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Alexandra Baranowski
Melissa Schaefer
Anthropology 1010
August 6, 2015

A Whimsical Look on Life: Ethnography of the Culture of Children

I choose to study several groups of Kindergarten to 6th grade children. I have spent

over 75 hours with these groups and I still feel like that wasnt enough time to truly begin
to understand but I have learned many things. Such as the fact that children have their own
cultural society with rules, gender roles, communication, economics, art forms,
organization and everything that adults in society have. Minus the whole, adult part or
course. These children that I have watched and studied were all apart of the Natural
History Museum of Utahs science summer camp. Each week I would help in a classroom
with 8 to 16 children and for the whole of summer I got a new class each week.

Over the course of two months, I have worked with children as they learn about

different sciences and explore the museum. I saw them fight among themselves and with
teachers, Ive seen friendships form, Ive seen growth and happiness. I have experienced
their curiosity to the world and their wonder. Children, by nature, are curious little sponges
that absorb all that is given to them and what sprouts from them comes from their bases,
their foundation. Family is a big part of a childs life. It is were they learn morals and values.
It is where they witness how relationships work both romantic and friendly. It is where
religion is started and practiced. Family is the foundation to who a child becomes and

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grows from. Children rely on family for food and shelter. They rely on adults for protection
and guidance in an article called The Making of Childrens Culture the author states that
Childhood is a condition defined by powerlessness and dependence upon the adult
communitys directives and guidance. (Kline 95) For childrens culture would not exist
without the adult culture to support it. As I spent more and more time with these kids I
began to notice ways in which they acted and ignored each other. Who seemed to become
the leader in absence of adult control. How they used games to bond and form alliances.
The use of songs and rhymes were used to teach them lessons just like how hymns are sung
in church to tell stories and lessons. What they associate as feminine and masculine. The
use of material items shows their rank in their society. How different items are used as
currency and are weighted differently in value. Sibling bonds are both positive and
negative with different levels of intensity. How even when adults buy their clothing, they
add their own twist to it. Even though they are 100% reliant on their parents or guardians,
their behavior will determine what items they receive and this is how they make their
living. I have come to realize that childrens culture is just as complicated and maybe even
more so then the culture that I am in. For their culture is less of what can be seen and more
of the imaginary and whimsical side of life.

Family Based:

The family unit is a key part in childrens culture. From the children at camp, almost

all have told me stories of their family and love to go into great detail about their
relationships with each member and tell funny stories. One day during a dinosaur related
activity, we were going over types of dinosaurs and comparing them to each other. One girl

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named Violet, age 7, (she told me everyday how old she was to make sure that I
remembered it) turned to me while holding a Parasaurolophus and a Stegosaurus plastic
replicas, This is like me and my older sister. I ask how so, Well, my sister is adopted and
doesnt look like me but we are still sisters. I was still confused on how this was related to
the dinosaurs and sat there watching her. It seemed that even though the dinosaurs didnt
look alike, when Violet played with them, she made a story about how they were siblings
and would make them hold hands. It was like she created a bond between them that made
them siblings even though they werent biological siblings, just like how she saw her sister.
Violet made a bond with her sister and even though they werent biological, Violet saw
them as siblings anyways. In an article named Siblings Relation and the Impact on
Childrens Development it states that 80% of children in the West have at least one sibling.
It further states that the relationship between siblings tend to last longer then any other
relation in a persons life. (Howe 1)

Gender Identity
Families have a huge influence on how children identify what is feminine and what
is masculine. To children, feminine and masculine is defined by their parents or guardians.
They see what their mother wears and associate that to females and the same with their
fathers to males. In the article Femininity/Masculinity, the authors discuss how these
two-gender identities are developed and learned.
In the first part, the child comes to know that she or he is female or male. In the
second part, the child comes to know what being female or male means in terms of
femininity or masculinity (Stets and Burke 4)

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Ive noticed that children start to really notice and point out these differences are around
ages 6-7. And the age at which they begin to identify gender identities is around the age of
6. Finley (age 7 and a half) was talking to one of the other boys in camp, Jackson (age 6) and
was talking about her ring and necklace that she got from a princess game. Jackson became
very excited and pulled out his necklace from under his shirt. He was so excited to be
showing her this necklace and was telling how he got it from his dad when they went to the
zoo a week before. Finley looked confused and said straight out, Necklaces are for girls
because they are girly! Jackson looked confused and defended himself Its not girly, my
dad gave it to me! In the article stated above it also says one thing that really stood out to
me that day at camp. Through identification with their father, boys learn masculinity.
(Stets and Burke 5) This is same for girls and their mothers. Jackson learned that through
the gift of a necklace from his dad that it was okay to wear said necklace and not have it be
feminine but masculine, just like his dad.

