Dr. Maynard’s Research
Dr. Maynard’s research program is concerned with the interrelationships of culture, the contexts of child development, and the healthy cognitive and social development of children. Based in the sociocultural paradigm, the overarching developmental and theoretical question that lies at the heart of her research program is the ways in which a variety of culturally-based activity settings influence a variety of pathways of development for children. She is interested in cultural settings at nested levels of development: from cultural values and economics in the macrosystem down to children’s microsystem interactions. She conducts studies in Hawaii and at her international field site, Nabenchauk, a Zinacantec Maya hamlet located in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. The domains of her research cover: (1) the developmental trajectory of children’s teaching abilities; (2) the interacting roles of culture and cognitive tools (e.g., books, media, or weaving tools) in the development of thinking; (3) the impact of historical change and changing cultural models on child socialization; and the (4) the role of siblings in cognitive and social development.
About Ashley Maynard
Ashley E. Maynard, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair
B.A. in Psychology and Cognitive Science, 1994
University of Virginia
M.A. in Psychology, 1996
UCLA
Ph.D. in Psychology, 1999
UCLA
Selected Publications
Greenfield, P. M., Maynard, A. E., & Martí, F. A. (in press, 2009). Implications of Commerce and Urbanization for the Learning Environments of Everyday Life: A Zinacantec Maya Family Across Time and Space. To appear in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Maynard, A. E. (2009). What we thought we knew and how we came to know it: Four decades of cross-cultural research on cognitive development from a Piagetian point of view. Human Development, 51: 56-65.
Maynard, A. E. (2004). Cultures of teaching in childhood: Formal schooling and Maya sibling teaching at home. Cognitive Development, 19 (4): 517-536.
Greenfield, P. M., Maynard, A. E., & Childs, C. P. (2003). Historical change, cultural apprenticeship, and cognitive representation in Zinacantec Maya children. Cognitive Development, 18: 455-487.
Maynard, A. E. (2002). Cultural teaching: The development of teaching skills in Zinacantec Maya sibling interactions. Child Development, 73 (3): 969-82.
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