Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

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Infant Behavior and Development

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/inbede

The role of preacademic activities and adult-centeredness in

mother-child play in educated urban middle-class families from
three cultures
Joscha Kärtner a, *, Antje von Suchodoletz b
a
Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Fliednerstraße 21, 48149 Münster, Germany
b
Department of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi, PO Box 129188, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The present study analyzes similarities and differences in cultural beliefs about mother-child play
Mother-child play and their manifestation in maternal and children’s play practices in three different educated
Adult-centeredness urban middle-class cultures. Based on the general assumption that mother-child play is an
Preacademic activities
important context for child learning and development in educated urban middle-class commu­
Cross-cultural similarities and differences
nities that should result in cross-cultural similarities in mother-child play, the current study also
hypothesized culture-specific accentuations, namely a stronger emphasis on preacademic vs. non-
academic play activities and on adult-centered vs. child-centered modes of interaction in Chennai,
India, (n = 28) than in Münster, Germany, (n = 35) and New York City (NYC), USA, (n = 36).
Maternal goals and strategies were assessed in semi-structured interviews and mothers from
Chennai emphasized play goals and preacademic goals to similar degrees, whereas mothers from
Münster and NYC accentuated play goals. In line with their emphasis on preacademic goals and
strategies, Chennai mothers showed significantly more preacademic activities during play with
their 2-year-olds, especially explicit teaching. Furthermore, Chennai mothers’ stronger emphasis
on play directives and children’s higher levels of responsive play complemented the pattern of
more adult-centered beliefs and practices. In contrast, mothers from Münster and NYC were more
likely to emphasize child-centeredness, with significantly more goals revolving around child
immersion in play activities and autonomy-supporting play practices, including autonomous
exploration, toddlers’ leadership and control, and maternal responsiveness. Unexpectedly, tod­
dlers from NYC engaged the most in preacademic activities, especially responding to maternal
quizzing.

1. Introduction

In most modern societies, play between mothers and their children is a valued activity and, in these cultures, mother-child play is an
important context for child learning and development (Lancy, 2007; Roopnarine, 2011; Roopnarine, Yildirim, & Davidson, 2018).
Besides these similarities across modern cultures, these authors argue that maternal belief systems regarding mother-child play differ
across cultures. With this in mind, the overarching goal of this paper is to analyze cross-cultural similarities and differences in both
maternal beliefs about mother-child play and maternal and child behavior during mother-child play in early childhood. More

* Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Fliednerstr. 21, 48149 Münster, Germany.
E-mail address: j.kaertner@uni-muenster.de (J. Kärtner).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101600
Received 6 January 2021; Received in revised form 29 April 2021; Accepted 12 June 2021
Available online 18 June 2021
0163-6383/© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

specifically, this study integrates different levels of analyses by looking at how maternal beliefs are related to maternal practices and
how these, in turn, are associated with children’s behavior during mother-child play. Such a process-related approach allows to specify
the ways in which culture affects child development by identifying the proximal, interactional mechanisms through which maternal
beliefs affect child experience and behavior and, in consequence, child development.
Concerning culture-specific belief systems on mother-child play, recent research with middle-class families has shown that for
Euro-American parents, all facets of play, encompassing functional and symbolic play, and playful learning with a focus on preaca­
demic activities, have a value in itself in fostering, amongst other skills, exploration, curiosity and creativity, social-emotional,
cognitive and preacademic development (Roopnarine, 2011; Roopnarine et al., 2018). In contrast, for educated urban middle-class
families from Asian countries, mother-child play is more an arena for preacademic activities (Parmar, Harkness, & Super, 2008;
Farver, Kim, & Lee, 1995; Fisher, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Singer, & Berk, 2011; Parmar, Harkness, & Super, 2004; Sengupta, 2016; van
Oers, 2012). For instance, based on maternal reports, 70 % of mother-child play in Korean-American families was preacademic play (e.
g., studying letters and numbers), while 90 % was nonacademic play in Euro-American families (Farver et al., 1995). In another study
on educated middle-class families living in the USA, immigrant parents of 3- to 6-year-olds from multiple Asian countries (i.e., India,
Pakistan, Nepal, China and Korea) emphasized nonacademic play as relatively less important and preacademic activities as relatively
more important for their children than Euro-American parents (Parmar et al., 2004). This differential emphasis led to Asian immigrant
families having a higher involvement in preacademic activities than Euro-American families, namely 3 h and 20 min per week vs. 20
min per week, based on day-to-day scores of children’s activities across a week (Parmar et al., 2008). Thus, while Euro-American
ethnotheories on child play, meaning lay theories that regulate maternal structuring, seem to embrace academic, socio-emotional,
and cognitive development (Fisher et al., 2011), Asian immigrant parents’ ethnotheories on child play primarily revolve around
preacademic activities and preacademic developmental outcomes.
Beyond maternal beliefs concerning play and their specific role during play interactions, the structure of mother-child play in­
teractions is embedded in more general cultural beliefs concerning children and their social relation to mothers and, more generally,
other adults. One broad theme that permeates many if not most interaction formats is that of child-centeredness and adult-
centeredness (Keller, 2007), which is similar to Lancy’s (2014) notion of neontocratic and gerontocratic values and orientations.
According to Keller’s ecocultural model of child development, child-centered interactions are interactions that center around chil­
dren’s preferences and autonomous exploration – the child is leading the interaction while the adult fosters autonomous exploration, is
responsive to and approves children’s initiatives and provides options for children to choose from. According to this theory,
child-centered interactions characterize socio-cultural contexts that emphasize children’s independence and autonomy, so-called
autonomous or independent cultures. Importantly, child-centered interactions are an important interactional mechanism by which
children’s internal mental states (e.g., preferences and desires) are accentuated and become an important reference point for children’s
experience and behavior (Kärtner, 2015). Adult-centered interactions, on the contrary, put adults at the center – the adult is leading the
interaction by prompting and initiating activities and children are expected to adapt and follow, with maternal disapproval and
correction if necessary. This pattern is described as typical of cultures that emphasize proper demeanor and obedience as socialization
goals, so-called relational or interdependent cultures. Applied to mother-child play, a first behavioral study by Keller et al. (2010) with
educated middle-class families from Delhi, India, and Berlin, Germany, found that dyads from Berlin showed significantly more
child-centered play patterns – characterized by high degrees of 19-month-olds’ play initiatives and maternal follow-up – than
mother-child dyads from Delhi. Conversely, the dyads from Delhi showed significantly more adult-centered play – characterized by
high degrees of maternal initiatives and children’s follow-up – than dyads from Berlin.
In sum, cross-cultural studies on mother-child play have either analyzed maternal beliefs – inferring implications for maternal play
behavior – or maternal play behavior – assuming differences in maternal beliefs. Extending prior research, this study explicitly assessed
both maternal beliefs about mother-child play and maternal practices and child behavior during mother-child play and analyzed
whether and how beliefs and practices about mother-child play are organized into coherent patterns. More specifically, the aims of this
study were to, first, identify mothers’ central beliefs about the specific goals and associated strategies of mother-child play, namely
concerning preacademic (i.e., teaching and learning) and nonacademic play goals, the latter further subdivided into child-centered (i.
e., children’s leadership and control, autonomous exploration and maternal responsiveness) and mother-centered (i.e., maternal
prompting and demanding) play goals. Second, we examined how these beliefs were instantiated in maternal practices during a
mother-child play episode at home, namely in terms of the relative emphasis on (i) preacademic activities vs. non-academic play and
(ii) child-centered (i.e., mothers’ responsiveness and offering choices) vs. adult-centered (characterized by maternal prompts and
directives) modes of mother-child play. Third, we analyzed to what degree children’s behavior reflected their mothers’ cultural
emphasis, namely (i) children’s preacademic activities and (ii) children’s play initiatives (i.e., child-centered play) and responsive play
(i.e., adult-centered play).
Since most studies so far compared US-American or European with Asian educated urban middle-class families, we decided to
choose comparable samples, namely urban educated middle-class families from New York City, USA, Münster, Germany, and Chennai,
India. Doing so, we extended previous research by including three – instead of only two – different socio-cultural contexts. Based on the
model of Keller (2007) and findings from Keller et al. (2010), we assumed educated urban middle-class families from the two Western
countries to represent an autonomous cultural model and educated urban middle-class families from a non-Western Asian country to
represent a more relational cultural model.
Concerning mothers’ cultural beliefs, we hypothesized that, based on Parmar et al.s’ (2004, 2008) findings on the central role of
preacademic activities in Asian cultural models, mothers from Chennai emphasize preacademic goals and values (i.e., both teaching
and learning) more strongly than mothers from New York City and also mothers from Münster. Based on the findings from Keller et al.
(2010) and the cross-cultural literature on child- vs. adult-centeredness, we hypothesized mothers from Münster and, by extension,

