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Children's Street Culture




It is not to be confused with the commercial narrative media-culture produced ''for'' children (e.g., Comics or Television ), although it may overlap mass-produced toys and clothing. Children's street culture is invented and largely sustained by children themselves, although it may come to incorporate fragments of media culture and toys in its activities.

Although it varies from place to place, research shows it appears to share many commonalities across many cultures. It is a traditional phenomenon that has been closely investigated and documented during the 20th century by Anthropologist s and Folklorists such as Iona Opie ; Street Photographers such as Roger Mayne , Helen Levitt , David Trainer and Robert Doisneau ; urbanists such as Colin Ward and Robin Moore , and also described in countless novels of childhood. It has occasionally been central to feature films, such as Ealing 's '' Hue & Cry '' (1947).

Since the widespread use of the Motor Car , children's street culture has often been forced to retreat to pavements and backstreets, and into parks and playgrounds. Since the advent of Television , Computer Games , increased academic pressures, and aggressive Marketing , along with parental fear of Pedophile s which leads them to forbid unsupervised outdoor play, concerns have been expressed about the vitality or even the survival of children's own street culture.

In .


RESOURCES



Non-fiction

  • Iona Opie . ''The People in the Playground'' (1993).

  • Iona Opie . ''The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren'' (1959).

  • Simon Bronner . ''American Children's Folklore'' (1988).

  • Colin Ward (with photos by Ann Golzen). ''The Child in the City'' (1977).

  • Robin Moore . ''Childhood's Domain: Play and Place'' (1986).

  • Ervin Beck . "Children's Guy Fawkes Customs in Sheffield", ''Folklore'', 95 (1984), 191-203.



Photography books

  • Roger Mayne . ''Street Photographs of Roger Mayne'' (1996, Victoria And Albert Museum ).

  • Robert Doisneau . ''Les Enfants, Les Gosses'' (1992).

  • Helen Levitt . ''In The Street: chalk drawings and messages, New York City 1938-1948''. (1987) — (Chalkings and children making them)

  • Eddie Elliott (Curator). ''Knock Down Ginger: Seventy Years of Street Kids'' (Exhibition, Photographers' Gallery, London; July 2001).

  • ''Les Enfants'' (Editions de La Martinière, France, 2001) (Anthology of French street photography of children; by Ronis, Riboud, Doisneau, Cartier Bresson, and others).

  • R.S. Johnson & J.T. Oman. ''Street Children'' (1964). Hodder & Stoughton, London. (Photography & poetic text on facing pages, re: young British children's street play).



Television documentaries

  • Ian Duncan. (Dir.) ''Picture This: Playing Out'' ( BBC2 1992)

  • Ian Duncan. (Dir.) ''The Secret World of Children'' ( BBC 1993)



See also

  • David Sobel. ''Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years'' (1998).