„– if we twirl too much will our panties be seen?” – the social construction of intimacy and bodily privacy among girls in a kindergarten
„– if we twirl too much will our panties be seen?” – the social construction of intimacy and bodily privacy among girls in a kindergarten

Summary/Abstract: Drawing on the Sociology of Childhood, this paper aims to show how children during their play in kindergarten ascribe symbolic meanings to their own actions and to certain objects reproducing interpretatively certain taboos. Ethnographic descriptive analysis about the uses around a pleated skirt by a group of girls aims to show the emerging tensions between its playful use and the moral events generated. The ways girls coped with them, allows one to identify i) the social construction of their identity as both children and girls in the kinder-garten; ii) the interpretation of reproductive taboos concerning the behaviour and morality of the female gender, and iii) the importance of taboos for a consciousness of the intimacy and privacy of the infant body.

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