Interpretive Reproduction in Children's Peer Cultures

Abstract

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