Rituals and Patterns in Children's Lives (A Ray and Pat Browne Book) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0299208303 ISBN 13: 9780299208301

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005

Synopsis

Trick-or-treating. Flower girls. Bedtime stories. Bar and bat mitvah. In a nation of increasing ethnic, familial, and technological complexity, the patterns of children's lives both persist and evolve. This book considers how such events shape identity and transmit cultural norms, asking such questions as:

* How do immigrant families negotiate between old traditions and new?
* What does it mean when children engage in ritual insults and sick jokes?
* How does playing with dolls reflect and construct feelings of racial identity?
* Whatever happened to the practice of going to the Saturday matinee to see a Western?
* What does it mean for a child to be (in the words of one bride) "flower-girl material"? How does that role
cement a girl's bond to her family and initiate her into society?
* What is the function of masks and costumes, and why do children yearn for these accoutrements of disguise?

Rituals and Patterns in Children's Lives suggests the manifold ways in which America's children come to know their society and themselves.

About this title

About the Author

Kathy Merlock Jackson is Batten Professor and coordinator of communications at Virginia Wesleyan College. She coedits the Journal of American Culture.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299208303
• ISBN 13: 9780299208301
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272
• Editor: Jackson Kathy