Children's culture, a view of Florestan Fernandes: contributions of Brazilian Sociology of childhood

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to accomplish a bibliographic and documental review of the Florestan Fernandes works and writings about the "children's culture" and that are available in the private collection of Florestan Fernandes in the Library´s Community at UFSCar - Universidade Federal de São Carlos. The research insets in the field of sociology of childhood and seeks to continue the works that try to trace the specificity of these studies in Brazil. (ABRAMOWICZ and OLIVEIRA, 2010, MORUZZI and OLIVEIRA, 2001, etc). Florestan Fernandes is known for creating the expression "children´s culture" and that his works about "As trocinhas do bom retiro" did emerge the children´s sociology in Brazil, presenting singular characteristics about Brazilian children. The contribution of this research will be the analysis with more details about "children´s culture" starting from his original writings a parallel study to his books Folclore e Mudança Social na Cidade de São Paulo and Folclore em Questão. We will try to analyze and understand: What is children´s culture for Florestan Fernandes and how this conception was built by the sociology? When we ask this question we are trying to understand the cultural and historic surrounding context that Florestan Fernandes framed as "children´s culture" and, at the same time, the meaning and the term presented for the first time and analyzed in his works and writings. We believe that bringing these discussions, especially present in the writings of Florestan Fernandes, expand the notions and studies around the "children´s culture" in the sociology of Brazilian children.