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J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

mothers from New York City, to emphasize goals on child-centered modes of interaction (i.e., maternal responsiveness and toddlers’
autonomous exploration, leadership and control) more and adult-centered modes of interaction (i.e., maternal prompting and
demanding) less strongly than mothers from Chennai. Concerning mothers’ and children’s behavior, we hypothesized that the same
emphases manifest in behavior during mother-child interaction, namely more time is allocated to child-centered non-academic play (i.
e., maternal responsive play and play offers and toddlers’ play initiatives) and less time is allocated to adult-centered non-academic
play (i.e., maternal initiatives and directives and toddlers’ responsive play) and preacademic activities (i.e., maternal teaching and
quizzing and toddlers’ responding and naming) in Münster and New York City than in Chennai.
Beyond the assumption that the cultural models are similar across the two Western samples, that is, middle-class families from New
York City and Münster, previous studies revealed substantial differences in ideas about parenting and how maternal beliefs are
implemented in daily practices between German and Euro-American mothers (Keller & Demuth, 2006). Similarly, a study comparing
behaviors of French and Euro-American mothers, that would similarly be categorized as two autonomous socio-cultural contexts,
found that there were similarities, but also differences during play interactions between mothers and their 20-month-old children
(Suizzo & Bornstein, 2006). While mothers from both contexts engage in similar amounts of play, Euro-American mothers used speech
and praise to scaffold their children’s play whereas French mothers more often took the spectator role rather than being actively
involved in the activity (Suizzo & Bornstein, 2006). Therefore, we also explored differences between mothers from Münster and New
York City.
Beyond testing the hypothesized patterns of similarities and differences across cultures, we also examined links between maternal
goals and their own and their children’s behavior at an individual level, namely by analyzing the associations between all three levels
within and across cultures. This more processual account is an important extension of previous research, since studies have also shown
variation on how play episodes are conceived of and structured by mothers within cultures and such interindividual associations would
further strengthen the dynamic relationship between maternal beliefs and practices and child behavior that is assumed to underly the
cross-cultural differences found. For example, the study by Farver and Howes (1993) showed that Euro-American mothers differed in
whether they took naturally occurring play episodes as teaching opportunities or whether they preferred a non-academic play format.
Therefore, we expected similar correlational patterns across cultures concerning associations between goals and values associated with
play and how these translate into mothers’ structuring and children’s behavior during mother-child play. More specifically, a relatively
stronger emphasis on preacademic play goals should be associated with less non-academic and more academic play behavior for both
mothers and children.

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

In total, 109 mothers and their children from three different cultures, 38 from Münster (Germany), 36 from New York City, NYC
(USA), and 35 from Chennai (India), were visited at their homes. Ten mother-child dyads were excluded (n = 3 in Münster and n = 7 in
Chennai) due to technical or procedural problems. The final sample for the analyses included 99 dyads. Children (52.5 % girls) were,
on average, 24.74 months old (SD = 3.08). More than half of the children in each sample were the firstborn child (51.4 % in Münster,
58.3 % in NYC, and 78.6 % in Chennai), χ2 = 5.59, p = .061. All children were born in the respective country where the data was
collected, namely Germany, India, or USA. In the Münster sample, 7.9 % (i.e., 3 mothers) were born outside Germany and were living
in Germany for, on average, 26 years at the time of the data collection. German was the primary language spoken at the home in all
families. In the NYC sample, 16.7 % (i.e., 6 mothers) were born outside the USA but were living in the USA for, on average, 33 years at
the time of the data collection. The majority of mothers and toddlers from NYC (83 %) were White; 8% were Asian-American and 3%
African-American; 3% identified as other; 3% of mothers did not report their ethnicity. The primary language spoken at home was
English in all families. In the Chennai sample, one mother was born outside India (information was missing when she moved to India).
Most dyads spoke Tamil (82 %), and four of these families spoke some English at home. These are the two official languages in the state
of Tamil Nadu of which Chennai is the capital. Two families spoke Urdu and one family, respectively, spoke Marwadi, Malayalam, or
English only, all official languages in one or multiple states in India.
For participant recruitment in Chennai and New York City, flyers were distributed in day care centers to parents of toddlers
(targeted age range: 20–30 months). In Münster, flyers were sent home to parents of toddlers in the same age range. In all three cities,
interested families could contact the researchers via email or phone. In addition, snowball sampling was used. Mothers were given
some flyers after participation and asked to distribute them among their network of families with toddlers of the same age.
Since we were interested in meaningful effects (i.e., medium to large effect sizes with f 2 > .30), sample size was calculated based on
a corresponding power analysis with GPower for ANOVA (i.e., test family: F tests; statistical test: fixed effects, omnibus, one-way) and
the following input parameters: two tails, f 2 = .30, α = .05, power (= 1 − β) = .80, number of groups = 3. Results indicated that a total
sample size of N = 111 would be sufficient to detect corresponding effects.
Concerning demographic data, 1-factorial ANOVAs with post-hoc Bonferroni tests showed that mothers in Chennai were signifi­
cantly younger (M = 29.30 years, SD = 4.32) than mothers in both Münster (M = 34.53 years, SD = 4.26) and New York City (M =
33.60 years, SD = 3.78), F(2, 93) = 13.49, p = .000. Significant differences were also found with regard to household size, F(2, 93) =
22.61, p = .000. Households in Chennai were larger (M = 5.33 people, SD = 1.26) than households in both Münster (M = 3.59 people,
SD = 0.61) and New York City (M = 3.97 people, SD = 1.10). Differences in household size were driven by more adults (18 years and
older) per household in Chennai (M = 3.81 adults) compared to two adults per household in Münster and New York City, F(2, 93) =
59.35, p = .000. While the nuclear family was the dominant family structure in Münster (all families) and New York City (all but one