Communicating

Children, as I have come to realize, are all about talking. Once you get some of the

kids started, you cant get them to stop! A childs communication is a complicated topic. If
you were to search children communication it would bring up thousands of guides to help
parents to communicate and to help teach children how to communicate. Children
communicate through verbal and nonverbal actions. For instance, if a child needed my help
with something, they would come and ask. If a child was not wanting to participate in an
activity, they would cross their arms and physically turn away from the activity. Of course
there are all different types of intensity of these communications. A girl named Madison

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(age 6) didnt say a complete sentence for the whole week she was at camp. I think she said
a total of maybe 6 words and that was when we were doing introductions and she had to
say something and even then it was whispered. When I would ask her a question she would
shake her head up and down for yes, left to right for no, a shrug of her should for I dont
know or maybe and a pointing finger to what she wanted. Even with her parents she would
smile and nod for, Yes I had a great time at camp. At first I got easily frustrated with her
system of communication but I soon came used to it and even enjoyed its simplicity
especially when the other children were running around screaming and she sat at a table
quietly. I talked to Madisons parents one day saying how nice and awesome she was. They
went on to tell me that Madison was the youngest of four siblings and that she was the only
girl. They were surprised that Madison had talked to me as much as she did because of how
shy she was. (Madison was at this point hiding behind her mother) It seemed that in a loud
house with older brothers, Madison liked to stay quiet.

Now the opposite kind of communication from Madisons is constant talking and

moving and touching. While Madison was very much to herself, one child by the name of
Nathan was all over the place. Nathan would always be trying to tell you all the facts he
knew of space and the constellations. He would be talking so much that the other children
would walk away from him and do the activity somewhere else because he would be trying
to teach them the names of all five dwarf planets in out solar system. He would grab your
arm to get your attention and would look you straight in the eye without blinking. He was
very serious about his dwarf planets. He often scared other children away with his intense
eye contact and arm grabbing. Interestingly, when talking to his dad, Nathan was an only
child and his parents were divorced. It seemed that between Madison who had a lot of

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siblings and was used to not having full attention all the time became used to solidarity
while Nathan who had his parents full attention every day was only used to that attention
and tried to have it with other people.

Economics

Child have their own type of economics. Doesnt involve real money but it does

involve items and trade in their most simplest forms. I have come to notice that they
understand that when something is in low supply, it is worth more than an item has a big
supply of. This was relevant to me all through out camp, it was the biggest problem we had.
When doing an activity the children not only wanted items that they found interesting but
ones that were unique and no one else had. In the instance of pet rocks, there was this one
rock that was different colored then the others and as soon as one boy named Ryan (age 6)
was given said rock, the bargains began. This rock was seen as special, one of a kind and
every child wanted that rock for themselves. One child by the name of Oskar (age 7) offered
Ryan his rock plus his two googly eyes. (Passed out two eyes to every kid all the same size,
color and shape. Asher (age 6) tried to take the rock out of Ryans hand, which was meet
with punishment of apologizing and sitting at a different table. Interestingly, no one tried to
trade him any feathers. We had a big bag of feathers of all different colors and sizes. There
were so many feathers that it didnt come close to the value of this one rock. They seem to
understand that you can exchange one item for another item and in an article Childrens
Understanding of Economics it states that as children progress in mental sophistication,
they understand the use of money and that they recognize that some coins are more
valuable than others. (Webley 44) Out of all the kids I worked with, it seemed that the

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transition into trading and understanding the value of items came after Kindergarten. The
group of Kindergarteners that I worked with would not trade with other kids. They would
take or ask an adult for a different one. But in 1st/2nd they were trying to trade and make
bargains.

Making a Living

Since children are so reliant on their parents and other adults, they have to come up

with ways to get things from adults and this is how they make a living. Adults tend to
reward children for good behavior and listening skills. This came apparent when working
in a class setting. If one of the kids did what the teacher asked, said teacher would give
them something in return. The time when Ryan really wanted this certain kind of crystal
color, for an activity that showed how crystals grew, Sadie (the teacher) asked everyone to
be quiet. Instantly Ryan was sitting in his seat and had his lips pressed shut. When Sadie
saw this she went over to him and let him pick out whatever color he wanted. When the
other kids saw this, it was instant silence in the whole classroom. This was not the only
example, though out my two months, I saw this nearly everyday in different situations. The
definition of making a living is earn enough to support oneself. Children make their
living on listening to adults and following directions. When they do, they earn a reward.
Just like when an employ follows the bosss orders and is rewarded with money.

