Interpretive Reproduction in Children's Play.

Abstract

The author looks at children's play from the perspective of interpretive reproduction, emphasizing the way children create their own unique peer cultures, which he defines as a set of routines, artifacts, values, and concerns that children engage in with their playmates. The article focuses on two types of routines in the peer culture of preschool children-approach-avoidance play and dramatic role play- and compares their importance. The author outlines the universal nature of these routines and how they can be embellished and extended. Key words: approachavoidance play; children and social development; children's peer cultures; dramatic role play; interpretive reproduction; la Strega; plying the frame; socializationIntroductionI have argued, in other works, that the sociological theories of childhood must move away from the doctrine that children's social development involves primarily the internalization of adult skills and knowledge. Instead, I suggest, we must consider socialization not only a matter of individual adaptation and internalization, but also a process of appropriation, reinvention, and reproduction. We must appreciate the importance of collective, communal activity in the way children negotiate, share, and create culture with adults and each other (Corsaro 1992, 2011; James, Jenks, and Prout 1998).To argue that socialization is a collective and communal process, however, is not sufficient to construct a new sociology of childhood. The very term socialization remains a problem. It sounds forward looking, and whenever one hears it, the notion of training and preparing children for the future comes to mind (Thorne 1993, 3-6). Therefore, I have offered the term interpretive reproduction (Corsaro 1992, 2011). I mean interpretive to suggest the innovative and creative aspects of children's participation in society, and, in fact, children as young as two create and participate in their peer cultures by appropriating information from the adult world to address their unique peer concerns. I mean by reproduction the idea that children do not simply internalize society and culture, but they actively contribute to cultural production and change. I think the two words of the term together also imply that children are-in their very participation in society- constrained by the existing social structure and by processes of social reproduction. That is, children and their childhoods are affected by the societies and cultures of which they are members (Corsaro 2011).With interpretive reproduction, I wish to emphasize the importance of children creating their own unique peer cultures. Some theorists of childhood view peer culture as a category of children's lives and use it as proof of a tribal childhood where children create their own world independent of adult culture (James, Jenks, and Prout 1998). From the perspective of interpretive reproduction, however, children are always participating in and are part of two cultures-their own and adults'-and these cultures are intricately interwoven (Corsaro 2011). Further, children interpret-and contribute to-adult culture through their collective actions in the peer cultures they create throughout their childhoods.I define children's peer cultures as the stable sets of routines, artifacts, values, and concerns that children produce and share with each other (Corsaro 2011; Corsaro and Eder 1990). In this article, I focus on two routines in the peer culture of preschool children, approach-avoidance play and dramatic role play; and I compare the importance of these routines. I conclude with the possibility that these routines are universal in children's peer cultures.Approach-Avoidance PlayApproach-avoidance play consists primarily of nonverbal, pretend-play routines in which children first identify and approach then avoid and escape a monstrously threatening agent. Like many routines in peer culture, approachavoidance is difficult to appreciate outside its natural context. …

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