Viewing the changing position of children in family leisure over time: A photographic analysis

Abstract

This paper utilizes family leisure photographs to examine the changing position of children within families in New Zealand. Photographs are a useful lens for addressing such issues, as they can be interpreted as ways of understanding human life. They document aspects of lives that we may be unable to see easily via other sources. Over one hundred years of family leisure photographs, from a combination of archival family photograph albums and more recent albums sourced privately through advertising and snowball sampling, were analysed using visual qualitative thematic analysis. For analysis, a structured chronological approach was adopted to make the findings easy to follow and show the changing position of children over time. The findings show that the photographs reflect a shift away from children as observers and followers of family leisure in the early twentieth century, to controlled in the post-war years, to being recognized as important social agents through 1970s, to the position of active decision makers more recently.