A Unified Approach to Demographic Data Collection for Research with Young Children Across Diverse Cultures

Singh, Leher and Barokova, Mihaela and Baumgartner, Heidi A and Lopera, Diana and Omane, Paul Okyere and Sheskin, Mark and Yuen, Francis and Wu, Yang and Alcock, Katie and Altmann, Elena C. and Bazhydai, Marina and Carstensen, Alexandra and Chan, Kin Chung Jacky and Chuan-Peng, Hu and Ben, Rodrigo Dal and Franchin, Laura and Kosie, Jessica Elizabeth and Lew-Williams, Casey and Okocha, Asana U. and Reinelt, Tilman and Schuwerk, Tobias and Soderstrom, Melanie and Tsui, Angeline and Frank, Michael C. (2024) A Unified Approach to Demographic Data Collection for Research with Young Children Across Diverse Cultures. Developmental Psychology, 60 (2). pp. 211-227. ISSN 0012-1649

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Abstract

Culture is a key determinant of children’s development both in its own right and as a measure of generalizability of developmental phenomena. Studying the role of culture in development requires information about participants’ demographic backgrounds. However, both reporting and treatment of demographic data are limited and inconsistent in child development research. A barrier to reporting demographic data in a consistent fashion is that no standardized tool currently exists to collect these data. Variation in cultural expectations, family structures, and life circumstances across communities make the creation of a unifying instrument challenging. Here, we present a framework to standardize demographic reporting for early child development (birth to 3 years of age), focusing on six core sociodemographic construct categories: biological information, gestational status, health status, community of descent, caregiving environment, and socioeconomic status. For each category, we discuss potential constructs and measurement items and provide guidance for their use and adaptation to diverse contexts. These items are stored in an open repository of context-adapted questionnaires that provide a consistent approach to obtaining and reporting demographic information so that these data can be archived and shared in a more standardized format.