Abstract. – Long ago Margaret Mead noted that society chooses child-rearing patterns to shape a child into its cultural ideal of an adult. Erik Erikson developed a general psychosocial theory encompassing the interplay between psychological and cultural forces working in child development. One of the authors tested these relationships among the Hausa, finding that some of Erikson’s concepts had validity in explaining Hausa sociocultural life; others did not. Therefore, this article tests Mead’s more culturally sensitive notion of child-rearing patterns as cultural efforts to fit children into patterns which will shape culturally fit adults. For the Yoruba the term is iwa; for the Hausa this concept is summed up under the term kirki.
[Nigeria, Yoruba, Hausa, child-rearing, Margaret Mead, Erik Erikson]