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J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

family), most families (77.8 %) in Chennai were living as extended family with at least three adults. Mothers in Münster and New York
City held similar educational attainments, on average 17.88 years in Münster (SD = 2.71) and 18.11 years in New York City (SD =
2.92), while mothers in Chennai had significantly fewer years of education, on average 15.83 years (SD = 3.27), F(2, 93) = 4.78, p =
.011. Concerning employment status (missing information for 4 mothers), 58.6 % of mothers worked at least half-time (Chennai: 40.7
%, Münster: 79.4 %, New York City: 58.8 %, χ 2 = 9.58, p < .01), while occupational prestige of those who worked at least half-time
(n=58, missing information for 2 mothers; rated on a 9-point scale according to Hollingshead, 1975) was rather high and comparable
across cultures (Chennai: M = 7.20, SD = 1.23, Münster: M = 7.04, SD = 0.94, New York City: M = 7.47, SD = 1.22), F(2, 53) = 0.891, p
= .416.

2.2. Ethics statement

This research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, the Ethical Principles of the German Psychological
Society (DGPs), and the American Psychological Association (APA). The project proposal was reviewed and has been approved by (1)
the Institutional Review Board of the New York University, (2) the Institutional Review Board of the New York University in Abu
Dhabi, (3) the Ethics Commission of the University of Münster, Germany, and (4) the Ethics Commission of the Hislop College,
Chennai, India.

2.3. General procedure

Between Spring 2017 and Spring 2018, families were visited at home by two female researchers, at least one of whom was from the
respective cultural context. At least one researcher who collected the data in the Chennai sample was fluent in all languages spoken by
the dyads. Home visits lasted for about two hours. After mothers were given a general overview of the activities by experimenter 1
(E1), written informed consent was requested. During that time, experimenter 2 (E2) established rapport with the child. After that, E1
instructed three everyday activities in a fixed order (play, book sharing, and gift receiving), following a standardized protocol. Dyads

Table 1
Coding Categories for Maternal Goals and Strategies Expressed in the Play Interviews.
Label Definition Examples

Play goals
Child-centered play goals
Maternal responsiveness
Maternal approval1
Mother offering choices1
Toddler’s leadership and
control
Toddler’s autonomous
exploration
Toddler’s preferences and
choices1
Toddler’s pretense, creativity
and imagination1
Mother-centered play
goals
Maternal prompting,
demanding and initiating
Maternal disapproval and
correction1
Toddler’s social
responsiveness1
Toddler’s proper demeanor
and obedience1
Preacademic goals
Maternal teaching
Toddler’s learning
The mother describes that she joins her child in play to comfort and help when her “We join her in what she wants to do”
child needs support, and emphasizes acting according to the child’s interest and
needs
The mother emphasizes the importance of acknowledging her child’s “to support her by praising”
achievements and praising the child
The mother reflects on her offering choices and alternatives to the child, for “I would give him a couple of different
example, by providing different toys for the child to choose from or by suggesting options for toys”
different play activities
The mother is focused on encouraging her child to take leadership and control “[I] let her lead the activities”
during the play activity, for example, by initiating a play activity
The mother is focused on encouraging her child to engage in the play activity “She can figure out how to do it herself”
independently. The child is free to play how they like and to explore the toys
independently
The mother is focused on encouraging her child to make his or her own choices. “She can pick what she wants to do”
The child is allowed to choose from different play activities and/or toys according
to their preference and interest
The mother is focused on encouraging her child to use his or her imagination and “To get at their creativity, [I] kind of like
develop creativity. The child is encouraged to engage in pretend play their child imagery”
The mother emphasizes her role in taking the lead during the activity. She is “I start because I introduce the things to
focused on guiding and instructing the child about what to do and how to play her”
The mother is focused on correcting the child, such as the child’s action, behavior, “[I have] to say no and to tell him that this
or language is not okay. To like intervene somehow”
The mother is focused on encouraging her child to follow the mother’s lead and to “[The child] accepts my ideas”
respond to her suggestions and requests. The child is expected to play along with
the mother
The mother is focused on encouraging the child to display appropriate behaviors. “practice in following rules”
The child is supposed to learn and to obey play rules and to behave correctly while
playing
The mother describes different strategies to teach her child skills and knowledge “I will teach him shapes”
The mother describes different learning goals for her child, such as general “[to learn] about numbers and letters and
knowledge acquisition, language skills, mathematical skills, motor skills, or colors”
higher-order learning-related skills

Note. 1 Since these categories occurred in less than half of all participants, they were not included in the respective composite scores.

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J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

were video-recorded in each of the three activities. Each activity was followed by a semi-structured interview with the mother about
her goals and associated strategies for that activity, while E2 played with the child. Mothers also completed a questionnaire about child
and family demographic information. At the end of the home visit, mothers received monetary compensation or a gift voucher for a
local toy store for participation. From the three different activities, the current study focuses on the play activity, both the mother-child
play interaction and the semi-structured interview on maternal play goals.
At the beginning of the mother-child play interaction, E1 instructed mothers that they will be provided with toys and to play with
these toys with their child “however they choose to”. All dyads were then given the same set of toys with toys that were easily available
and common in all three educated, urban middle-class milieus (i.e., stuffed animals, wheeled toys, puppets). The toys were placed on
the floor between mother and child within reach. E1 then left the room, while E2, who operated the video camera, stayed in the room
but did not participate in the play activity. The activity was videotaped for four minutes, and these four minutes were analyzed. After
the activity, mothers completed the semi-structured interview that included five open-ended questions. The first question focused on
play activities in general (“How do you usually arrange play situations like this with your child?”). Two questions asked about mothers’
goals regarding play activities (“If you think of what you were doing in 2–3 sentences, can you please tell me your goals for play
activities?” and “If you think of your child’s development, what do you think is the importance of play for children’s development?”)
and two questions focused on the role of the mother and the child during play activities (“What roles does each of you have? Who has
the lead in play activities?” and “What is the importance of your role as a parent during play activities?”). The interviews were audio
recorded and transcribed by trained research assistants.

