Temple Ecology and Cognitive Development: A Report from South India

Abstract

The impact of growing up in the vicinity of Hindu temples on cognitive development was studied in the southern part of India. Enrolled in Grades 1 and 4, the participating children (N-281) were drawn from three kinds of ecology, i.e., families intimately associated with temple, families that are religious but not so intimately associated with temple, and families in non-temple areas, using a cross-sectional design. NCERT School Readiness Scale and Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System were used to assess their cognitive development. Children associated with temples emerged to be more cognitively competent than other two groups of children on both points of schooling. Sex differences and their interaction with ecology were not significant for most of the measures. Results point to the role of temple institutions in shaping development of children byproviding rich and variegated ecology.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Berry, J.W. , & Irvine, S.H. (1986). Bricolage: Savages do it daily. In R.J. Sternberg & R.K. Wagner (Eds.), Practical intelligence: Natureandoriginsofcompetencein the everyday world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1988). Interacting systems in human development. Research paradigms: Present and future. In N. Boigar , A. Caspi , G. Pawney , & M. Moorehouse (Eds.), Persons in context: Developmental Process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice . New York: Basic Books.

Gibson, E.J. (1982). The concept of affordances: The renascence of functionalism. In A. Collins (Ed.), The concept of development: The Minnesota symposium on child development (Vol. 15). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Gibson, J.J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Luria A.R. (1966). Human brain and psychological processes. New York: Harper & Row.

Misra, G. , & Gergen, K.J. (1993). On the place of culture in psychological science . International Journal of Psychology, 28, 225-43.

Misra, G. , & Tripathi, K.N. (1993). The concept and context of human development. In T.S. Saraswathi & B. Kaur (Eds.), Human development and family studies in India: An agenda for research and policy. New Delhi: Sage.

Mundy-Castle, A.C. (1974). Social and technological intelligence in western and non-western cultures. Universitas, 4, 46-52.

10.

Muralidharan, R. , & Banerjee, U. (1973). NCERT school readiness scale New Delhi: NCERT.

11.

Muralidharan, R. , Srivastava, A.K. , & Bhat, V.D. (1994). A case study of the physical and psychological development of children of the temple villages/towns of Karnataka. New Delhi: NCERT (mimeographed).

12.

Naglieri, J.A. , & Das, J.P. (1988). Planning-arousal-simultaneous-successive: A model for assessment. Journal of School Psychology, 26, 35-48.

13.

—. (1990). Planning, attention, simultaneous and successive (PASS) cognitive processes as a model for intelligence. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 8, 303-37.

14.

Nsamenang, A.B. & Lamb, M.E. (1993). The acquisition of socio-cognitive competence by NSO children in the Bamenda Grassfields of Northwest Cameroon. International Journal of Behavioural Developemnt, 16, 429-41.

15.

Nunes, T. (1992). Cognitive invariants and cultural variation in mathematical concepts. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 15, 433-53.

16.

Ramanujan, A.K. (1990). Is there an Indian way of thinking: An informal essay. In M. Marriott (Ed.), India through Hindu Categories. New Delhi: Sage.

17.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking. New York: Oxford University Press.

18.

Serpell, R. (1933). Interaction of context with development: Theoretical constructs for the design of early childhood education programs. In G. Eldering & P. Leseman (Eds.), Early intervention and culture: Preparation for literacy. The Hague: UNESCO Publishing .

19.

White, S. (1983). Psychology as a moral science. In F.S. Kessel & A.W. Siegel (Eds.), The child and other cultural inventions. New York: Praeger.