Children’s bodies and material culture: A study of children’s physical activities based on games

Abstract

Within a socio-anthropological framework, this paper studies how the relations between children’s bodies and material culture are related to age and gender identities. The empirical study involves nine focus groups of children playing a card game created for this research. The results illustrate how boys and girls favor different characteristics of these artifacts. They shed light on how this material culture provides symbolic resources for children relationships and performs what their bodies are and will be able to do.