2.4. Coding nonacademic play goals and preacademic goals in the semi-structured interview

All interviews with mothers were transcribed in the original language, verified and, if necessary, corrected, and then, for the
Münster and the Chennai sample, translated into English, by a German native speaker (interviews from Münster) and a Tamil native
speaker who was also familiar with Urdu, Marwadi, and Malayalam (interviews from Chennai). Furthermore, transcripts were de-
identified to enable blind coding across cultures. Transcripts were coded by two pairs of coders using the software MAXQDA 2018
(VERBI Software, 2018), separately for play and preacademic codes. After relevant content units (typically a phrase) were consensually
identified (i.e., after independent identification of events in all interviews) by each pair of coders, coders independently assigned one
code of an exclusive set of mothers’ goals for non-academic each play goals and preacademic goals, and associated strategies.
There were eleven exclusive categories for coding mothers’ non-academic play goals, capturing their beliefs about the importance
of play for children’s development and mothers’ role in play activities; the first seven referred to autonomy-supporting (i.e., child-
centered) play, the last four to relatedness-supporting (i.e., mother-centered) play. Furthermore, there were two exclusive cate­
gories for mothers’ preacademic goals that captured maternal teaching and toddlers’ learning of preacademic content (see Table 1 for
definition and examples).

2.4.1. Reliability
To compute interrater reliabilities for the coding of the maternal goals in the interviews, the two pairs of coders double-coded six
transcripts per culture for the non-academic play goals (i.e., 18.2 % of all transcripts, which resulted in a cross-table with 431 coded
units) and four transcripts per culture for the preacademic goals (i.e., 11.1 % of all transcripts, which resulted in a cross-table with 71
coded units). Brennan & Prediger’s κ was 0.87 for play goals and 0.82 for preacademic goals, indicating good to excellent reliabilities
(Brennan & Prediger, 1981).

2.4.2. Data preparation and scores

Seven out of these 13 categories did not occur once in more than half of the sample and were therefore excluded from further
analyses (category did not occur once in: 92.9 % of the sample for maternal approval; 92.9 % for maternal disapproval and correction;
87.9 % for offering choices; 81.8 % for toddler’s preferences and choices; 58.6 % for toddler’s pretense, creativity and imagination;
82.8 % for toddler’s social responsiveness; 65.7 % for toddler’s proper demeanor and obedience). For the remaining six categories, we
computed relative frequencies by dividing the number of occurrences of each category by all given codes across all six categories.
Furthermore, we computed aggregate scores for theoretically clustered categories. All superordinate scores indicate the sum or the
relative frequencies of all codes that belong to this category. First, the superordinate category child-centered play is the sum of maternal
responsiveness, toddlers’ leadership and control and toddlers’ autonomous exploration. The superordinate category mother-centered play is
identical with maternal prompting and demanding as its only category. Second, the superordinate category play is the sum of the first
superordinate categories child-centered play and mother-centered play. Finally, the superordinate category preacademic activities was
defined as the sum of maternal teaching and toddlers’ learning. As a consequence, play and preacademic activities add up to a score of 1
(see also Table 3).

2.5. Coding of the mother-child play interaction

Based on a 5 s-interval coding approach, the following non-exclusive categories were coded by two coders using the software
Mangold INTERACT (Mangold, 2017). For each category, coders decided whether and which of the defined codes occurred or whether
the interval was not codable. Final scores were relative frequencies of occurrences corrected for not codable intervals that accounted,
on average, for less than 3% of all intervals (i.e., proportion of 5 s-intervals).

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Table 2
Coding Categories for Maternal and Child Behavior during Mother-child Play.
Label Definition Examples

Maternal play
Responsive play Mother joins in child play Imitating the child; following the toddler’s initiatives
Play offer (verbal) Mother verbally offers a play option or a play choice “Look! Would you like to play with the car?”; “Would you like to play
with the fish or with the car?”
Play initiative Mother starts playing with a new object or starts a new play
activity
Play directive (verbal) Mother gives a verbal play directive “Now play with the car!”
Maternal preacademic
activities
Teaching Mother actively teaches child by naming or enumerating “This is a fish!”, “Look, how many cars: One! Two!”, “This is blue!”
objects or object features
Quizzing Mother quizzes child on objects and object features “What color is this?”
Child play
Play initiative Child starts playing with a new object or starts a new play
activity
Responsive play Child joins in maternal play or follows mother’s play
initiative or directive
Continued play Child continues playing without starting a new initiative or
following mother’s lead
Child preacademic
activities
Responding Child responds to maternal quizzing “Green!”
Naming Child spontaneously names or enumerates objects or object “Fish!”
features

2.5.1. Maternal play behavior and preacademic activities

Following our definition of nonacademic (i.e., focus on functional and pretend play) and preacademic play (i.e., playful
learning with a focus on preacademic activities such as teaching and quizzing) given above, there were four non-exclusive cat­
egories for coding mothers’ nonacademic play behavior, with responsive play and play offers as indicators of child-centered play
and maternal play initiatives and play directives indexing adult-centered play. Furthermore, there were two non-exclusive cate­
gories for coding mothers’ preacademic play behavior, namely informing and quizzing during mother-child play (see Table 2 for
definitions and examples).

2.5.1.1. Toddlers’ play behavior and preacademic activities. There were three non-exclusive categories for coding children’s nonaca­
demic play activities, namely play initiatives (i.e., child-centered play), responsive play (i.e., adult-centered play) and continued play
during functional and pretend play. Toddlers’ preacademic activities were indicated by responding and naming (see Table 2).

2.5.1.2. Reliabilities. To compute reliabilities for maternal and child behavior during mother-child play interaction, 15 % of all play
episodes were coded by two research assistants, namely five play episodes from each culture that resulted in a total of 710 5 s intervals.
From these 15 dyads, the play episodes from the Chennai sample were transcribed and translated into German before coding (both
coders were fluent in both German and English, but only one was fluent in the languages spoken in Chennai), while Euro-American and
German play episodes were only coded from video. Cohen’s κs were computed for each of the 11 categories and ranged between κ = .81
and .91 across cultures and between κ = .67 and 1.00 within cultures, with 32 out of all 33 κs > .70.

