Do's and Don'ts

Family Rules, Rooms, and Their Relationships

Abstract

Our object here is simple: to understand a specific room (and by extension any room, any place) as an institution - that is, as a significant and persistent element in the life of a culture, centered on fundamental human needs, activities, and values and occupying an enduring and cardinal position in society. We conceptualize this room as a field of values and meanings manifested to children as spoken rules (the do's and the don'ts) and believe thathese rules can be used to understand both (a) the room as a field of values and (b) the manner in which this is revealed to children (whereby the institution of the room is reproduced). Toward this end, one of us (Robert Beck) elicited from the other (Denis Wood, age 40) and his family - Ingrid (age 46), Randall (age 11), and Chandler (age 9) - all the rules they felt pertained to each of the 70 "objects" comprising the room. The method was this simple: Bob asked, "What are the rules for the door?"The couch?" 'The mantle?" of Denis, Randall, Chandler, and Ingrid independently (and in this order). What follows here is a statement of the problem and of the larger method (or approach), illustrated by an analysis of the 23 rules pertaining to two "objects": the screen door and the door proper.