Almost Tribe Like

Children have a tribe like political organization. Few are in power and no there is no

central government. The only thing that is not tribe like is that these children know they

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are from different families and are not decedents from one ancestor. In the classroom
setting, the teacher is the one that has the power and authority and the children listen to
them. But when we get out of the classroom, there comes a different rank system. During
lunch/recess the children mingle with other children are allowed to play and interact with
one another. Usually the ones in power are ones that have followers and have items to
entice others to follow said person. Food is a great motive for children to follow other
children around. When one kid brings a big enough lunch to share with others, they
instantly have friends and people who want to be friends to get some of their food. This kid
with the food then gains some power over the others because they can ask people to trade
and can just give others food. When this happens, that child then uses his new friends to
play together with and to exclude other children. How much food and the type of food
determines where you rank to other children. Interestingly, grade separates children in
almost a caste system. Children in 3rd grade cant move up to 5th grade and same with going
down. Each grade interacts with others in their grade and only their grade. This is more
apparent in elementary grades then higher levels though. And in each grade there is a
group of children that are followed around by others.

Religion

Religion is a tricky topic. It is an adult concept that they understand or try to

understand. When I would ask children about what religion they were, they always replied
with what ever religion followed by something along the lines of same as my parents.
Children are influenced by their parents beliefs and until they get to an age where they can
start to question and think for themselves, they follow what their parents do. Younger

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children have yet to develop ideas of filters for their thoughts and when I was talking to
this one girl named Sophie (age 5 and has slight autism) I asked her what religion she
believed in and she replied My parents believe in God but I dont know (I asked her why)
I cant see him. He has my little brother with him though. He doesnt hurt anymore. I was
absolutely stunned and didnt know what to say. After saying that she skipped away and
started to play with some toys. When I was asking all the other children, they always said
they believed in their religion.

Creative, Whimsical, Imaginative

[T]he traditional formalized play activities of children, includes such speech play as

riddles, games, jokes, taunts, retorts, counting-out rhymes, catches, jump-rope rhymes and
many other such forms of verbal art. (Bauman) Children live in this world but what they
see is all in their minds and infused with their own imaginations. At camp, every activity
that we did played on child imagination. From pet rocks to building a Dr. Seuss structure,
all activities were very creative and this is what kept their attentions.

Their creativity also shows when they dress themselves. You can always pick out the

kid that dressed themselves that day. Girls would have every type of color somewhere on
their clothing and boys would have their clothes inside out or even backwards.

Songs and rhymes were used to creatively teach children and pull their attention to

someone or thing. For instance this one thing we would always say is 1, 2, 3, eyes on me.
Then the kids would respond, 1, 2, eyes on you. Or my favorite Shark bait! And they
respond Ooh ha ha! That Nemo one always makes them laugh afterwards. One of the
teachers for Dr. Seuss week made up a little song to get in line. It went Clean up, stand up

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up, time to go, to go go, it is time for snack! To keep children interested and focused, you
need to play to their creative side.

In conclusion, the culture of children is simply complicated and full of imagination!

They are heavily influenced by their parents and adults in their life. I am still learning so
much from these little ones and yet I feel like I have so much more to learn. Children are the
human form of sponges and can absorb anything around them. They are constantly
changing and growing and even though they change one thing stays the same. They are
inquisitive about the world around them, from the ages of 4 all the way up to 12 year olds.
The children I spent 75 plus hours were full of energy and happiness and all of that rubbed
off onto me. Working with these kids made this summer one of the best and I look forward
to working with other kids soon. I came into this project with a closed mind and thoughts
that I knew more than them. They definitely proved me wrong!

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Works Cited

Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 06 Aug. 2015.

<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/make+a+living>.
Webley, Paul. "Childrens Understanding of Economics." Childrens
Understanding of Society (2004): n. pag. Web. 7 Aug. 2015.
Stets, Jan E., and Peter J. Burke. "Femininity, Masculinity and Sexuality."
Heterosexuality in Question (1999): 73-79. Web. 8 Aug. 2015.
Howe, Nina. "The Impact of Immigration on Children's Development."
Contributions to Human Development (2011): n. pag. 13 Apr. 2006. Web. 6
Aug. 2015.
"Parental Involvement in Schools." The SAGE Glossary of the Social and
Behavioral Sciences (2009): n. pag. Sept. 2013. Web. 7 Aug. 2015.
Kline, Stephen. The Making of Children's Culture (1998): n. pag. Web. 7 Aug.
2015.
Bauman, Richard. Ethnography of Children's Folklore. Rep. ERIC document
reproduction service no. ED216561. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Aug. 2015.
Mintz, Steven. "Children's Culture." N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Aug. 2015.
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http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usu.edu%2Fanthro%2Fchildhoodconference%2FReading
%2520Material%2FMintz_Childrens_culture_002.doc&ei=UNzGVbz_Do_0oAS
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