Maternal Interactional Quality in Two Cultural Environments German Middle Class and Cameroonian Rural Mothers

Abstract

This study compares German urban middle class with Cameroonian rural Nso mothers interacting with their 4-, 8-, and 12-week-olds on two dimensions of parenting: sensitivity and responsive control. Although the first concept is well-established in the literature, we suggest responsive control as the essence of good parenting leading to optimal development according to Nso mothers' ethnotheories. Although the two concepts differentiate between the two samples, the validity of responsive control in terms of developmental implications still has to be established.