Infancy and Well-Being

Abstract

Infancy, covering the first 2 years in humans, represents an evolved life stage that is characterized through a high propensity for contextualized learning. Two extremely different learning environments are characterized, Western urban middle-class families and rural traditional farming families. Infants acquire the bases for different cultural mindsets within these different environments. Nevertheless, well-being in theory and practice as well as policy is usually defined along the dominating Western middle-class worldview. With the example of the promotion of breastfeeding in the majority world as an important objective of world health organizations, this evaluation is demonstrated. It is argued that well-being has to be conceptualized in culture-specific ways with a special emphasis on the establishment of meaningful, sustainable, and ecocultural developmental pathways. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.