CULTURE OF PEERS AND LUDIC CULTURE: GAMES AT SCHOOL

Abstract

This paper reports data collected by a research whose objective was to investigate how children play and interact while they are having fun at schoolyard. In an ethnographic perspective, participant observation was carried out with first graders in a public city school in Pelotas, RS, Brazil, from 2008 to 2011. However, this paper is centered on analysis and observations performed in kidding situations with children at schoolyard during 2010. Data were recorded in films and photographs, described in diaries and analyzed in the light of studies in Sociology and Anthropology of Childhood, such as Corsaro’s (2009; 2011), Sarmento’s (2003); Brugère’s (2008); Cohn’s (2005) and Graue and Walsch’s (2003). The description of the situations shows several aspects of current events in the games. These data are evidence that there is an intrinsic relation between the local culture and the children’s world, experienced in the ludic culture, which arises in culture of peers.