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young Children’s table talk with Peers 
in early Childhood settings

robyn m  holmes

As Mechling (2000) noted, mealtime is both a biological necessity and a social 
activity. Mealtime has been acknowledged as a context and setting in which 
children can acquire language competencies and skills. During mealtime, young 
children have the opportunity to interact socially with both adults and peers. For 
example, Cote (2001) compared the mealtime experiences of preschool children 
in two different classroom settings. She found that the structure of mealtimes was 
related to children’s language learning opportunities. She compared language 
use during mealtimes to other times of the day and introduced strategies to help 
encourage children’s discourse during mealtime events. Other studies such as 
those by Snow and Beals (2006) have explored mealtime events as they relate to 
children’s language competencies and skills.

The relationship between mealtime and language development has also been 
investigated cross-culturally. For example, Majorano, Cigala, and Corsano (2009) 
explored teacher-child and peer to peer speech in Italian nursery schools. They 
found that children were linguistically active during mealtime compared to other 
times in their routine such as free play. In fact, they found that children produced 
longer utterances and more complex speech during mealtime. Thus the nature 
and context of this activity helped shaped children’s language skills, development, 
and competencies. Others cross-cultural comparisons on children’s conversations 
include Tulviste et al’s (2010) work on Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish children’s 
peer discourse. They focused more upon the types of speech children use and 
how culture guides peer conversations. 

Employing participant observation, Stone (1992) analyzed preschoolers’ 
spontaneous conversation that takes place in the classroom. Using categories 
such as content, structure, and form, he found that children typically utilize three 
forms of narrative. In the classroom context, the greatest number of narratives 
were produced during lunchtime and directed toward teachers. He found that 
preschoolers, similar to adults discuss events that happen outside of the classroom 
and also use a “show and tell approach” (375). In his sample, children’s narratives 
focused upon personal experiences, family and friends, and dreams or movies. He 
concluded that adults and children should share mealtime as the child searches for 
a responsive partner. 

Many previous studies on children’s conversations have focused upon adult to 
child rather than child to child speech. As Blum-Kulka and Snow (2004) noted, 
few studies have systemically explored peer to peer conversation outside of the 
play context. Exceptional studies that have investigated the content of young 
children’s peer to peer conversations during non-play contexts include works 
by O’Neill et al. (2009) and Holmes (2011). O’Neill et al. (2009) investigated the 
content of young children’s speech in peer conversations. They video recorded the 
conversations of a class of preschool children during snack time, twice a week for 

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approximately 500 speech episodes. Raw linguistic material was coded for speech 
initiations, person reference, semantic content, time, and location. They found 
boys were slightly more verbally active than girls, conversations were primarily 
dyadic, most topics involved people, jokes were infrequent, food was a topic in 
only a small percentage of conversations, and children produced more comments 
than questions. They concluded that preschoolers are working on a theory of 
mind through their social and linguistic interactions with peers. 

Other studies have focused upon the social nature of children’s speech. For 
example, Hamo and Blum-Kulka (2007) explored the purpose and function 
of language in Israeli preschoolers’ peer interactions. In their view, discourse 
is a unique linguistic, social, and cultural phenomenon. In their work, they 
acknowledged the daily moment by moment social construction of peer culture 
in addition to the collaborative creation of discourse as it relates to individual 
development. Their focus was twofold; talk as activity and the use of conversation 
as a medium to help children develop social ability. In a related work, Kryatzis 
and Green (1997) used a Vygotskian lens to examine the relationship between 
the social construction of children’s narratives and peer relationships. Using 
subsamples of preschool and middle school children, they suggested that 
children’s discourse serve as a medium through which children socially construct. 
There are peer culture, identity, and friend relationships

Rather than linguistically analyzing children’s speech, another approach 
to understand children’s language use has addressed preschool children’s 
understanding of conversational structure. The sociolinguist William Corsaro 
(1986; 1990; 1997) has extensively studied how young children use language 
and discourse to communicate their social status and understand their position 
within their peer groups. In the interpretist view, children use language to both 
collaboratively construct and understand their social worlds. 

