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Rethinking children’s agency in cultural adaptation
Humans adapt to their environment primarily through cultural rather than biological means. While children are often portrayed as expert learners who acquire adaptive knowledge from adults, in this talk I will argue that children—through the cultures they produce with their peers—also transmit and create adaptive knowledge that helps communities adjust to rare but significant social and ecological change. Drawing on my fieldwork with BaYaka hunter-gatherers in the Congo Basin, as well as primary and secondary data from other communities, I show that both cultural evolutionary theory and empirical evidence support this view.
Date:
24 November 2025, 16:00
Venue:
Lecture room 2, Life and Mind Building, South Parks Road
Speaker:
Professor Sheina Lew-Levy (Durham University)
Organising department:
Department of Experimental Psychology
Organisers:
Professor Asifa Majid (University of Oxford),
Professor Matthew Rushworth (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
hod.office@psy.ox.ac.uk
Hosts:
Professor Asifa Majid (University of Oxford),
Professor Matthew Rushworth (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Perspectives in Psychology - Departmental Seminar Series
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Anne-Marie Honeyman-Tafa
