Building on the first volume and second volume, this third volume on ‘How Children Learn from Parents and Parenting Others in Formal and Informal Settings: International and Cultural Perspectives’ explores the evolving landscape of children’s learning experiences from parents, caregivers, and their broader communities in both formal and informal settings, within diverse international and cultural contexts.

For several decades, parent-child cognitive interaction researchers have acknowledged that children learn cognitive skills in the context of their social and early environments. These cognitive skills are often imparted to the children by parents or parenting others in formal or informal settings. For example, such informal settings as dinner table conversations, walks through grocery stores, museums, or neighborhoods become rich laboratories for children to learn varied cognitive skills ranging from numeracy, concepts, and language. The way in which those learning opportunities are provided by parents, structured by parents and scaffolded by parents may well vary depending on culture, and other socio-demographic variables; and may well vary depending on formal or informal settings.

This Research Topic aims to bring together scholarship from both global north and global south contexts, to advance understanding of the different ways children acquire cognitive, social, and emotional skills from families and communities in a rapidly changing world, highlighting both longstanding practices and emerging phenomena.

Contributions can include, but are not limited to:
• Strategies that parents use as they engage their children in learning interactions.
• How parents, siblings, and family members scaffold child interactions and how children respond in different contexts.
• Explorations of AI and technology tool integration into familial learning opportunities and routines within the home, and wider community.
• How different family arrangements (e.g., blended, foster care, same-sex, intergenerational, multicultural) impact learning and caregiving styles.
• Explore cross-cultural differences and new family dynamics emerging due to changing demographics, migration, or social policies.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

How Children Learn from Parents and Parenting Others in Formal and Informal Settings: International and Cultural Perspectives - Volume III