Kryatzis (2004) presents a review of this approach and its focus upon how 
children utilize language to both create and reflect their social worlds and 
relationships. One issue that surfaces is the concern children, even young 
children, have with power in their peer groups. In this case, children’s ability 
to establish and maintain relationships with peers is reflected in their ability 
to use communication effectively to create and maintain social order. This can 
be accomplished by teasing, manipulating adult categories, and controlling 
conversations. This is the essence of peer talk (see also Karrebæk 2011; Kryatzis, 
Ross and Koymen 2010). 

Empirical studies on children’s use of language to reflect their social status 
include Kyratzis, Marx, and Wade’s (2001) ethnographic work. They examined 
how preschoolers use language to mark social status and ranking in a friend 
group and found that children used specific control acts to regulate the behavior 
of others in the group. Powerful girls used mitigated pretend statements, whereas 
powerful boys employed unmitigated declaratives and direct commands. 
Researchers such as Anderson (1990) focused upon children’s use of linguistic 
markers for power in pretend play. In the neighborhood setting, Goodwin (1990, 
1993) explored African American children’s strategies for establishing dominance 
hierarchies and alliances. She continued this line of inquiry (2007) by focusing 

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upon language as a medium through which young children mark their power. As 
Wolf (1996) suggested, child to child conversations may provide the context for 
critical language lessons, since the inequality and power differentials in adult to 
child speech are not present in peer speech interactions. 

Finally, in her work with preschoolers, Holmes (2011) investigated the nature 
and content of peer conversations in a classroom context during lunchtime. 
She also explored how the activity of eating at school framed the children’s 
conversation and play and the role of gender in guiding the conversations and 
play forms. Audio and written recordings of conversation using a time sampling 
unit of five minutes were employed. Simultaneous play and non-verbal behavior 
were also recorded. She found that children primarily conversed with peers and 
not with adults. Pervasive conversation topics were food, family, and daily events. 
Child to teacher speech frequently involved requests for assistance. Girls were 
more active verbally than boys in almost all instances except in asking the teacher 
questions. Boys played with their food, told jokes and engaged in taboo humor 
and language play more than the girls did. 

The present work is aligned with the following viewpoints. First, children 
are regarded as active agents in their own socialization (Schwartzman 2001). 
Second, setting is acknowledged as guiding the behavior that occurs within it. 
In agreement with Mechling (2000), children’s meal times are viewed as social 
contexts that frame the conversation and behavior that emerges in that setting and 
playing with food is a normative behavior for children. Third, peer conversations 
serve as a medium in which children create their own culture, manage their 
relationships, convey social status, and discuss what is culturally relevant to them. 
In short, children’s peer conversations reflect children’s everyday experiences in 
their micro and macro social worlds (Göncü 1999).

This project on children’s mealtime conversations is framed within the socio-
cultural perspective which emphasizes the social functions of children’s discourse 
(Corsaro 1990; Hamo and Blum-Kulka 2002). This view focuses upon the 
interconnectedness between culture and behavior as it is reflected in children’s 
conversational skills. Such interactions take place within a social context in which 
cultural norms and social relationships are constructed. This project focuses upon 
the role of children’s conversations in providing a medium by which children 
convey and share commentary on their social world, relationships, status, everyday 
events, and the adult world. Of particular importance are conversation and 
language. One might expect preschool and kindergarten children’s conversations 
to vary according to cognitive understanding and language competencies; popular 
children will control table talk; status will shift situationally; and girls and boys will 
engage in these acts in different ways.

Method

Participants
Participants included preschool children who attended a private, not for profit 
learning institution primarily for children 3-5 years of age with additional 
enrichment programs for older preschoolers. There were 70 children (31 boys, 

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39 girls). Ages ranged from 38-70 months with a mean age of 48.2 months. 
Children were primarily from middle income families of European American 
heritages. Parental /Guardian consent return rate was 78% (70/90). Some children 
attended school every day, some three days a week, and others two days a week. 
All children were eligible for the lunchtime program. An Institutional Review 
Board granted approved for this project and the director and caregivers granted 
additional consent. Children were treated according to the American Psychological 
Association’s guidelines for ethical treatment of participants (American 
Psychological Association, 2002). Since the participants were minor children 
additional resources were consulted (Christensen and James 2008; Fraser 2004).

