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Childhood
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The Discourse of Development'

How 9- to 12-year-old Children Construct `Childish' and `Further Developed' Identities within their Peer Culture

HELGA KELLE

Germany helga.kelle{at}uni-bielefeld.de

This ethnographic account focuses on the theoretical object of `development' in its reconstruction by 9- to 12-year-old children and its situated meaning in their peer culture. In concentrating the analysis on interview data, the children's discourse of development takes shape in identical rhetorical figures across different interviews. The children distinguish more childish from more mature types of identity within their age group. The implicit linearity of the concept is responsible for its ambiguity: `development' is understood as a natural process and as an aim to be achieved at the same time. The children contest the age appropriateness of activities and the authenticity of self-presentation, thereby presenting development as social praxis. Furthermore, their notion of development is sexualized: the discourse continually reconceptualizes the relations between the sexes according to age. The discourse thus becomes a vehicle for distinction in peer cultures.

Key Words: children's discourse • differentiation of identities • peer culture

Childhood, Vol. 8, No. 1, 95-114 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/0907568201008001006
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