Interaction, affection and the construction of meaning among children in a toy library

Abstract

Contexts in which children interact without close interference from adults, as in times of free activities in a toy library, are revealed to be significant in problematizing and discussing aspects related to child development. How do the interactions occur among children in this space? What clues do they offer to the understanding of the factors involved in the construction of the "self" in these children? What is the role of the other/child in this process? These are some of the questions that the present study seeks to discuss, taking as its point of departure Vygotsky's contributions to the development of consciousness, those of Wallon on the role of the other in the awareness of the self, and those of Elias referring to the relation between the meaning the subject constructs about his life and the meanings attributed to it by others. The analysis of the data related to observations of the interactions between children and between children and adults in a toy library and, in particular between two children, a boy with Down Syndrome who lives with his family and a girl who lives in an orphanage, indicates that in the relationship established with the other what stands out is not so much a unique meaning, but a multiplicity of meanings of the self and the other, accompanied by affective resonances that can be varied and even contradictory.