2.5.1.3. Co-occurrences at the interval level. For mothers, two or more of the four nonacademic play categories co-occurred in 1.8 % of
all episodes, while the two preacademic categories co-occurred in 3.2 % of all episodes. Overall, mothers’ nonacademic play categories
co-occurred with preacademic categories in 3.5 % of all episodes. For toddlers, play initiatives and responsive play co-occurred in 0.7
% of the episodes, while child responding and naming never co-occurred. Toddler play co-occurred with child preacademic activities in
7.7 % of the episodes. Thus, the different categories for mother and child could largely be treated as exclusive.

3. Results

3.1. Mothers’ goals and strategies reported in the semi-structured interview

On average, there were about 15 coded units of maternal goals and strategies per interview with no differences between cultures
(see Table 3 for details). Since there were no consistent effects of maternal education or toddlers’ age and gender on the dependent
variables characterizing maternal goals and strategies (see Supplement S1 for further details), these variables were dropped from the
final analyses that consisted of ANOVAs with post-hoc t-tests with Bonferroni correction to follow up on significant main effects of
culture. Furthermore, we defined specific contrasts to test our hypothesis that mothers from New York City and Münster significantly
differed from mothers from Chennai.

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J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

Table 3
Maternal Goals and Strategies Expressed in the Play Interviews (M and SD).
Total MS NYC CH F(2, 96) η2
p (pC)

Number of codes M 14.82 14.86 15.19 14.29 .10 .002

(SD) 7.89 7.75 7.27 9.03 .902 (.678)
Play M .61 .68a .61 .51b 5.57 .104
(SD) (.21) (.18) (.18) (.24) .005 (.003)
Child-centered play M .41 .46a .43 .33b 3.87 .075
(SD) (.20) (.16) (.20) (.22) .024 (.007)
Maternal responsiveness M .14 .17 .14 .11 1.44 .029
(SD) (.14) (.11) (.14) (.17) .243 (.159)
Toddlers’ leadership & control M .15 .14 .18a .11b 3.73 .072
(SD) (.10) (.11) (.11) (.07) .028 (.023)
Toddlers’ autonomous exploration M .13 .15 .12 .11 .71 .015
(SD) (.12) (.12) (.12) (.13) .496 (.429)
Mother-centered play
Maternal prompting & demanding M .19 .22 .18 .18 1.53 .031
(SD) (.12) (.13) (.09) (.14) .221 (.532)
Preacademic activities1 M .39 .32a .39 .49b 5.57 .104
(SD) (.21) (.18) (.18) (.24) .005 (.003)
Teaching M .09 .08 .08 .13 2.72 .054
(SD) (.09) (.06) (.08) (.13) .071 (.022)
Learning M .30 .24 .31 .36 2.96 .058
(SD) (.20) (.18) (.18) (.23) .057 (.047)

Note. Results of one-factorial (culture) ANOVAs. MS = Münster; NYC = New York City; CH = Chennai. pC is the exact p-value of the contrast testing
the Münster and the New York City against the Chennai sample. Values are proportions of all interview codes. Indented categories aggregate to
superordinate categories (in bold), for instance, Preacademic activities = Teaching + Learning. Subscripts a and b indicate significant differences
(post-hoc t-tests with Bonferroni adjustment).
1
Since the superordinate category preacademic activities is the same as 1 − play, the inferential statistics are identical.

Inspection of mean differences between cultures shows that there was a significant main effect of culture on the balancing of non-
academic play vs. preacademic goals in the interviews. More specifically, when interviewed about mother-child play interactions,
mothers from Münster talked significantly more about play-related than preacademic issues than mothers from Chennai did (M = .68
and M = .51, respectively, see post-hoc t-tests in Table 3). As one-sample t-tests (against .5) indicate, both mothers from Münster and
New York City talked relatively more about non-academic play than preacademic goals, while mothers from Chennai referred to play-
related and preacademic issues equally, Münster: M = .68, t(34) = 5.924, p < .001, New York City: M = .61, t(35) = 3.568, p < .01,
Chennai: M = .51, t(27) = .205, p = .839. Furthermore, at the level of child-centered play, mothers from Münster had significantly more
mentions than mothers from Chennai (Ms = .46 vs. .33). Broken down by coding categories, mothers from New York City referred to
toddlers’ leadership and control during play significantly more often than mothers from Chennai (Ms = .18 vs. .11). Concerning all
three significant differences, mothers from New York City and Münster were more alike and differed from mothers from Chennai, as
also indicated by the significant contrasts, thus putting the two autonomous cultural samples into contrast with the more relational
cultural sample (see pCs in Table 3 for details).
Regarding preacademic themes, the picture is reversed: As predicted, mothers from Chennai mentioned preacademic issues
significantly more often than mothers in the other two cultural samples. When breaking the preacademic categories down into
mentions of teaching and learning, the main effects of culture became only marginally significant (see Table 3). Across all three
categories, the contrast effects reached significance, lending support to the hypothesis that both teaching and learning were referred to
less often during the interviews in Münster and New York City than in Chennai, |t|s(96) > 2.012, ps < .047.

3.2. Mother and child behavior during the mother-child play interaction

On average, the play interaction lasted 3 min 54 s and, as indicated by post-hoc t-tests, was slightly longer in the sample from New
York City (3 min 58 s) as compared to the Chennai sample (3 min 49 s) (see Table 4). Overall, there were no consistent effects (i.e.,
significant associations in at least two of the three cultures) of maternal education or child age and gender on the dependent variables
that characterize mother-child play activities. However, four exceptions of this general pattern were found: There was an effect of
maternal education on maternal play initiatives and children’s preacademic activities, and an effect of child gender on responsive and
continued play (see Supplement S2 for details). In these cases, the standard ANOVAs with post-hoc t-tests with Bonferroni correction to
follow up on significant main effects of culture were complemented by additional analyses: For maternal play initiatives and children’s
preacademic activities, we additionally report ANCOVAs, taking maternal education into account as a covariate. For responsive and
continued play, we additionally report two-factorial ANOVAs taking Culture and Gender into account.
Mothers spent, on average, equal amounts of time (about 30 percent) on playing and preacademic activities. Breaking down
maternal play, mothers allotted similar amounts of time to responsive and initiative play with no differences across cultures (between 9
and 13 percent of intervals, see Table 4 for details). When considering maternal education as covariate in the analysis of maternal
initiative play, the pattern of results remained stable: Culture became marginally significant, F(2, 88) = 2.596, p = .080, η2 = .056, and

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J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

Table 4
Maternal and Child Behavior (M and SD) during Mother-child Play.
Total MS NYC CH F(2, 96) η2
p (pC)

