A reprodução interpretativa do obsceno infantil na cultura de pares

Abstract

This dissertation aims to investigate the sharing by children of traditional games, songs, recitative elements, rhymes, anecdotes and jokes containing information interdicted by adults, particularly concerning sexuality. The research focuses on how and why children reproduce,create, interpret and convey within a peer culture knowledge stemming from an Adult Symbolic Reserve. This paper is grounded in the field of Childhood Studies and works with Manuel Sarmentos concept of Symbolic Management of Childhood, Willian Corsaros concept of Interpretative Reproduction, and Claude Gaignebets concept of Obscene Folklore of Children. The methodological resources used are the observation and analysis of childrens daily life at school, as well as four interviews with adults on their obscene childhood memories. The school where observation of the children was carried out catersmostly to middle class, intellectual families, who are generally critical of traditional education and commonly identify themselves as alternative, politicized, or democratic. The adults interviewed were selected from this same group of people. The study showed that the sharing of games, songs, recitative elements, rhymes, anecdotes and jokes containing information interdicted by adults fulfills several types of motivations: it is an attempt to satisfy childrens curiosity about sex (as demonstrated by Freud), a source of pleasure or relief of displeasure, takes the form of integrative social interaction, or is an instrument for affirmation ofmanhood. The investigation also showed that the ways and reasons of this sharing fit broader structural relationships between childhood and society. In other words, the research concluded that childhood obscene can be understood as an adaptive response by children to the proscription and prohibitions of a socially and historically variable Symbolic Management of Childhood, which may take the traditional and anonymous form of folklore, as shown by the interviews, or alternatively the form of a quite scholarly collective investigation among peers, as shown by the observation of children in their school environment. Because the investigation constituted a case study, and due to the specific characteristics of the group in question, these conclusions cannot be deemed universal and do not exhaust the possibility thatother ways and reasons may exist.