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Dictionary definition: childrens folklore
- Article from:
- A Dictionary of English Folklore
- Author:
Copyright© A Dictionary of English Folklore 2000, originally published by Oxford University Press 2000. (Hide copyright information)
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children's folklore.
This, or child-lore, is the generic term used to refer to children's own folklore, as distinguished from folklore-about-children or folklore taught to children by adults (e.g.
nursery rhymes
). Children as a social group clearly have a very wide range of cultural traits and material, which mirror the adult world, but the fact that much of their learning is done through informal channels, and that they have genres, such as games and rhymes, which are lacking in the adult world, makes them a particularly rewarding area of research for the folklorist. Early folklorists took it as read that children preserve in their games and rhymes the serious practices of previous adult ...