Children’s Definitions of Otherness

The article explores how social categorisation works during childhood. More specifically it explores what happens when Italian children try to explain how their practical sense operates during the socialisation process to social categorisation. The empirical research on this issue remains little explored in childhood especially from a sociological perspective. The Bourdieu’s notion of practical sense has been intersected with the neurological notions of schemata and deliberate cognition. Through the use of practical sense social agents collocate individuals in the social space. Schemata promote efficiency and enable automatic cognition. Instead deliberate cognition is used by social agents when social interaction requires it as well as when they are asked to justify their action. Ninety-six-first grades-children and their parents have been involved in an empirical study and interviewed using photo-elicitation. During the interview children and parents were asked to justify their action and use their deliberate cognition. Findings compare children with adults’ answers and emphasize the importance of the ‘body’ in making membership of social categories visible. Hence, being socialized means also to recognize the ‘symbolism of the bodies’. A significant outcome produced is that an anticipatory socialisation to the ‘moral’ and ‘hierarchical’ dimensions of social categorisation is underway.