Why Children Across the Globe Sing 'Jingle Bells, Batman Smells'

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Remember the playground chants, the jump rope songs, the weird little games you played as a kid that were part of your secret kid world? Scholars have a name for it: childlore. You might imagine, given all the differences between kids—country, culture, class, race, media consumption—that this childlore might be vastly different from place to place. But the strange thing is, many of the little things kids say and do, or draw in their notebooks, are remarkably similar across time and place. We’ll talk about the things kids do across cultures and how they spread and evolve. Guests: Julie Beck, senior editor, The Atlantic; author of the article, “Why Did We All Have the Same Childhood?” Rebekah Willett, professor at the Information School, University of Wisconsin at Madison Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:49.4	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:53.2	Children have their own legends, games, and mythologies.
0:57.3	There's even a name for it in scholarly circles, child lore.
1:02.1	You might imagine, given all the differences between kids, country, culture, class, race,
1:06.5	media consumption, that this child lore might be vastly different from place to place.
1:12.6	But the strange thing is, many of the little things kids say and do or draw in their notebooks are remarkably, kind of shockingly similar across time and place.
1:16.6	These bits of culture have proven remarkably durable crossing oceans and adapting at times to new norms.
1:22.6	We'll talk about child lore today, what you remember from your rhyming days, and what happens
1:26.6	when you discover a bit of your own lore as a racist or dark origin? That's all coming up next after this news.
1:37.6	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Happy Friday, everybody. In a story for the Atlantic,
	...

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