This article employs a sociomaterial perspective and explores how material artefacts take part in the enactment of social norms by analysing empirical examples from two different childhood studies projects in Norway. Drawing on interview data with tweens, (children aged 8–12), and observational data from an early education and care institution (ECEC), we argue that material, in this case toys and makeup, make a difference in the enactment of social norms in children's everyday lives. Our aim is to demonstrate the malleability of a sociomaterial perspective and show how this can lead to new insights and open childhood studies as a field.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to show how actor-network theory (ANT) can be useful in exploring tweens consumption of the Disney franchises of High School Musical (HSM) and Hannah Montana (HM). Through the lens of the ANT and the concept of situated consumption, the aim of the paper is to elucidate how both tween girls and the Disney merchandise and media content are mutually enacted through practice. Design/methodology/approach -The paper draws on material from in-depth semi-structured interviews with nine girls, seven who were followed during a two-year period in an after-school program at two different schools in a midsize town in Norway and who were visited twice in their home. Two of the girls were recruited from a Disney HSM fan site online. The interviews explored the use of HM and HSM as part of their everyday practices. Findings -A main finding was how tween girls and their relation to the Disney HSM and HM came to be and mean different things in different settings. Media texts and tied in merchandise functioned as social tools and sign vehicles to manage part of belonging to a peer group and also to distinguish themselves from others. Also, focus is on the social norms surrounding how one can display and not one's devotion to Disney tween franchises in a socially accept form. Originality/value -The paper draws on ANT to expand on studies of consumption building on Bajde's (2013) proposal to include ANT within consumer studies. By drawing on the ANT with a socio-material perspective, this study contributes to gain insight into how popular cultural items take part in the co-construction and performance of both consumers and commodities attempting to move beyond an ontological divide between human and non-human entities. Thus, this paper explores how Disney media texts and merchandise and the girls were enacted in different assemblages.
In Norway's 'Framework Plan for kindergartens' digital tools are to be implemented for learning, play and creativity. Implicitly the concept of digital tools, or ICTs, tend to be tablets, computers, and interactive whiteboards, smartphones are as such not taken into account. However, we find that the smartphone is particularly interesting because it differs from the other types of ICTs used in Early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions. Tablets, computers and interactive whiteboards, are all implemented as distinctly pedagogical tools, potentially fulfilling the framework plan, while smartphones have been implemented primarily as administrative and documentational tools. Yet, in this case study on the use of ICTs in a Norwegian ECEC we found that such administrative use of smartphones was blended with undercurrents of 'filler use' for pedagogical purposes. In this article we build on the literature on ICT's in ECEC by exploring the outcome such filler use of smartphones may have. To do this we draw on the domestication theory to describe the practice, symbolic and meaning dimensions in the enactment of smartphones in an ECEC setting.
This article explores how the Disney Company scripts what it is to be a tween through the High School Musical trilogy. While children's perspective is of pivotal concern within childhood studies, it has traditionally left out the material aspects and rather focused too narrowly on the subject and the social. I found that the trilogy was watched several times by tweens, thus in addition to exploring children's voices and perspectives on media content, we also need to examine what the audience is served. The High School Musical trilogy is about teenagers as they attend high school, while it is the younger age group, tweens, who are the main target audience. Implicitly, this tells us that the Disney text configures its audience as aspiring teenagers. The article sets out to explore how Disney configures its tween audience by looking at how identity and age are scripted in the trilogy. Through the lens of the individualization thesis drawing on Beck and Beck-Gernsheim the article analyzes how age, identity, and individuality is portrayed in the trilogy. The article finds that the paradox of becoming a unique individual on one hand, and social obligations on the other hand, are present in the trilogy subsequently abiding in an ambiguous configuration of tweens through the High School Musical trilogy.
The article explores the sociomaterial organization of preschool children’s digital literacy activities, focusing on how participant positions are enacted and distributed. The data material consists of 70 hours of video-recorded observations in early childhood education and care in Norway. Drawing on Ethnomethodology/conversation analysis (EMCA) and Science and Technology Studies (STS), we approach digital literacy practices through the following analytical concepts: participation framework, positioning, script and mutual enactment. The analysis of a twenty-minute sequence shows how tablet activities are dynamic and shifting, where the participant framework, positions and scripts are mutually enacted. Through our analysis we show how the creation of activity frames with a joint focus of attention is important for establishing and sustaining digital literacy as a collaborative activity. It is suggested that applications with weaker scripts might also be important. Here, we show how the “owner” uses a range of interactional resources to establish and sustain control and mutual involvement in literacy activity. This also involves how the technology is enacted in multiple ways.
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