Although ethnography has been a methodology used for years by anthropologists and sociologists, few researchers have entered the homes of children for extended periods of time in order to observe childhood and childrearing practices. The methodology discussed in this article notably permits the researcher to observe child socialization among family members first-hand. Based on seven-months of ethnographic observations among four families from differing social backgrounds in the Ile-de-France region of France, the article discusses how this recorded participant ethnography was set up. The article shows that the researcher held different roles in the families and that these roles varied according to social milieu. Through first analyzing the conditions of these observations among the families, the article provides empirical evidence of the social differentiation of children's daily lives.
Using data regarding words pronounced by 2 year-old children of the Elfe cohort (Enquête longitudinale française depuis l’enfance, French Longitudinal Survey from Childhood), this study addresses the sociogenesis of childhood language styles. First, it quantifies the number of words pronounced by children, highlighting differentiation in language acquisition according to gender and class. The article then looks at the semantic dimension of language and shows that not all words can be perceived as the same. The construction of semantically distinct groups of words (“everyday”, “ abstract”, “ onomatopoeias”, “ animal noises”) reveals social differentiation between these groups. The article thus emphasizes the existence of partly separate symbolic worlds in which 2 year-old children are already growing up.
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