Duration (# of 5 s intervals) M 46.74 46.60 47.58a 45.82b 3.16 .062

(SD) (2.87) (2.61) (1.16) (4.21) .047 (.045)
Maternal play M .31 .32 .27 .34 1.69 .034
(SD) (.16) (.13) (.16) (.18) .190 (.180)
Responsive play M .10 .13 .09 .09 1.61 .032
(SD) (.10) (.09) (.10) (.10) .205 (.369)
Play offer (verbal) M .06 .05 .08 .06 1.87 .038
(SD) (.07) (.04) (.09) (.07) .159 (.472)
Play initiative M .12 .13 .09 .13 2.32 .046
(SD) (.08) (.07) (.06) (.11) .104 (.438)
Play directive (verbal) M .04 .02a .02a .10b 22.90 .323
(SD) (.06) (.03) (.03) (.08) .000 (.000)
Maternal preacademic activities M .29 .25a .30 .34b 3.39 .066
(SD) (.14) (.12) (.13) (.17) .038 (.038)
Teaching M .15 .13a .14a .20b 4.29 .082
(SD) (.10) (.08) (.09) (.11) .016 (.004)
Quizzing M .17 .14 .19 .19 2.80 .055
(SD) (.11) (.10) (.10) (.14) .066 (.224)
Child play M .54 .52 .53 .57 .72 .015
(SD) (.15) (.13) (.15) (.17) .489 (.233)
Play initiative M .24 .26 .23 .22 1.55 .031
(SD) (.10) (.10) (.09) (.10) .217 (.187)
Responsive play M .10 .08a .06a .16b 19.44 .288
(SD) (.08) (.04) (.05) (.10) .000 (.000)
Continued play M .21 .19 .24 .20 .96 .020
(SD) (.14) (.11) (.16) (.15) .385 (.746)
Child preacademic activities M .18 .15a .23b .14a 7.57 .136
(SD) (.12) (.10) (.12) (.11) .001 (0.29)
Responding M .10 .07a .14b .07a 7.85 .141
(SD) (.08) (.07) (.09) (.08) .001 (.083)
Naming M .08 .08 .10 .07 1.61 .032
(SD) (.07) (.07) (.07) (.06) .206 (.141)

Note. Results of one-factorial (culture) ANOVAs. MS = Münster; NYC = New York City; CH = Chennai. pC is the exact p-value of the contrast testing
the Münster and the New York City against the Chennai sample. Values are proportions of 5 s-intervals. Superordinate categories (in bold) are defined
as proportions of intervals in which at least one of the subordinate categories occurred (e.g., Maternal preacademic activities indicates the proportion
of intervals in which mothers showed Teaching and/ or Quizzing behavior). Subscripts a and b indicate significant differences (post-hoc t-tests with
Bonferroni adjustment).

maternal education was a significant covariate, F(1, 88) = 11.867, p = .001, η2 = .119. Verbal play offers and play directives occurred,
on average, in 2–10 percent of the intervals, which equals 1–5 instances per play episode. Mothers from Chennai showed significantly
more play directives than mothers from the other two samples (MMS = .02, MNYC = .02 and MCH = .10, see Table 4 for further details,
including post-hoc t-tests and specific contrasts between the Münster and New York City vs. the Chennai sample). Regarding pre­
academic activities, mothers from Chennai were the most active, showing significantly more overall preacademic activities (MMS =
.25, MNYC = .30 and MCH = .34), especially direct teaching (MMS = .13, MNYC = .14 and MCH = .20).
With regard to child behavior during the play episode, children in all three cultures spent slightly more than half of the time on play
activities, which is three times as long as the time they engaged in preacademic activities (see Table 4). Also similar across cultures,
child play consisted mainly of play initiatives and continued play. Furthermore, toddlers from Chennai showed significantly more
responsive play than toddlers from the two other cultures (MMS = .08, MNYC = .06 and MCH = .16). To account for the consistent
associations between child gender and responsive and continued play, we additionally computed 2-factorial ANOVAs including both
Culture and Gender. For continued play, there was only a significant main effect of Gender, F(1, 93) = 8.237, p = .005, η2 = .082.
Overall, girls showed less continued play than boys (M = .17, SD = .09 and M = .26, SD = .17, respectively). For responsive play, there
were significant main effects for Culture F(2, 93) = 19.841, p < .001, η2 = .299, and Gender, F(1, 93) = 7.535, p = .007, η2 = .075, but
no interaction effect. Overall, girls showed more responsive play than boys (M = .11, SD = .08 and M = .08, SD = .07, respectively).
Across cultures, children allotted, on average, between 14–23 percent of the time to preacademic activities, with children from New
York City showing significantly more preacademic activities than children from the other two cultures (MMS = .15, MNYC = .23 and
MCH = .14), especially responding to mothers’ teaching or quizzing (MMS = .07, MNYC = .14 and MCH = .07). The effect of culture on
toddlers’ preacademic activities remained stable when taking maternal education into account, F(2, 88) = 5.636, p = .005, η2 = .114,
while education was marginally significant, F(1, 88) = 2.937, p = .090, η2 = .032.

3.3. Associations between maternal goals and practices and child play behavior

On the sample level, the significant negative association between maternal emphasis on non-academic play during the interview

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J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

and preacademic activities during mother-child play indicates that, in support of our hypothesis, mothers who did more teaching and
quizzing emphasized preacademic activities more as an important goal of mother-child play interaction (see Table 5). This negative
correlation also occurred consistently within cultures, but it did not reach conventional levels of significance, rs range between -.08
and -.29, ps > .138. However, at the same time and contrary to our hypotheses, there was a marginally significant negative association
(and a consistent trend for negative associations within cultures) between emphasis on play in the interview and maternal play.
The correlational pattern on mother and child behavior presents a clear and coherent picture and was very similar across cultures.
With only one exception, all associations between maternal and child play and preacademic activities were significant at the level of p
< .01 for the total sample (see Table 5). The strongest and most consistent correlations revolved around maternal preacademic ac­
tivities: The more mothers taught and quizzed their child during the mother-child play interaction, the less the mothers played (rs
between − .23 and − .65 within cultures, ps < .178) and the more the children themselves engaged in preacademic activities (rs be­
tween .48 and .65 within cultures, ps < .011). Complementary to this pattern, children engaged less in preacademic activities the more
their mothers played (rs between − .21 and − .41 within cultures, ps < .292), and children played more the less they engaged in
preacademic activities (rs between − .07 and − .42 within cultures, ps < .733).

