Re: coercion & affect

Robin Harwood (HARWOOD who-is-at UConnVM.UConn.Edu)
Thu, 16 May 96 08:55:54 EDT

>shed some light here. When teaching their children various
>tasks, such as drawing a line or stacking blocks, Anglo mothers
>used more indirect means of guiding their children, such as
>questions and suggestions, whereas the Puerto Rican mothers
>used very direct verbal commands. The Puerto Rican mothers

Yes, this is correct--both groups of mothers are interested in
guiding their children's activities in the teaching tasks, but
Puerto Rican mothers are more likely to guide using direct
verbal commands and physical interventions, whereas the Anglo mothers
are more likely to guide indirectly ("Do you want to put the block
here?" as opposed to "Put the block here").

Robin