Case Study: Day-Care Center and Childern Culture

This case study based on a fieldwork carried out in a Day-Care Center tries to describe the process of the transition from mothering to wider society which is represented by a classroom of preschool children. Within this process we can note and describe specific ways of parent's, teacher's and especially children's actions. These activities are repeatedly produced. The point of departure is the Hirschfeld's article "Why Don't Anthropologists like Children?" (Hirschfeld, 2002) and his affirmation that children are active participants within process of accepting of social regulations and values and that they create their own culture, "children culture". This study ilustrates that the process of the transition from mothering to wider society is in the first place the process of the separation of child and mother. Within this process we note the function of the "object transitional" that compensate the absence of mother. And we can also observe how the group of pupils is formed and how their group identity is created. This group is situated in a specific place and time. And we observe that all individual actions concerning child are "embodied"- it's because we talk about an "experience that involve the whole person, including the body" (Abu-Lughold, Lutz, 1990 cit. in Ben-Ari, 1998: 138)