4. Discussion

The present study compared beliefs and practices concerning mother-child play between mothers and children from educated
urban middle-class families in Münster, New York City and Chennai. We found both similarities and differences across these socio-
cultural groups, suggesting that many aspects of these interactions may be common across the three groups whereas other aspects
may be accentuated in culture-specific ways.
Generally, the similar number of play goals and strategies that mothers mentioned during the interview indicates that mothers
across cultures similarly value mother-child play. Furthermore, mothers in all cultures, at the level of sub-categories, equally often
referred to maternal responsiveness, children’s autonomous exploration and to maternal prompting and demanding as important play
goals. These findings emphasize the similarities in mother-child play across educated middle-class samples in modern cultures (Lancy,
2007). Nevertheless, the relative emphases on some of these goals, especially at the aggregate level, differed between cultures. More
specifically, mothers from Münster, Germany, and NYC, USA, both focused on nonacademic play goals more than on preacademic
goals, whereas mothers from Chennai, India, emphasized nonacademic play goals and preacademic goals to similar degrees. This
differential emphasis was indicated by the fact that both Münster and NYC mothers mentioned nonacademic play goals significantly
more often than preacademic play goals, the significant contrast analysis comparing Münster and NYC mothers to Chennai mothers,
and, in the case of Münster mothers, the significant post-hoc t-test. Furthermore, at the level of the sub-categories, NYC mothers

Table 5
Correlations between Maternal Goals and Mother and Child Behavior.
1 2 3 4

Total sample (N ¼ 99)

1 Play (Interview)
2 Maternal play .03
3 Maternal preacademic activities − .26** − .40**
4 Child play − .18† .12 − .35**
5 Child preacademic activities .06 − .36** .52** − .27**
Münster (N ¼ 35)
1 Play (Interview)
2 Maternal play − .09
3 Maternal preacademic activities − .19 − .23
4 Child play − .13 .24 − .27
5 Child preacademic activities − .11 − .35* .62** − .26
New York City (N ¼ 36)
1 Play (Interview)
2 Maternal play .17
3 Maternal preacademic activities − .08 − .65***
4 Child play − .10 .28 − .54**
5 Child preacademic activities .27 − .41* .65** − .42*
Chennai (N ¼ 28)
1 Play (Interview)
2 Maternal play .06
3 Maternal preacademic activities − .29 − .36†
4 Child play − .21 − .15 − .36†
5 Child preacademic activities − .07 − .21 .48* − .07

Note. Play (Interview) indexes the relative emphasis on play vs. preacademic activities during the interview on mother-child interaction. All other
variables are aggregate variables from the behavioral coding, namely play and preacademic activities of both mother and child.
†
p < .10.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.

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J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

emphasized toddlers’ leadership and control significantly more strongly than mothers from Chennai. There is a reversed pattern for
mothers’ focus on preacademic activities, which is further supported by the significant contrast analyses comparing mothers from
Münster and NYC to Chennai mothers on the level of the subcategories, namely teaching and learning.
As it comes to maternal behavior, there are even more similarities across the three samples. More specifically, mothers spent similar
amounts of time on playing in all three samples. This pattern was found for three out of the four play subcategories. Beyond these
striking similarities, there are also culture-specific accentuations that are in line with our hypotheses. For instance, Chennai mothers’
emphasis on preacademic goals likewise characterized maternal behavior during the mother-child play interaction: These mothers
showed more preacademic activities, especially explicit teaching, compared to mothers from Münster and NYC, as indicated by the
significant contrast analyses and, in the case of Münster, significant post-hoc t-tests. Furthermore, Chennai mothers showed signifi­
cantly higher levels of explicit teaching than mothers from both Münster and NYC. More broadly, this aspect of Chennai mothers’ goals
and practices may reflect a more adult-centered parenting approach. Typically, preacademic activities are mainly structured by adults.
Likewise, Chennai mothers showed significantly more play directives during the mother-child play interaction.
When it comes to toddlers’ behavior, we again see similarities and differences across cultures. On average, toddlers were engaged in
play more than half of the time in all three cultural samples, with similar durations allotted to play initiatives and continued play.
Turning to the culture-specificities of children’s behavior during the mother-child play interaction, Chennai children showed – as
expected – significantly more responsive play than children from the other two cultures, which is in line with earlier behavioral studies
(Keller, Borke, Chaudhary, Lamm, & Kleis, 2010). Furthermore, this finding nicely complements our findings on mothers’ more
adult-centered beliefs and practices, especially the emphasis on preacademic activities.
At the same time, however, toddlers from NYC engaged the most in preacademic activities, especially responding to maternal
quizzing. Importantly, maternal quizzing occurred similarly often in the samples from Chennai and NYC and, by trend, less often in the
sample from Münster. Thus, it seems that although NYC mothers emphasize play more than preacademic goals in the interview when
compared to mothers from Chennai, they show as much preacademic activities as mothers from Chennai during the actual play
interaction.
So, where might this come from? Following Harkness and colleagues (Harkness et al., 2007, 2011), the high rates of maternal
quizzing and toddlers’ responding in the New York City dyads could be interpreted as a manifestation of the central role that cognitive
development plays in American parents’ ethnotheories. In this sense, NYC toddlers’ preacademic activities could be rather taken as an
indicator of mothers’ academic expectations and an agenda to support school readiness than as a more general adult-centeredness of
mother-child interaction (as suggested for toddlers from Chennai). In particular, educated middle-class families seek to provide their
children with an enriching environment that stimulates their cognitive development. Many urban regions across the USA, including
NYC, have seen a heightened focus on preacademic instruction in the early years that may also be reflected in parenting practices
(Bassok, Latham, & Rorem, 2016). Based on the findings above, it seems plausible that NYC parents lean towards the ideal sketched by
Fisher et al. (2011), namely that children take the lead while caregivers gently guide mother-child play by catalyzing playful learning
with a focus on preacademic goals, leading to more stimulating mother-child interaction, also when compared to German dyads
(Kirchhoff, Desmarais, Putnam, & Gartstein, 2019).
The trend towards lower emphases on preacademic goals and practices and the significantly lower level of toddlers’ responding in
the Münster as compared to the NYC sample may reflect the emphasis on free play and learning through play that has a long history in
the German society and that dominates both professional and lay beliefs about early learning (Faas, Wu, & Geiger, 2017; Wu & Rao,
2011). The central tenet is that, through free play (i.e., play that is only lightly structured by adults), children learn to engage with their
lifeworlds in self-determined ways that promote child development and learning. This concept is also central to dominant pedagogical
conceptions for early childhood education and development, such as self-education theory (Schäfer, 2016). Although, since the early
2000s following the release of the first PISA results, the public and scientific debate also revolved around pre-academic goals, in
particular concerning early literacy, numeracy, and natural sciences, the focus on free play remains a central element of early learning
(Faas et al., 2017; Wu & Rao, 2011).
Alternatively – and more in line with the finding that NYC mothers’ focus on non-academic play goals – the accentuation of
maternal quizzing and children’s responding in the NYC sample may indicate a common behavioral routine that is not necessarily
associated with an explicit goal of teaching. As documented by Rogoff, Paradise, Arauz, Correa-Chávez, and Angelillo (2003),
mother-child interaction in the US-American culture is, in general, characterized by formats such as lessons, exercises and quizzing
games, also beyond preacademic settings. But whether or not mothers explicitly intend to teach their children or whether they intend
to play with them, these formats are functional and prepare children for school.
Overall, the pattern of results on maternal beliefs and practices shows similarities and also differences between the three educated
urban middle-class samples from Münster, NYC and Chennai. The culture-specific accentuations align with the broad concepts of child-
and adult-centeredness. As it comes to child development, the cross-cultural differences reported provide support for the hypothesis
that the way of structuring mother-child play has important consequences for toddlers’ experience and behavior. The current findings
may be extended in at least two directions. First, mother-child play is not the only interaction format that is structured along these
lines; adult-centeredness characterizes interaction in relational cultures more generally, as child-centeredness is more typical in
autonomous cultures. Evidence for these assumptions comes, for example, from studies on mother-infant interaction (Keller, 2007), the
socialization of prosocial behavior (Kärtner, 2018) or the socialization of the narrative self and autobiographical memory (Nelson &
Fivush, 2004; Schröder et al., 2013; Wang, 2004). Second, maternal beliefs and practices do not only affect children’s experience and
behavior during play, but – in concert with structuring in other situations – they manifest in a more general sense of oneself in relation
to others. This idea has been captured by others, for instance Keller’s (2007) concept of culture-specific developmental pathways
towards independent and interdependent self-concepts and their relations to others.

