Urban-Rural Differences in Sociable and Disruptive Behavior of Kenya Children

Ms. Rossetti has made some useful observations about mice and men. Rural children do indeed seem to be friendlier and more sociable than their city cousins, at least in Kenya. And the country child in Kenya, although far from timid, seems to display fewer dominant and aggressive social behaviors in the rural setting than occur in the city. Ms. Rossetti also has the germ of a theory for these differences urban children and mothers eat store bought bread and cheese, and do not have to perform the horticultural tasks and chores required by the country child to eat what he or she can. Differential routines and chores related to the subsistence economy may indeed play an important role in social behavior differences in city and country. The inHuence of cities on families, parents, and children is a paradoxical topic in a way. Although folk views of the city generally picture strong effects (in the West, effects often thought to be deleterious compared to some buccolic alternative), systematic research on urban-rural differences in child development and parenting often cannot Snd systematic effects. When differences are found, the specific features of the city which cause them cannot readily be disentangled. Cross-cultural work on the city only re-emphasizes this problem by documenting the enormous variety of cities around the world (e.g., Gulick I973; Basham I978). There are cities throughout the world, and neighborhoods within most cities, which belie at least some of the standard ecological definitions of urban sociology large size, high population, high density, social complexity, cultural heterogeneity. From a child's point of view, or from the point of view of a primary caretaker, the city may look very different. Of great importance to the study of the effects of cities on children's behavior then, is Srst to consider this