Saving Childhood in Everyday Objects

Abstract

What experiences and meaning of childhood are saved within objects of daily life? How do these objects differ from the pre-supposed artefacts of childhood in the culture of the twentieth-century United States? Using an interdisciplinary approach, this paper focusses on unexpected objects saved from childhood. These non-traditional objects of childhood reveal different levels of meaning and interpretation of a child's material world. An analysis of several contemporary objects saved by adults explores the personal significance of everyday things and how these possessions act as temporal guideposts of personal development that in turn shape meaning and identity. In particular the paper illuminates alternative approaches to investigating the meaning and relationship of objects particularly through both interpretive phenomenology and education and human development perspectives. The paper concludes with an examination of how researchers can draw on the scholarship of human development to support continued study of children's material culture.