Picturing the everyday nature of culture: How does culture inform our understanding of children and childhood?.

 

For this task, you will carefully select 2 images (photographs or artistic renderings) that depict young children in ordinary activities. These images should be ones that make you think about how young people (birth to age 8) experience their early life as a member of a society and a culture, and also how society and culture have expectations about children’s early lives. The images should not be extraordinary nor exotic (they should not be of child soldiers or beauty pageants), they should depict ordinary life activities such as family life, playing at home, in the neighbourhood, or at school. They could be images of children on special occasions, such as birthdays, holy days, or holidays if you’d like, so long as these activities would be considered fairly ordinary within the society and culture that the child is a part of. You will want to select images that give you something to talk about and think about. You will want to select images that depict the setting in which the image was rendered.

One of the images should be one that you can comment on from an ‘insider’ perspective with regard to culture (an image that represents the culture you identify with). The other image should be one that you will not be as familiar with – so that you can ‘read’ and comment on the photo from an ‘outsider’ perspective.

For the patch that you submit, you will use these images to discuss the intersection of children within culture, and as a prompt to write about how culture constructs and understanding of children and culture.

For the patchwork you must, provide the images you select (giving credit to the photographer or artist who has rendered the image, and in the case of photographs, with the permission of the persons depicted in the image), and write 500 words about the images in relation to children, childhood, and culture. You should address these specific points, and demonstrate critical thinking:
How the images you have selected represent a child in culture

Also think about:

-How society and culture impact our expectations of children and their experiences in ‘childhood’

-How both culture and childhood are ‘socially constructed’

Your writing should be linked to at least 3 academic references. Photographs and artistic renderings should be used only with permission of the ‘owner’ of the image, and in the case of photographs of persons, with the permission of the person or people depicted in the photograph. This is an important ethical aspect of this assignment.