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I find that part of the article and the parallels drawn to nurseries in the UK (by one of the researchers apparently) quite weird. My understanding is that what

I find that part of the article and the parallels drawn to nurseries in the UK (by one of the researchers apparently) quite weird. My understanding is that what is denoted caregiver in the article is quite different to a careperson in a nursery. I don't think that a caregiver in the hunter gatherer society will exclusively watch one child only (and not all the time). I suspect more that they are available if needed. If we look at the scientific article, it studied 18 children across 3 camps and the camps of 20-80 individuals. The article says children had often 10-20 caregivers, based on the 18 children that's a minimum of 180 adults. Assuming an average camp size of 50 that would mean more adults than living in the 3 camps. So clearly caregivers are not exclusive which makes the whole comparison to child to adult ratio completely non-sensical IMO and I'm quite disappointed that researcher was tempted to make a comment in this way (to be fair, often journalists try to pull out a political angle in stories, in our communication training as researchers we were actually warned to be vary of this).

em-bee 3y ago
The article says children had often 10-20 caregivers, based on the 18 children that's a minimum of 180 adults. i do not understand how you could even come up with that kind of interpretation. that caregivers are not exclusive in such a scenario should be obvious. how could it be any different? and no, it doesn't make the whole thing nonsensical. there is a qualitative difference when a child has many adult role models to choose from. it helps put the experience with their own parents in relation to how they experience other adults. the point is not the absolute ratio of adults to children, but the number of adults each child has access to that they can learn something from. and that doesn't require any exclusivity.
- cycomanic 3y ago
  I agree that the caregivers are not exclusive should be quite obvious, and yes having a lot of caregivers at different times would give the child a lot of rolemodels to choose from. The part I take issue with is: > Ratios of caregivers to children were greater than five-to-one in the observed hunter-gatherer groups, whereas in UK nurseries each adult is responsible for numerous children. In fact, regulations on adult-to-child ratios in early years settings have recently decreased for two-year-olds to one caregiver for five children—the opposite of what the researchers observed in the Mbendjele communities. That is nonsensical. There is at best a very weak correlation between the adult-to-child ratios in nurseries and how many overall caregivers a child has and the ratio of children to one adult in a nursery is certainly not "the opposite" of the ratio of 5 "non-exclusive" adults to one child in the Mbendjele communities. In fact it's quite conceivable that even in the Mbendjele communities for parts of the day 10 children might only be looked after by 2 adults, the same ratio as UK nurseries.

em-bee 3y ago

The article says children had often 10-20 caregivers, based on the 18 children that's a minimum of 180 adults. i do not understand how you could even come up with that kind of interpretation. that caregivers are not exclusive in such a scenario should be obvious. how could it be any different? and no, it doesn't make the whole thing nonsensical. there is a qualitative difference when a child has many adult role models to choose from. it helps put the experience with their own parents in relation to how they experience other adults. the point is not the absolute ratio of adults to children, but the number of adults each child has access to that they can learn something from. and that doesn't require any exclusivity.

cycomanic 3y ago
I agree that the caregivers are not exclusive should be quite obvious, and yes having a lot of caregivers at different times would give the child a lot of rolemodels to choose from. The part I take issue with is: > Ratios of caregivers to children were greater than five-to-one in the observed hunter-gatherer groups, whereas in UK nurseries each adult is responsible for numerous children. In fact, regulations on adult-to-child ratios in early years settings have recently decreased for two-year-olds to one caregiver for five children—the opposite of what the researchers observed in the Mbendjele communities. That is nonsensical. There is at best a very weak correlation between the adult-to-child ratios in nurseries and how many overall caregivers a child has and the ratio of children to one adult in a nursery is certainly not "the opposite" of the ratio of 5 "non-exclusive" adults to one child in the Mbendjele communities. In fact it's quite conceivable that even in the Mbendjele communities for parts of the day 10 children might only be looked after by 2 adults, the same ratio as UK nurseries.