Children and Material Culture

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A material world surrounds children right from birth where children interact with materiality and expression through materials. Therefore, through material culture, children are able to perceive the world, react as well as add to what the world has through the objects of the world. Childrens images are presented materially in whatever we do and whenever we explore the media, market places and institutions surrounding us.

We encounter information about children in addition to our own children that we raise at home. Material culture is important to children because they are the central part in our lives. It is therefore important to make material culture a subject of study in order to find the relationship between it and children (Derevenski, 131).

Children are a category that is united by something in common through material culture that is cross-cultural. This helps the society to develop positive perception and learn how to develop behavior in children. This perception depends on our understanding and interpretation of what children should be in the society as well as the experiences we had during childhood.

Material culture helps to understand the concept of transmitting knowledge from childhood through adolescent to adulthood in terms of technological and social reproduction. Various disciplinary backgrounds have been used to bring understanding of materiality on children and the importance of focusing on children in order to understand the world that we live in on how it can be improved.

It is important to examine the problems and issues that surround childhood and childrens material culture in order to ensure culture studies are more focused on children and that children are extra visible within the studies. Collections of material culture from accredited museums through research in mainland Britain have been used for analysis and the results compared with existing literature in the related field (Derevenski, 132).

The material culture found in the museum comprises mostly of toys followed by costume category where the female costumes are more than the males. Another observation is that there is a little more representation of children than costumes and toys. Decorative toys that were mass-produced were found to be more than playthings that are homemade (Derevenski, 72).

However, there is no evidence to support these assumptions and hence it is paramount for further study to be conducted to establish the truth of the literature. A study conducted showed that regarding collections of childrens costumes, there is a bias towards female clothes because of the perception of association of females and costumes.

Clothing in women is usually more elaborate and historically changes at a higher rate compared to mens clothing because it has a higher aesthetic value (Derevenski, 51).

This has been attributed to the passive collections by museums on female clothing, as the society tends to offer museums with what it thinks the museum want. What people see on display has largely determined the bias in these collections, which makes dress collection a cycle that is self-perpetuating and other areas being neglected.

A lot of research on Childrens material culture has been done through archeology but has been abstract and isolated. It is therefore important for researchers to develop the museums to improve them on how the objects relate to childhood and children as well as their mode of collection and display.

Further research is also needed to understand the significance of contradictory meaning of material culture and childhood to reflect on the relationship between the experience in museums and knowledge from literature. This would help in seeing childhood in these materials and the mechanism by which the objects can evoke memories.

This is important because visitors in museums get the valid meaning in the childhood objects that are beyond their physical form irrespective of their gender, culture, age or class. More research is needed in order to have a full understanding on how this meaning is perceived on the objects and the variation in perception among different audience (Derevenski, 100).

Research on material culture on children is important because artifacts result from human behavior that is deliberate, which creates meaning for them. However, looking at the data and its context applying such principles is important because most childrens material culture in use is an original modification by adults specifically intended to manufacture a childs object (Derevenski, 193).

Therefore, the issue of interpreting childrens related object in most museums reveals that the representation is not the world of the child but the perception of the adults regarding the needs and wants of the child.

Specific artifacts and toys for a child is an indication of how the adults have attempted to bring suggestions and empower specific behavior in the life of children in relation to their age, social-economic status as well as gender (Derevenski, 103).

These artifacts in museums imply the perspectives of the adults especially parents towards child even if the child did not enjoy playing with these objects and without considering whether the objects were used or not. Such objects are a reflection of the imperial adults practices and not the native childrens practices (Derevenski, 115).

A child values and perceives toys and any other object that meets the desire of children differently from the original design of the adults. For instance, the objects can represent key elements regarding social relations among peers and used as a basis of enforcing popularity and determining owners social status.

Children have the ability to use toys in ways that are more complex and different than the adults would intend. This means that for children, toys are not mere vehicles meant to facilitate play, as most adults perceive.

When adults design toys, they convey unanticipated meaning to the children. Analysis of historical readings as well as cross-cultural studies about play reveals that toys are not mentioned most of the times (Derevenski, 180).

Throughout the history, it has been a cultural norm to expose children to play with others and not with toys. This has raised concern and interesting question regarding how adults associate children with toys.

Even when adults exposed children to toys, they did not figure out the meaning these toys had on the children and this was common in the past. According to displays in many museums, the suggestion is that manufactured toys evoke childhood but this is not the case (Derevenski, 167). It would be hard to embody childhood in any object, as this comprises of set of childs experiences but not a universal state.

Understanding of material culture is a problem that affects methodologies in interpretations that may be inappropriate in comparison with studies of material culture in other areas.

For example, the consciousness of adults has been acting like a filter in interpretation of various children related objects through the social meaning they create to children.

Whenever interpretation is done, the intension of the adult is seen more than the use the object has to the child partly due to the observation being made from the perspective of the adult. However, conventional models should not be totally disregarded in interpretation of material culture in this context (Derevenski, 167).

Works Cited

Derevenski, Joanna, Children and Material Culture, New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

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Children and Material Culture

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