William A. Corsaro

Interpretive reproduction in children's peer cultures

This paper addresses the lack of theoretical work on young children in sociology by presenting an interpretive approach to childhood socialization. This approach extends traditional psychological views of human development by demonstrating that socialization is a collective process which occurs in a social rather than a private realm. The interpretive approach argues that children, through their participation in cultural routines, creatively appropriate information from the adult world to produce their own unique peer cultures

‘We're friends, right?’: Children's use of access rituals in a nursery school

In this paper, childrens use of access rituals in peer interaction in a nursery school is examined and a discussion of the implications of the findings regarding the development of communicative competence is presented. The findings show that entry into play is a production of some importance involving considerable time and strategy to accomplish, while leave-taking usually involves unmarked physical movement from play areas. The importance of peer interaction in the acquisition of access rituals and the necessity of studying childrens verbal routines in natural settings are discussed. (Developmental sociolinguistics, peer interaction, childrens use of access rituals, US English.)

Discussione and Friendship: Socialization Processes in the Peer Culture of Italian Nursery School Children

This paper addresses the lack of theoretical work on young children in sociology by presenting an interpretive approach to childhood socialization. This approach extends traditional views of human development by demonstrating that socialization is a collective process that occurs in a social, rather than in a private, realm. To illustrate the interpretive approach, we present a multilayered analysis of two phases of a lengthy verbal routine discussionn) among Italian nursery school children. The analysis demonstrates how (1) the routine of discussion is produced sociolinguistically; (2) the production of the routine builds on and extends shared knowledge basic to peer culture; and (3) the children, in the course of producing the routine, attempt to deal with aspects of the world they do not fully grasp and, thereby, move closer toward appropriating certain elements of the adult culture.

Routines in the Peer Culture of American and Italian Nursery School Children.

Although the importance of the influence of peers and the peer culture has long been seen as a central feature of the socialization process, there have been few direct studies of interactive processes in the peer culture. This article reports on a comparative study of nursery school children in the United States and Italy and identifies and discusses the importance of basic routines in the peer culture of young children for their development of communicative skills and social knowledge. The analysis explores the possibility of universal features of young childrens peer cultures and develops an interpretive perspective of childhood socialization. From this perspective, the peer culture of preschool children is viewed as involving the childrens continual communal attempts to grasp and control a social order that is first presented to them by adults but that eventually becomes their own reproduction.

Play and Games in the Peer Cultures of Preschool and Preadolescent Children : An Interpretative Approach

This article is an ethnographic study of childrens production and participation in play and games in an Italian preschool and an afterschool program in a Swedish elementary school. Most traditional theoretical and empirical work on childrens play and games has focused on the contributions of these activities for childrens development of social, cognitive and communicative skills. Other research has extended this developmental focus by examining play and games as valued activities in childrens production, organization and maintenance of their peer cultures. This article extends this work by examining play and games as part of a process of interpretive reproduction in childrens lives. We demonstrate how children in the production of play and games simultaneously use (as well as refine and develop) a wide range of communicative skills, collectively participate in and extend their peer cultures, and appropriate features of, and develop an orientation to, the wider adult culture.

The Clarification Request as a Feature of Adult Interactive Styles with Young Children.

The analysis of videotaped naturally occurring adult—child interaction led to the isolation of the clarification request as a consistent feature of adult interactive styles. The analysis of the form and function of adult clarification requests demonstrated the importance of the interactive demands adults encounter when interacting with young children. The nature of these interactive demands and how adults deal with them are discussed in regard to Cicourels (1970) notion of interpretive procedures. Finally, a discussion of the possible effects of adult interactive style on the childs development of communicative competence is presented. (Developmental sociolinguistics, conversational analysis, adult—child interaction, US English.)

Event Structure Models from Ethnographic Data

We present a new method of modeling ethnographic descriptions. The method draws on recent anthropological and sociological developments in ethnography and receives its technical foundation from production system models in cognitive science. We display models as graphs to show logical relations among events, and we use models as grammars to generate acceptable sequences of concrete and abstract events. We illustrate the approach in a detailed analysis of approachavoidance play in the peer culture of nursery school children

COMPETENT PARENTS, COMPLEX LIVES: Managing Parenthood in Poverty

This study builds on earlier ethnography of friendship processes among children attending a Head Start program in a large city in the Midwest. Here, through intensive interviews and ethnographic observations of a small sample of the Head Start childrens families, the researchers examine the values and concerns of lower-class Black mothers regarding their childrens education. Earlier studies have shown that Black parents of all income levels place great value on education and have high expectations for their childrens academic careers. The present research goes beyond these studies by directly addressing the strategies that parents employ in acting on these values. The article describes an impressive array of strategies that the studys respondents use to encourage their childrens academic achievement and to promote the development of values that will keep them enthusiastic about schooling. The theoretical implications of the findings are then addressed. In particular, the discussion highlights the need for an extension of Kohns well-known arguments concerning the relationship between social class and conformity. Finally, the researchers stress that longitudinal ethnography is a crucial method for developing theoretical understandings of family socialization processes and childrens educational experiences.

Something Old and Something New

In recent years there has been a significant increase in studies of social interaction and language use which involve the collection and analysis of audiovisual (AV) data. This article reviews a number of methodological issues in research involving AV recording and proposes strategies for improving the reliability and validity of AV data. The article maintains that AV recording should be part of conventional ethnography and that specific features of traditional ethnography must be preserved to cope with the methodological problems of this new technology.

Early childhood education, children's peer cultures, and the future of childhood

SUMMARY This paper presents my theoretical perspective of interpretive reproduction which focuses on the importance of childrens production of and participation in their own peer cultures for their evolving membership in society. I describe the main themes of communal sharing and control in childrens peer culture and present examples of peer routines and activities which demonstrate these themes. I discuss the importance of childrens peer culture for early childhood education policy, programs, and curricula. Finally, I discuss the importance of social and economic investments in young children and families in modern societies, most especially in child care and early education. Here I stress how changing demographic patterns in modern societies (most especially the increase of the proportion of elderly as compared to the very young) have crucial implications for the future of children and childhood.