Abstract
Today's Adults Were Yesterday's Children: The Meaning of Game in the Childhood of Adults
The aim of this study is to look into the perceptions of adults about child games through
the lenses of their childhood times and how they conceptualize or internalize such games.
Phenomenological approach of Qualitative Research methods has been adopted for this
study. Data was collected via interviews. The participants of the study were 20 volunteers
aged over 60 (10 males and 10 females) who has spent their lives or were brought up in
Central Siirt or countryside. Content analysis, one of the qualitative analysis method,
has been applied to the collected data. It was concluded from the data that the adults
perceived games as a means of spending spare time, entertainment, learning and passing
time activities. Moreover, participants thought that cultural and religious factors played
a role on the selection of game partners , especially gender based choices and male
participants allocated more time to games than their female counterparts. The males
preferred outdoor child games during their childhood times while the females generally
preferred indoor activities.
Keywords
Child Games, Game, Early Childhood, Traditional Child Games, Adults Perception of Game.