There were seven kindergarten children (two boys, five girls). The children 
attended a private, for profit learning center whose mission includes teaching 
educational as well as life skills while emphasizing all domains of development. 
Children who attended the center may be between 6 weeks and 12 years of 
age. The participants attended a full day kindergarten program, ranged in age 
from 5-6 ½ years, and were of diverse ethnic heritages. Parental consent return 
rate was 75%. All children were treated according to the American Psychological 
Association’s (2002) guidelines for ethical treatment of human participants (See 
Greene and Hogan 2005 for information on conducting research with children). 
An Institutional Review Board, the cooperating preschool and learning center, and 
parents/guardians granted approval for this project. 

Design and Procedure
This project utilized a qualitative design, a naturalistic observation approach, 
and the technique employed was written and audio recordings of children’s 
conversations in the natural setting of the classroom during lunchtime. 

In the preschool, raw material was gathered between spring 2009 and fall 
2010. The children were visited three days a week for 25 weeks. Lunchtime lasted 
for approximately one hour per visit. Total observation time was approximately 
75 hours. The author and her four research assistants were naturalistic observers 
in the classroom. They neither initiated conversations nor engaged the children 
in interactions. Within several weeks the children acclimated to the researchers’ 
presence, although sometimes the children invited them into their conversation or 
asked them for assistance with their lunch. The latter requests included opening a 
lunch box, pouring a drink, or inserting straws into juice boxes. The kindergarten 
fieldwork period took place between fall 2007 and spring 2008. 

The following procedure was maintained in the preschool field site. After the 
children had selected their seats for lunch, the researchers filled in a seating chart. 
They then graphically noted the individual children for whom they had permission 
to record. Initially, teachers provided the children’s names for the seating chart to 
ensure accuracy. Even after the researchers learned the children’s names, teachers 
were consulted when the researchers were uncertain about a child’s identity. 
After the seating charts were completed, the researchers positioned themselves 
on different sides of the tables so they could record independently the children’s 
conversations from different vantage points. Each researcher had a notebook 
and pen with which to record the children’s speech. Conversations were also 

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audio- recorded to verify the quality and accuracy of the written notes. On some 
occasions, the volume of the children’s voices during lunchtime was so loud that 
the researchers had to rely exclusively on written field notes.

The researchers selected tables for recording conversations based upon which 
table had the greatest number of children for whom consent was granted. Order 
of observation and recording proceeded from most to least number of children for 
whom consent was granted. On some occasions when children were silent at a 
table, researchers moved on to the next table. In the preschool, table compositions 
changed with every lunch time in part because attendance was voluntary and 
different children attended preschool on different days of the week. 

To begin recording conversations, the researchers synchronized their start 
time and each began recording the children’s conversations at the designated 
tables. Each table was time sampled for five minutes since lunchtime lasted 
approximately 30 minutes. When the 5 minute period had elapsed, the researchers 
moved on to the next table. All of the children’s speech was recorded as well as 
any accompanying play and non-verbal behavior. Children who were seated at 
the table for whom consent was not granted were simply marked with an X in 
the field notes. Several trial sessions were accomplished prior to the start of the 
project. The researchers then compared field notes to determine discrepancies and 
gaps in the recorded material. After ten trials, the researchers were able to achieve 
88% compatibility. Undecipherable words and phrases were discussed immediately 
after the recording session in a quiet room of the preschool. 

The author was the only observer in the kindergarten field site. She adhered to 
the same procedures as those used in the preschool classroom.

