usual apologies for cross-posting...Replies please direct to Nena Galanidou
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Subject: Fwd: Conference: Archaeology, the Past and Children

> The 8th European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting
> Thessaloniki 25-29 September
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> ------------------------
> Telling children about the past
>
> In communicating our archaeological findings to members of the public, it
is
> important that we should recognize that children are a special case.
> Children have different cognitive abilities from adults and go through a
> period of apprenticeship during which they are not fully capable of
> processing critically the information that is presented to them. Children
> are shown images and told stories about the past in various contexts that
> range from the formal and educational to the informal (for example, the
> genre of popular books about antiquity). These images and stories, whether
> their source be a professional archaeologist or a person whose interest in
> the subject is personal, all share one common factor: they need to be
fairly
> simple and easily available to the understanding of the age group at which
> they are aimed. Such representations tend to ignore recent archaeological
> debate, continuing to purvey images of the past that either reinforce or
are
> at least immediately recognizable from a modern perspective. This sort of
> representation is intimately connected with contemporary power strategies.
>
> In recent years many systematic attempts have been made to deal with the
> questions of the "archaeology of childhood" and the "relation of
archaeology
> to the public". This session is intended to contribute to these
discussions
> not by attempting to identify children in the archaeological record, but
by
> dealing with 'childhood and archaeology' as an experience of the present.
It
> is our plan to bring together archaeologists, psychologists and
> educationalists in an interdisciplinary dialogue that will illuminate a
> number of aspects of the representation of archaeology to younger
audiences.
> We shall be inviting these professionals to examine critically the media
> (narrative, visual and sensual) through which archaeological information
is
> presented to children and the contexts within which they are used:
> formal/professional (the educational programmes and publications used by
> museums, for example) and informal/non-professional (as, for example,
books
> written for children about the past) in order that an attempt may be made
to
> challenge the form, the content and the impact of these narratives.
>
> Amongst the topics we would like to see discussed are:
> * The role of narratives about the past designed for children in shaping
> modern ethnic, social and gender identities.
> *The cognitive/learning capacities of children at each stage of their
> development.
> * New ways of making the past and its material culture interesting to
> children.
>
> Although the nature of formal educational programmes must of course be an
> important element of this discussion, please note that we shall be
examining
> the ideological and methodological dimensions of such programmes rather
than
> focusing more narrowly upon their themes and structures.
>
>
> Could anyone who wishes to contribute a paper to this session please be
kind
> enough to send an abstract of 250 or fewer words to Nena Galanidou
> ([log in to unmask]) by 10 May 2002.