About the Project
Boys game, 1950s.
Image: Museum Victoria
Childhood, Tradition and Change is a nation-wide study that will document and analyse the historical development of Australian children's playlore over a fifty year period. Funded by the Australian Research Council, with support from the University of Melbourne, Deakin University, Curtin University of Technology, the National Library of Australia and Museum Victoria, the project will run over four years (2007-2010) and will produce the first comprehensive national study of continuity and change in children's playlore from the 1950s to the present.
Fieldworkers will travel to primary schools in every Australian state and territory to collect material that will form the basis of a new archive of Australian children's folklore. Comparisons will be made with a range of similar projects carried out in the 1950s, 70s and 80s, as well as information on play traditions gathered from the wider community. A research team of scholars of international repute has been assembled to develop an innovative approach to the examination of a diverse range of materials, which includes aural, visual, object-based, textual and archival resources from across the period.
Project outcomes, which will include a book, articles, a national conference, public forums and the enhancement of internationally significant Australian folklore collections at the National Library of Australia and Museum Victoria, will provide a major contribution to international playlore and cultural heritage studies, and to Australian histories of childhood. They will also provide research evidence to assist the Australian Government and UNESCO in identifying significant intangible cultural heritage in Australia, in accordance with the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Memory of the World Programme.
As the project progresses, we will use this site to provide information about the research, public forums and conferences. We will also provide limited access to material being collected by fieldworkers, and the opportunity for members of the community to contribute to the project.
This project builds upon a rich body of previous research. Click the link below to download information about projects undertaken by Dorothy Howard, Lindsay and Palmer, Heather Russell and others.