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This volume presents observations and thinking of scholars from a variety of disciplines about parental cultural belief systems. The chapters are concerned with the sources and consequences of parental ethnotheories in a number of societies. The following chapters are included: (1) "Introduction" (Sara Harkness and Charles M. Super); (2) "Parents' Free Descriptions of Child Characteristics: A Cross-Cultural Search for the Developmental Antecedents of the Big Five" (Geldolph A. Kohnstamm, Charles F. Halverson, Jr., Valerie Havill, and Ivan Mervielde); (3) "Processes of Generalization in Parental Reasoning" (Jaan Valsiner and Gorjana Litvinovic); (4) "The Answer Depends on the Question: A Conceptual and Methodological Analysis of a Parent Belief-Behavior Interview Regarding Children's Learning" (Irving E. Sigel and Myung-In Kim); (5) "Essential Contrasts: Differences in Parental Ideas about Learners and Teaching in Tahiti and Nepal" (Robert I. Levy); (6) "How Do Children Develop Knowledge: Beliefs of Tanzanian and American Mothers" (Ann V. McGillicuddy-De Lisi and Subha Subramanian); (7) "Japanese Mothers' Ideas about Infants and Temperament" (David W. Shwalb, Barbara J. Shwalb, and Junichi Shoji); (8) "Scenes from a Marriage: Equality Ideology in Swedish Family Policy, Maternal Ethnotheories, and Practice" (Barbara Welles-Nystrom); (9) "Parents' and Adolescents' Ideas on Children: Origins and Transmission of Intracultural Diversity" (Jesus Palacios and Maria Carmen Moreno); (10) "Education and Mother-Infant Interaction: A Mexican Case Study" (Robert A. LeVine, Patrice M. Miller, Amy L. Richman, and Sarah LeVine); (11) "The Contrasting Developmental Timetables of Parents and Preschool Teachers in Two Cultural Communities" (Carolyn Pope Edwards, Lella Gandini, and Donatella Giovaninni); (12) "Ask the Doctor: The Negotiation of Cultural Models in American Parent-Pediatrician Discourse" (Sara Harkness, Charles M. Super, Constance H. Keefer, Chemba S. Raghavan, and Elizabeth Kipp Campbell); (13) "From Household Practices to Parents' Ideas about Work and Interpersonal Relationships" (Jacqueline J. Goodnow); (14) "How Mayan Parental Theories Come into Play" (Suzanne Gaskins); (15) "Parental Theories in the Management of Young Children's Sleep in Japan, Italy, and the United States" (Abraham W. Wolf, Betsy Lozoff, Sara Latz, and Robert Paludetto); (16) "Maternal Beliefs and Infant Care Practices in Italy and the United States" (Rebecca S. New and Amy L. Richman); (17) "My Child Is My Crown: Yoruba Parental Theories and Practices in Early Childhood" (Marian Zeitlin); (18) "Growth Consequences of Low-Income Nicaraguan Mothers' Theories about Feeding 1-Year-Olds" (Patrice L. Engle, Marian Zeitlin, Yadira Medrano, and Lino Garcia M.); (19) "The Three R's of Dutch Childrearing and the Socialization of Infant Arousal" (Charles M. Super, Sara Harkness, Nathalie van Tijen, Ellen van der Vlugt, Marinka Fintelman, and Jarissa Dijkstra); (20) "Imagining and Engaging One's Children: Lessons from Poor, Rural, New England Mothers" (Lynne A. Bond, Mary Field Belenky, Jacqueline S. Weinstock, and Toni Cook); and (21) "American Cultural Models of Early Influence and Parent Recognition of Developmental Delays: Is Earlier Always Better than Later?" (Thomas S. Weisner, Catherine C. Matheson, and Lucinda P. Bernheimer). References follow each chapter, and a sheet of errata is included. (Contains 52 tables and 14 figures.) (SLD)