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When thinking of cultural diversity in mother-child interactions and child development more generally, it is important to keep in
mind that we intentionally restricted our focus to educated middle-class families in modern societies. As Lancy put it, somewhat
provocatively, mother-child play “is largely an artifact of modern, middle-class society in which parents have relatively high levels of
formal schooling” (Lancy, 2007, p. 278). Along these lines, much research has shown that receiving formal education affects mothers’
ethnotheories and practices when interacting with their children in important ways. Most importantly, interactions become more
verbal, child-centered, and pedagogical (Greenfield, 2009; Keller, 2007; LeVine, LeVine, Schnell-Anzola, Rowe, & Dexter, 2012; Rogoff
et al., 2003). Based on these findings, much of the similarities reported here – both in terms of the meaningfulness of mother-child play
and the more specific goals and practices documented – can be attributed to the high level of formal education. To speculate, it is likely
that the culture-specific differences reported are more pronounced when contrasting cultural samples with medium to low levels of
education. Since mothers in the samples of the current study were all highly educated (i.e., with only one exception all mothers had at
least 12 years of formal education), this question cannot be addressed explicitly. Yet, the few within-culture associations between
maternal education and the reported goals and observed practices (see Supplements for details) are in line with the interpretation that
higher levels of education are associated with more pedagogical interaction formats, that is, less play and more preacademic activities.
The interpretation that the cross-cultural differences in beliefs and practices about mother-child play are organized in coherent
patterns in the three cultures is further supported by the analyses of associations on the interindividual level. Across and within the
three cultures, there were consistent associations between mothers’ and toddlers’ behavior during mother-child play: Maternal
teaching and quizzing came at the cost of playing with the child. At the same time, maternal teaching and quizzing was positively
associated with toddlers’ preacademic activities but negatively correlated with toddlers’ play. These consistent and medium to strong
associations between maternal and child behavior were complemented by an association between maternal goals and mothers’ pre­
academic activities.
Thus, the correlational findings demonstrate that the behavior of both play partners is dynamically linked and consistently
organized. It is tempting to interpret these patterns as caused by cultural beliefs: The pattern suggests that cultural beliefs on “good”
ways to interact with a child inform maternal behavior, which, in the ongoing interaction with the child, structures children’s
experience and behavior (Kärtner, 2018). Across time, these habitualized patterns are appropriated by children and, in the long run,
lead to self-regulated and culture-specific patterns of child play (see also Suizzo & Bornstein, 2006, for a similar interpretation con­
cerning symbolic and exploratory play in 20-month-olds). However, this is a tentative interpretation based on correlational findings
that needs to be substantiated in future research. Conclusive evidence for such an interpretation could be derived from complementary
data, for instance, data that comes from longitudinal assessments of solitary or peer play, to test whether routines established during
mother-child play are related to more self-regulated patterns of child play with peers. Having this said, transactional processes of the
kind that, to a certain degree, certain aspects of maternal ethnotheories and play practices are bidirectionally linked with their child’s
characteristics and developmental change across time are likely from a developmental systems perspective and future research should
also explore the development of mother-child play along this path (Sameroff, 2010).
As another limitation that directly follows from the discussion above, it is important to note that the findings reported here do not
generalize far beyond the specific situation and the specific cultural samples of this study, namely educated urban middle-class families
from specific cities in the USA, Germany, and India. As stated in the introduction, both the importance and the usualness of mother-
child play is not universal and children may have very different experiences in more distant cultures, especially with low levels of
formal education (Lancy, 2007).
A particular strength of this study is that it includes data from two different Western cultures, namely educated urban middle-class
families from NYC, USA, and Münster, Germany that are contrasted with an Asian, more relational sample from Chennai, India.
Furthermore, beyond solely assuming the primacy of preacademic activity in the Asian cultural context or relying on autonomous and
relational cultural syndromes to derive specific hypotheses on maternal play behavior, we used these broad concepts as orienting
concepts but made sure to explicitly assess cultural beliefs, namely maternal ethnotheories about the goals and meanings associated
with mother-child play and how these translate into maternal behavior and the dynamic of mother-child play. Maternal ethnotheories
about and behavior during mother-child play show that, while behavior during mother-child play follows the agenda of adult-
centeredness in Chennai, the interaction becomes more child-centered in Münster and NYC, with an additional accentuation of
school readiness in mothers from NYC.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Joscha Kärtner: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Resources, Supervision, Writing - original draft.
Antje von Suchodoletz: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Resources, Supervision, Writing - review & editing, Funding
acquisition, Project administration.

Acknowledgements

This project was supported by a grant to Antje von Suchodoletz from the New York University Research Challenge Fund Program
(URCF 2017). The data collection in Germany and India was supported by New York University Abu Dhabi Faculty Research Funds to
Antje von Suchodoletz. The authors would like to thank all children and mothers who participated in this project. They also thank
Elena Doering and Shruty Kumarnathan for their contributions to data collection and coding.

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J. Kärtner and A. von Suchodoletz Infant Behavior and Development 64 (2021) 101600

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.
101600.

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