Old-bodied Puppets: what children say about ageing

Abstract

The text describes a way to do research with children and to learn what they understand by being elderly. I study here a group of children from a public school in Porto Alegre making use of five puppets that represent old-bodied men and women. I ground the research in post-critical assumptions, in the sociology of childhood and in studies about ageing. I observe how children when playing with the bodies of elderly-puppets display their understanding about an ageing body. I deal with the effect of playing with elderly-bodies in the education of children and with the extent to which this kind of body is not present in their toys and plays.