Childhood and children\'s literature: what do children think, say and do the from reading stories? The production of childrens culture in the 1st year of elementary school.

Author(s)

Debora Perillo Samori

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Educação (FE/SBD)
• Defense date: 2011-11-09

Examining board members

Maria Letícia Barros Pedroso Nascimento; Marcia Aparecida Gobbi; Fernanda Müller

• Advisor: Maria Letícia Barros Pedroso Nascimento

Abstract

This study discusses the production of childrens cultures from their contact with children\'s literature books as cultural objects in the school context. For this purpose, a research was conducted with an ethnographic approach within a group of children in the first year of elementary school in a public school in São Paulo in 2010. Considering the entry of six years old children at the 1st year instead of in the early childhood education, the enlargement of elementary schools duration (by federal laws. 11.114/05 and. 11.274/06, respectively) and the federal and municipal public policies to encourage literary reading and access to books, this research has aimed to understand the production of children\'s culture and social relations through the relationship with children\'s literature, books and their lives. In addition to the field diary observations of everyday life of the group, another tool used for data collection was collective interviews with groups of children. It starts with the theoretical assumptions of the Sociology of Childhood, interpretive studies of childhood, the competence of children and research methodology with children. The analysis of data suggests that children produce culture in peer relations through the direct relationship between literature and their lives, through comparing stories based on literary aspects, by creating new statutes for the illustrations in children\'s literature and by language games. Moreover, children relate to books as artifacts, when they become objects of contention, conflict and negotiation. The data also revealed that the organization of space and routine access to books in school are made and controlled by adults, which may limit childrens free initiative. Despite that it seems possible to say that children create strategies for sharing books, living conflicts and create their own selection criteria, including better social roles experienced in these situations. (AU)