Based in experience-near anthropology, this article explores constructions of gender by 10-year-old Norwegian girls who are informed by a developmental discourse and by new clothing-fashion codes. The analysis reveals gaps in aesthetic understanding between the clothing-fashion industry, preteen girls and older generations. The industry seems to assume that 10-year-old girls want to dress ‘older than their age’, a trend the girls in this study understand and relate to in their presentation of selves. The girls want to be fashionable and kul, not ‘sexy’, which conflicts with the way in which older people view the girls’ fashion preferences. This poses an ethical dilemma for the girls (and their parents) in how to present themselves.
Allan, A. ( 2005) ‘You Are What You Wear’, paper presented at Childhoods 2005, Oslo.
2.
Ariès, P. ( 1962) Centuries of Childhood, New York: Vintage Books.
3.
Borg, E. ( 2006) Barn i reklame, master’s thesis, University of Oslo.
4.
Brembeck, H., B. Johansson and J. Kampmann ( 2004) ‘Introduction’, in Beyond the Competent Child. Frederiksberg: Roskilde University Press.
5.
Chin, E. ( 2001) Purchasing Power. London: University of Minnesota Press.
6.
Cook, D.T. and S.B. Kaiser ( 2004) ‘Betwixt and be Tween: Age Ambiguity and the Sexualization of the Female Consuming Subject’, Journal of Consumer Culture4(2): 203-27.
7.
Cross, G. ( 2004) The Cute and the Cool. New York: Oxford University Press.
8.
Dant, T. ( 1999) Material Culture in the Social World. Buckingham: Open University Press.
9.
Davis, F. ( 1992) Fashion, Culture and Identity. London : University of Chicago Press.
10.
Douglas, M. ( 1996) Thought Styles. London: Sage.
11.
Douglas, M. ( 1997) Rent og urent [Purity and Danger]. Oslo: Pax Forlag.
12.
Elliot, R. and C. Leonard ( 2004) ‘Peer Pressure and Poverty: Exploring Fashion Brands and Consumption Symbolism among Children of the "British Poor" ’, Journal of Consumer Behaviour3(4): 347-59.
13.
Entwistle, J. ( 2000) The Fashioned Body. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
14.
Epstein, D., S. O’ Flynn and D. Telford ( 2003) Silenced Sexualities in Schools and Universities. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books.
15.
Flugel, J.C. ( 1930) The Psychology of Clothes. London: Hogarth Press.
16.
Geertz, C. ( 1983) ‘ "From the Native’s Point of View": On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding’, Local Knowledge. New York: Basle.
17.
Gullestad, M. ( 1997) ‘A Passion for Boundaries’, Childhood4(1): 19-42.
18.
Hey, V. ( 1997) The Company She Keeps: An Ethnography of Girls’ Friendship. Buckingham: Open University Press.
19.
Holland, J., C. Ramazanoglu, S. Sharpe and R. Thomson ( 2004) The Male in the Head. London: The Tufnell Press.
20.
Isachsen, T. ( 1994) Barn, forbruk og reklame, Rapport 7/94. Oslo: National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO).
21.
James, A., C. Jenks and A. Prout ( 1998) Theorizing Childhood. New York: Teachers College Press.
22.
Kelle, H. ( 2001) ‘The Discourse of "Development": How 9- to 12-Year-Old Children Construct "Childish" and "Further Developed" Identities within their Peer Culture’, Childhood8(1): 95-114.
23.
Klepp, I.G. and A. Storm-Mathisen ( 2005) ‘Reading Fashion as Age’, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture9(3): 323-42.
24.
Malinowski, B. ( 1984) Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (Orig. pub. 1922.)
25.
Moore, H.L. ( 1994) A Passion for Difference. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press .
26.
Moore, H. ( 2007) The Subject of Anthropology. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press .
27.
Pole, C. ( 2007) ‘Researching Children and Fashion’, Childhood14(1): 67-84.
28.
Pountain, D. and D. Robins ( 2000) Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude. London: Reaktion Books.
29.
Reay, D. ( 2001) ‘ "Spice Girls", "Nice Girls", "Girlies, and "Tomboys": Gender Discourses, Girls’ "Cultures and Femininities in the Primary Classroom’, Gender and Education13(2): 153-66.
30.
Renold, E. ( 2005) Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities. London: Routledge-Falmer.
31.
Rysst, M. ( 2005) ‘Det koster å være kul: Om tweenagers’ opplevelse av tilhørighet i en flerkulturell setting i Oslo’ , Tidsskrift for ungdomsforskning5(2): 5-26.
32.
Rysst, M. ( 2008) ‘ "I Want to be Me. I Want to be Kul": An Anthropological Study of Norwegian Preteen Girls in the Light of a Presumed "Disappearance" of Childhood’, PhD thesis, University of Oslo.
33.
Steele, V. ( 1985) Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Age to the Jazz Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
34.
Storm-Mathisen, A. ( 1998) Kjøpepress . . . hva er det for noe?, Rapport No. 4, Lysaker: National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO).
35.
Tekstilforum (2003) ‘Snertne småpiker’ [Snappy Young Girls], Oslo.
36.
Torell, V.B. ( 2004) ‘Adults and Children Debating Sexy Girls’ Clothes’, in H. Brembeck, B. Johansson and J. Kampmann (eds) Beyond the Competent Child. Frederiksberg : Roskilde University Press.
37.
Veblen, T. ( 1912) The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Macmillan.
38.
Wærdahl, R. ( 2003) Learning by Consuming: Consumer Culture as a Condition for Socialization and Everyday Life at the Age of 12, Rapport 4. Oslo: Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo.
39.
West, C. and D. Zimmerman ( 1987) ‘Doing Gender’, Gender and Society1(2): 125-51.
40.
Wyness, M. ( 2000) Contesting Childhood. London: Falmer.
