed self-regulation from the preschool
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age through adolescence (Schirmbeck et al., 2020). The researchers argued that differences in pedagogical approaches and educational settings, parental practice and expectations, and social norms and value systems might influence children’s self-regulation differently across Asian and Western cultures. In other words, differences between macrosystems may have yielded differences between microsystems and proximal processes and hence differences in child development.
In Study III, both samples were Western, and the results showed that the Norwegian and U.S. children represented in the study had similar self-regulation levels. Even though the Norwegian and U.S. societies differ (see Study III for an overview of society characteristics), they may both have characteristics that support children’s self-regulation development to a similar extent, meaning that different advantages of the two societies may cancel each other out so that there is no overall difference between them. Study III discusses such possible advantages (e.g., high social and economic equality and access to ECEC in Norway versus a more intentional learning environment in the United States). However, it is unclear what mechanisms may underlie the result showing that the children in the two samples had similar levels of self-regulation. Future research, including observations in classroom contexts (and home learning environments) in different cultural contexts, may provide insight into the pathways along which cross-cultural differences or similarities may be created.
One example of a country-specific pattern of associations was found in a recent study (Salminen et al., 2021) examining the association between teacher–child interactions and children’s self-regulation in Finnish and Portuguese toddler classrooms. Results showed that the average quality of teacher–child interactions was higher in Finnish classrooms than in Portuguese ones and also that the quality of the interactions was more strongly associated with children’s self-regulation in Finland than in Portugal. The researchers suggest that cultural context should be considered more carefully in future studies (Salminen et al., 2021).
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6.2.2.2 The role of gender for self-regulation across the Norwegian and U.S. societies
As already discussed (page 74), Study III found that Norwegian girls outperformed boys in directly assessed self-regulation (HTKS task). By contrast, there were no gender differences with regard to self-regulation in the U.S. sample. However, this difference was not significant across the two samples. Most research has either reported that girls have stronger early self-regulation than boys or found no gender differences (Backer-Grøndahl & Nærde, 2017; Wanless et al., 2013). However, those studies reporting gender differences in self-regulation report small differences. Research has shown that gender differences in self-regulation may depend on cultural context (Wanless et al., 2013), although a recent review found that girls generally outperform boys in self-regulation in both Western and Asian samples both with regard to direct assessments and with regard to teacher ratings (Schirmbeck et al., 2020).
The differences between the learning environments found in Norwegian ECEC centers and in U.S. kindergartens may explain why there were no gender differences in the U.S. children’s self-regulation while such differences were found for the Norwegian sample. Compared with the play-based and child-centered Norwegian ECEC, U.S. kindergartens are more teacher-centered and emphasize formal teaching and instructions.
In kindergarten, boys and girls are expected to adapt to a structured learning environment and are more likely to encounter the same expectations and demands, which will tend to enhance all children’s self-regulation. As already discussed, boys and girls encounter different behavioral expectations in the Norwegian ECEC (Meland & Kaltvedt, 2017), and such differences may be especially prominent in unstructured learning environments (Fabes et al., 2003). However, it is important to note that the gender difference found for Norwegian children’s regulation was small and that the relationship between gender and self-regulation did not differ significantly across the two samples. Moreover,
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prior findings are inconsistent with regard to gender differences in self-regulation. Hence it is important not to overstate the present findings.
6.2.2.3 The role of socioeconomic status for children’s self-regulation across the Norwegian and U.S. societies
Study III found that maternal education significantly predicted the U.S.
children’s self-regulation but not that of the Norwegian children and this difference was statistically significant. Although both the United States and Norway are high-income countries that are similar on a number of points, there are also several key differences between them. Compared with the United States, Norway has greater social and economic equality, stronger child and family support, universal access to quality-regulated and subsidized ECEC, and universal state-subsidized healthcare. One possible interpretation of the findings is that these characteristics of Norwegian society will alleviate stressors related to social inequality (and poverty) and hence reduce the importance of maternal education for children’s self-regulation development. Indeed, it has been found that children in the United States are more likely to experience high-quality ECEC if they come from high-SES families (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2006; Sohr-Preston et al., 2013), while the corresponding relationship is less strong in Norway (Rege, Solli, Størksen, & Votruba, 2018) and it is found that high-quality ECEC can have an equalizing effect (Sylva, Sammons, Melhuish, Siraj, & Taggart, 2020).
Another possible interpretation of the findings draws upon the assumption that maternal education is an indicator for both parental investment and family stress (poverty) to a greater extent in the U.S.
sample than in the Norwegian one. In fact, maternal education and income are strongly associated in the U.S. (r = .68, p < .001; Wanless, McClelland, Tominey, & Acock, 2011), but, as already mentioned, this association is much weaker in Norway (r = .26, p < .001; Størksen et al., 2015). The strong U.S. correlation suggests that mothers in the United
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States who have a low level of education are also likely to be poor and may thus display less sensitivity to their children (see Discussion, pages 78-79), which has been shown to be detrimental to children’s self-regulation (Yeung et al., 2002).
Again, the results of this thesis highlight the importance of conducting studies across groups and social contexts to understand the complexity of child development. However, to better understand this complexity, future research should include measures of the environment and the proximal processes.