Insändare i Kamratposten : Uttryck för villkor i barns kulturella sammanhang

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to elevate children's conditions as they are expressed in the specific genre of letters to the editor column. The empirical material consists of 1054 child writer contributions in the children's magazine 'Kamratposten' 1977-2007.In the thesis the letters to the editor column is considered to constitute a social place wherein a meeting occurs between ideas, norms and values from children's culture and culture for children, creating conditions for how the children writers express themselves. It concerns conditions the children experience, interpret and reproduce from their daily lives, as well as conditions formed by different editors in a magazine for children.Drawing on a theoretical framework of semiotics and culture pedagogy in combination with a methodological approach of hermeneutics and abduction, the concepts 'develomental task' and 'affordance' were initially used to interpret data. During the interpreting process two main phenomena have been conceptualised as prominent conditions in children's everyday life: Belonging and Place.The abductive method used in the study revealed how the dialectics of belonging and place as conditional phenomena create feelings of discomfort, as well as feelings of pleasure. The results show that these feelings are mainly due to a sense of belonging in families, peer groups and romantic relations. The results also illustrate that belonging and place concerns more than being part of different social and cultural settings. It concerns feelings of real participation and involvment, of taking part, in family life and social interaction with peers, girlfriends and boyfriends. The children's written contributions reveal that belonging and place are issues of vital democratic quality in their daily life and world.