Cross-Cultural and Multicultural Analysis of “Babies”

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The documentary “Babies” shows the story of four babies, each from different parts of the world, and each with their own story to showcase. Two of the four babies featured in the documentary are Ponijao and Hattie. Ponijao is an African girl born and raised in the country of Namibia. Judging by western standards, she is of low socioeconomic status. She and her family live in a rural village in the African dry lands. They have extremely limited access to things such as electricity, steadily running water, emergency medical care, and formal education. Hattie on the other hand, is a European American girl born and raised in San Francisco, California, USA. Going by western standards she is of middle to upper socioeconomic status. She lives with her family in a slightly about average home located in an urban city. She has easy access to things like electricity, running water and standardized education. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast Ponijao and Hattie in terms of socialization and intelligence. According to our lecture on socialization, socialization can be defined as the process by which people lean and internalize rules and patterns in their own society. This includes societal norms, attitudes, values, and belief systems. Socialization agents, such as family, friends, parents, schools, and government make sure socialization occurs. It’s important for socialization to occur because as we mentioned in class, a child is more likely to become successful in their society if they are socialized in a way that abides by and fit’s in their culture. Ponijao and Hattie are socialized in different ways. Ponijao was socialized more so by her whole community, rather than just her parents like Hattie initially was. During her mere infancy, Ponijao was immediately exposed to her cultures way of life. She wasn’t as guarded or sheltered as much as Hattie was at

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