Coding
The author trained the four research assistants to code the children’s speech. 
First, all the researchers independently transcribed their recorded material. Next, 
these transcriptions were compared across all researchers to verify their accuracy. 
Once the accuracy of the transcriptions was verified, sample text was selected 
for training the researchers how to content code the material. A sample category 
was selected and each researcher worked independently coding randomly 
selected material from the children’s actual conversations. Additional categories 
were added and all coders worked independently on the selected material. First, 
text was highlighted in different colors each color corresponding to a different 
category label. Then coders exchanged the highlighted material to discuss any 
discrepancies. Next, phrases that could be subsumed into a larger category were 
extracted. These were also checked for accuracy. When a discrepancy arose it  
was discussed at that time. After ten trials, no discrepancies arose and the actual 
coding began.

The coding procedure was performed following guidelines that appear in the 
methodological literature (e.g., Bernard 2006; Côtê, Salmela, and Russell 1995) and 
utilized by the author in an earlier study (Holmes 2011). First, verbatim phrases 
were extracted from the children’s conversations. Next, phrases that contained a 
particular person, idea or thought were grouped together. These phrases were 
used to form higher order categories. For example, if children spoke about a 

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family member, pet, or an event these were incorporated into the cultural domains 
of family and life events. If children conversed about a food item such as when 
two children were conversing about their lunch, these events were subsumed 
into the higher order category, Food. Next, transcribed text was highlighted using 
different colors to designate larger cultural domains. Color coding larger domains 
helped the coders compare material and efficiently locate raw material and 
examples for larger cultural categories.

Sometimes a child’s conversation might contain criteria for more than one 
category. For example, John and Joe were involved in a conversation that 
contained multiple topics. They shared stories about their siblings and the 
food in their lunchboxes. Utterances that contained different people, ideas, or 
thoughts were coded for every response, placed into their respective higher order 
categories, and counted separately. This coding procedure has been employed in 
other studies that utilize semi-structured interviewing and open ended questioning 
(Dupuis, Bloom, and Loughead 2006; Holmes 2005; Holmes 2011). Category 
frequencies were tallied to yield percentages of behavior. Speech responses 
were used rather than conversational units given the pervasive occurrence of 
transduction reasoning (Piaget 1952).

Results

In this section the nature and content of the children’s conversations with 
both peers and teachers are presented. All raw material was coded, analyzed, 
and tallied for descriptive statistics and is presented by sex of child and the 
conversational partner. 

In Table 1, the content and frequency of the children’s conversations to peers 
and teachers are presented (see Table 1). This group of children, both boys and 
girls, spent the majority of their lunchtime speaking with peers. The nature of 
these linguistic acts focused upon food and making general declarative statements. 
These accounted respectively for 36.0% and 39.4% of all peer conversations. By 
contrast, children spent only 10.9% of their time engaged in conversation with 
their teachers.

Gender differences surfaced with respect to both the nature and the content of 
the children’s speech to peers and teachers. One major pattern that emerged was 
that girls were responsible for most of the conversation during lunchtime. Second, 
only a few major cultural domains or higher order categories were uncovered from 
the children’s conversations. Food was a major topic of conversation for these 
children. However, girls spent more than twice as much time (68.6%) on this topic 
than boys (31.1%). Similarly, girls made approximately twice as many declarative 
statements (60.1%) than boys (39.9%) and interjected daily events in their 
conversations. Girls accounted for 75% of these instances. In addition, girls (86%) 
spoke about their families much more at lunchtime than boys did. As a group girls 
approached and spoke with their teachers more (76.7%) to their teachers than 
boys did (23.3%).

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There were two categories in which boys and girls participated equally. One 
was related to speech content; the other was behavior that accompanied speech 
and eating. For example, boys (41.2%) and girls (58.8%) gave almost equal 
attention to games and things related to play in their conversations and in this 
sample both boys (47.6%) and girls (52.4%) played with their food. Worthy of 
mention is the category Family and the nature of the children’s conversations. 
Interestingly, pets were the topic of conversation more so than either siblings or 
parents. In the latter subcategory, only mothers were mentioned in conversation. 
Not one child included his or her father in conversations on the topic of family. 

