Birthday Celebrations Social Impact. What Can We Lear From Children’s Experiences?

Abstract

Children’s birthday celebrations are a social event including different social activities and birthday rituals. As previous research show rituals to enhance cohesion amongst its ritual participants, we assumed in-group and out-group memberships could be established at birthday celebrations between children in an already constituted group. With this study we aim to gain a better understanding of birthday celebrations’ impact on children’s social relations amongst peers, especially ostracism and cohesion as perceived by children. Through open-ended interviews with children at age 7-9, from northern parts of Norway, we provided insight to children’s own experiences of the topic. Results indicate that children may both improve their relations to others, as well as risk exclusion in the context of birthday celebrations. Both birthday rituals and non-ritualistic activities impact on children’s relations in the birthday celebration setting. The celebrations’ impact on social relations is perceived as rather small, and children rely on already established friendships after the party.