Abstract
In this chapter I examine the ways in which ten and eleven year-old children use talk to explore and experiment with changing conceptions of gender and sexuality as they move through the transition between what is commonly seen in Anglo-American culture as a sexually innocent childhood and a publicly sexual adolescence. While the children are inevitably constrained by language and other social practices, I see them as making choices, taking up positions within conversations and constructing individually inflected representations of social experience within their talk. Thus they play an active, inquiring role in their own socialisation.
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© 2009 Janet Maybin
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Maybin, J. (2009). Airhostess Legs and Jealous Husbands: Explorations of Gender and Heterosexuality in 10–11 Year-olds’ Conversations. In: Pichler, P., Eppler, E. (eds) Gender and Spoken Interaction. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230280748_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230280748_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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