Children's street culture
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Children's street culture refers to the cumulative culture of rhymes, songs, jokes, taboos, games, folklore, and places (e.g., places "known" to be "haunted" or "a den" or "forbidden"), etc. among young children. Collectively, this body of knowledge is passed down from one generation of urban children to the next, and can also be passed between different groups of children (e.g. in the form of crazes, such as making guys for Bonfire Night — see Beck 1984). It is often strongest in urban working class industrial districts where children are traditionally free to "play out" in the streets for long periods without supervision. It is usually strongest in children between the ages of seven and twelve.
It is not to be confused with the commercial narrative media-culture produced for children (e.g., comics, television, mass-produced toys, and clothing), although it may overlap. Children's street culture is invented and largely sustained by children themselves, although it may come to incorporate fragments of media culture and toys in its activities. It can also incorporate scavenged materials such as old car seats, tyres, planks, bricks, etc.
Although it varies from place to place, research shows that it appears to share many commonalities across many cultures. It is a traditional phenomenon that has been closely investigated and documented during the 20th century by anthropologists and folklorists such as Iona Opie; street photographers such as Roger Mayne, Helen Levitt, David Trainer, Humprey Spender and Robert Doisneau; urbanists such as Colin Ward and Robin Moore, as well as being described in countless novels of childhood. It has occasionally been central to feature films, such as the Our Gang ("Little Rascals") series, Ealing's Hue & Cry (1947) and some Children's Film Foundation films such as Go Kart, Go! and Soap Box Derby.
Since the widespread use of the motor car, children's street culture has often been forced to retreat to pavements and backstreets, and into parks and playgrounds. Since the advent of television, computer games, increased academic pressures, and aggressive marketing, concerns have been expressed about the vitality or even the survival of children's own street culture. Since the mid 1990s in some nations, parental fears about pedophiles has led many adults to forbid unsupervised outdoor play.
In 1997, The Miami New Times published Lynda Edwards' "Myths Over Miami", which describes a huge consistent mythology spreading among young homeless children in the American South. The story has been picked up and reprinted many times on internet blogs and websites. There is no known verification or confirmation that the mythology she describes actually exists, but these "secret stories" are clearly based on known elements of street culture, such as labeling certain places "haunted" or recycling legends of dangerous spirits such as Mary Worth. The article was the basis for Mercedes Lackey's novel Mad Maudlin, co-written with Rosemary Edghill.
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[edit] See also
- Peter and Iona Opie.
- List of traditional children's games.
- Tree house.
- Child art can be expressed as pavement chalk drawings.
- Childhood secret club.
[edit] Further reading
[edit] Non-fiction
- Iona Opie. The People in the Playground (1993) (In-depth study of children's playground lore and life).
- Iona Opie. The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959).
- Simon Bronner. American Children's Folklore (1988).
- Leea Virtanen. Children's Lore (1978). (English-translation of a 30,000-sample study from Finland).
- Colin Ward (with photos by Ann Golzen). The Child in the City (1977). (Groundbreaking key book, with a focus on the British experience).
- Robin Moore. Childhood's Domain: Play and Place (1986). (In-depth advanced study of three small areas of England, with maps and photos).
- Ervin Beck. "Children's Guy Fawkes Customs in Sheffield", Folklore, 95 (1984), 191-203.
- David Sobel. Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years (1998).
[edit] Photography books
- Roger Mayne. Street Photographs of Roger Mayne (1996, Victoria and Albert Museum).
- Robert Doisneau. Les Enfants, Les Gosses (1992).
- Helen Levitt. In The Street: chalk drawings and messages, New York City 1938-1948. (1987) — (Chalkings and children making them)
- Eddie Elliott (Curator). Knock Down Ginger: Seventy Years of Street Kids (Exhibition, Photographers' Gallery, London; July 2001).
- Les Enfants (Editions de La Martinière, France, 2001) (Anthology of French street photography of children; by Ronis, Riboud, Doisneau, Cartier Bresson, and others).
- R.S. Johnson & J.T. Oman. Street Children (1964). Hodder & Stoughton, London. (Photography & poetic text on facing pages, re: young British children's street play).
[edit] Television documentaries
- Ian Duncan. (Dir.) Picture This: Playing Out (BBC2 1992)
- Ian Duncan. (Dir.) The Secret World of Children (BBC 1993)
- The Singing Street (1951).
- Dusty Bluebells (BBC Northern Ireland, early 1970s), and the follow-up film showing how the street's child-friendly nature had been destroyed by cars, This Is Not a Car Park (1993).