Examples of Child Speech to Teacher
Both preschooler and kindergartener speech interactions with their teachers 
were similar. Most were phrased in the form of questions either for assistance or 
information. For example, one preschooler, Michele, asked her teacher, “Can you 
open this [a snack container].” Similarly, Jeff, a kindergartener, asked his teacher, 
“Is Tia coming today?” His classmate, Linda, asked her teacher for another helping, 
“Miss Lynn, Can I have more spaghetti please?” 

Declaratives also appeared in the children’s speech to their teachers but with 
less frequency than questions. For example, on separate occasions two different 
preschooler girls announced to their teacher, “Kristin has tic tacs!” and “I ate 
my sandwich.” Kindergarten children used more declarative speech to their 
teachers and asked them fewer questions than preschool children did. One major 
difference was the length of the utterance. Kindergarteners tended to use longer 
sentences than most preschoolers, often by several words.

Table 1: Frequencies for Topical Categories during Mealtime

Categories Sex of Children

Boys Girls Total

Peer Discourse

Talk about food 75 165 240

General declarative statements 105 158 263

Talk about daily events 6 18 24

Talk about play or games 7 10 17

Talk about family 7 43 50

Child to Teacher Discourse

Talk with the teacher 17 56 73

Peer Play

Play with food 10 11 21

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The Topic of Food
For both preschoolers and kindergarteners, food was a major topic of 
conversation. Children asked questions about food, declared their gustatory likes 
and dislikes, traded and shared food, and described their food. Some interactions 
were simple rhetorical questions. For example, Mira, a preschool girl, asked her 
tablemate, “I don’t like chicken. Do you want it?” Other speech interactions were 
simple declarative statements such as when Uma told Tess, “I have chocolate 
juice.” Her tablemate, Alana declared to her table, “This is not good, I have a 
bagel. My mom put jelly on my bagel. My sister has a spoon.” 

Sometimes the conversation involved several preschool children at the table 
who participated.

Michael:  This French fry is big.
Richard:  Look at my Dorito.
Jill:   This is not a burrito, that’s lemonade.
Richard:   It’s a Capri Sun and I said Dorito. It’s spicy nacho. It’s so 

spicy.
Trish:  It’s fruit punch.
Richard:  It’s Capri Sun.
Trish:  No, it’s lemonade.

Similarly:

Christina:  I don’t want these.
Hope:  So don’t eat them.
Christina:  Can I have fruit snacks?
Hope:  Those are sour.
Ellen:  What are (points to fruit Holly)?
Adam:   I have an ice pack to keep my food cold. Do you want 

this? (to his sister) I don’t want my yogurt.

Interestingly, kindergarten children frequently stayed on topic when discussing 
food and rarely included or moved to another topic of conversation. For example, 
the following conversation illustrates the children’s ability to contribute to a 
conversation while centering on the topic of food:

Kevin:   Drink your milk if you want to get strong.
Kim:    I don’t like the soup.
Kevin:   Do you like chicken noodle?
Kim to the teacher:  I like those (pears)
Julia to Amy:   Can I have your green beans? I like green beans.
Amy:     I don’t like cheese. I don’t like this. Is this white 

cheese or yellow cheese?

On some occasions, conversations included more than one topic, such as this one 
that began with food. The following conversation was between two preschool 

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boys, one of whom began his conversation about food using the home context to 
initiate the dialogue:

Brian:  I don’t have anything in my house to eat.
Tim:   You should have gotten McDonald’s.
Brian:  I wanted Burger King for the Spiderman toy.

Preschooler conversations were typical of this age group and often included more 
transductive thinking and rapid movement from one topic to the next in a given 
speech event. For example, the following conversation began with a query about 
beverages and concluded with the children’s pets.

Taylor:  What flavor is your juice?
Steven:  Strawberry.
Oliver:   But they have chocolate in them. I think my mom’s going 

to take me to the beach.
Taylor:  The other day was hot.
Steven:  Yeah, I was burning myself.
Taylor:  I got two Star War ships.
Steven:  Yeah my dog’s a girl. She’s my sister.
Oliver:   When I first got my dog I was dressing her up in girls’ 

clothes. One time my dog bit me on my side.

