Paper short abstract:

Children’s explorations of the world are increasingly marginalized by societal politics as well as shifted to virtual worlds by using media. This raises anthropological questions on children’s bodily learning. The paper focuses bodily learning in museum exhibitions on the basis of research data.

Paper long abstract:

Increasingly institutionalized childhoods within tightening societal “temporal politics” (Allemann-Ghionda 2009) marginalize children’s independent physical explorations of the world. These physical explorations used to be an integral part of historical childhoods (f. e. Muchow & Muchow 2012 [1935]). In conjunction with increasing media exposure through digital technologies, children’s own explorations of the world are increasingly ‘translocated’ to virtual worlds in “digital childhoods” (Danby et al. 2018). This opens up questions in historical as well as in educational anthropology, particularly concerning bodily learning. Here, the paper focuses museum exhibitions and children. Since especially younger children use their bodies and all senses to explore the world, the paper explores how physical interactions of children with ‘object-ecologies’ in museum exhibitions may promote the “sting of experience” (Bachelard 2011, 70) to encourage independent bodily explorations and appropriations of the world. The paper discusses this on the basis of empirical material.

Selected Literature:

Allemann-Ghionda, C. (2009). Ganztagsschule im europäischen Vergleich. Zeitpolitiken modernisieren – durch Vergleich Standards setzen? [All-day school in European comparisons. Modernizing temporal politics – setting standards by comparison?] - In: Stecher, L., Allemann-Ghionda, C., Helsper, W., Klieme, E. (eds.): Ganztägige Bildung und Betreuung [All-day education and care]. Weinheim: Beltz, 190–208.

Bachelard, G. (2011). La formation de l’esprit scientifique. Paris: Vrin.

Danby, S. J., Fleer, M., Davidson, Chr. & Hatzigianni, M. (eds.) (2018). Digital Childhoods. Technologies and Children’s Everyday Lives. Singapore: Springer.

Muchow, M. & Muchow, H. H. (2012 [1935]). Der Lebensraum des Großstadtkindes [The lifeworld of the city child]. Weinheim: Beltz/Juventa.