Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Page 82

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CONSTRUCTING ÍDENTITIES 1N CHILDREN’S CULTURE OF CONSUMPTION
long ethnographic study were observation,
taped semi-structured interviews with chil-
dren, parents and teachers, informal chats,
gathering artefacts e.g. children’s weekly di-
aries, going shopping, attending outings,
events, classes, break and lunchtime activ-
ities and home visits to name a few. How-
ever, studying children of different ages pre-
sented the researcher with some challenges
concerning the suitability of various meth-
ods for each age group. For instance, the
youngest children were most comfortable
expressing themselves whilst engaging in an
activity such as drawing or playing- as other
authors have also found (Hill et. ai, 1996).
For instance the researcher would on occa-
sions ask pre-school children to draw their
favourite possession and ask questions about
their drawings. Furthermore, listening to
children’s conversations during play and ac-
tivities provided valuable data. The oldest
group (primary six) on the other hand, could
sustain longer conversations through e.g. in-
terviews. Therefore, it was evident that
methods had to be tailored to each age group.
In this sense, the longitudinal nature of
ethnography provided optimum opportuni-
ties for fine-tuning the methods employed.
Findings on identity in children’s
cultures of consumption
This section commences with an introduc-
tion to the topics used in the analysis of iden-
tity and children’s cultures of consumption.
The process of identifying these topics was
iterative. It involved a constant evolvement
and development of the topics based on what
the children reported to be important to them
and at the same time grounding the analy-
sis in previous research. The categories to
be discussed in the findings on identity and
consumption in children’s cultures can thus
be summarised as follows:
• Gender
• Performance of the body (physical and mcntal/
academic performance)
• Appearance of the body (physical e.g. height
and shape as well as extra-physical e.g.
grooming and clothing)
• Age (chronological age and social age)
Throughout the analysis data will be pre-
sented to highlight how consumer goods are
directly used/displayed as resources in the
construction of identity. Furthermore, ver-
bal references to consumption are used to
understand the signiftcance of consumption
in identity construction. It should be noted
that the categories overlap; however, they
have been treated separately for the purpose
of clarity in the analysis.
Gender
The data revealed that even at an early age
children have clear understandings of gen-
der appropriate consumption behaviour. For
instance at Sunny Nursery girls played in the
home corner with dolls assuniing nurturing
roles - rarely with any input from the boys.
Play areas in the nursery with relatively gen-
der neutral toys (e.g. animals and jigsaws)
typically had mixed groups of girls and boys
whilst construction toys and cars were over-
whelmingly used by boys. This said, gen-
der is not always a significant factor for con-
sumer behaviour. Different contexts, ob-
jects, people and places shape and influence
the fluidity of gender boundaries. Further-