When the teacher was a participant in the conversation, her speech helped shaped 
the conversation. 

Todd to Rosie:  We have a fish.
Melissa to teacher and table mates: 
    I have a pet that’s a sandwich to me.
Teacher to Melissa:  What’s its name?
Melissa:   Wingnut! I have a hamster.
Teacher:   Who named it?
Melissa:    Me! My mom calls me that, I named the hamster 

that. That’s why. It’s a guinea pig from a guinea 
pig pond. You could rent a hippo there.

Teacher:   Have you ever done that?
Melissa:    No, mommy won’t let me. Hamsters are small 

and fat. I’m all done. This is my hamster.

Family
Family was a major topic of conversation that illustrated the importance of the 
children’s ever increasing social worlds. Family members, events, and pets often 
were shared with table mates. In many cases, conversations began with either 
a declarative fact about family or a question about one’s family. The following 
conversation is illustrative.

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Jenn:   Enrique!
Enrique:  What?
Jenn:   One of my cousins has a real phone.
Enrique:  She’s only 8.
Maryanne:   I have two brothers, one is seventeen and he has a 

girlfriend, a real phone, and an iPod.
Michaela:  I’m not allowed to have one.

Younger children’s declaratives regarding family often contained instances of 
transductive thinking as in the following example:

Teresa:   My aunt cut my hair. I have a cheese bar! I love chocolate 
chips! I love chocolate chips! They’re so yummy.

Some children made a public announcement at their table and depending on 
social status, the child’s utterance might receive a response. For example, when 
Jimmy stated, “My sister’s in the Girl scouts,” the table ignored the statement and 
continued the conversation on the topic already on hand. Jimmy had lower social 
status than the children controlling the conversation at the time.

Kindergarten children’s conversation regarding family paralleled the 
preschoolers’ with less of an emphasis on pets, though they also were mentioned.

Amy to Teacher:  Do you have a mom?
Jack:    My brother’s name is Alex.
Amy to Jack:  My sister and other sister. She’s 18. 
Jack to Amy:  How old is your brother?

Play with Food
Both preschool and kindergarten children played with their food. It served as a 
focal point of the conversation, to help the children pass time while they were 
eating, and it helped socially construct playful interactions. 

Much of the play was transformational, and in assimilative fashion children 
substituted food for real life objects that they resembled either in form or function. 
For example, Michaela manipulated a banana like it was a telephone and shaped 
the peels like a slide, saying “Now I made a slide” while using the table. Maria 
transformed her circular ice pack into a food item: “Look at my ring today” as she 
put her finger through the hole of her ice pack. Kindergarten children were also 
creative with their food play, turning peas into necklaces and mashed potatoes 
into volcanoes.

Media Influence
As is common with children of this generation, these children were heavily 
invested in cultural experiences the media provided for them. This included 
movies, DVDs, computer games, and television. These experiences became fodder 
for their conversations. For example, the following conversation was generated 
from the Princess Diaries movie at an all girls table:

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Michaela:  My favorite princess is Cinderella!
Amy:   I have all the Princess movies!
Michaela:   Which is your favorite? I like Cinderella. [Gather around 

lunch bag pointing to] “I like that one.”

Similarly, at her all girls table Stephania stated, “I watched Hannah Montana and at 
the end Jackson was in the tub and the kitties were in the tub. You have twinkle 
toes. Are you three? I’m five.” Conversational topics regarding media were often 
gender specific. For example, the following dialogue occurred at an all boys’ table. 
Girls never discussed these TV and comic characters.

David: I like Power Rangers.
Noel:   Is there a red one?
David:  Yes and a blue and red one like Spiderman.
Noel:   Are Spiderman power rangers?
Jamie:  There’s a pink one.

Kindergarten children also integrated the media in their conversation though their 
understanding and memory, for the material was more detailed than preschoolers’. 
For example, the following conversation took place during one lunch and 
continued for the next few days as a topic. It was based upon the movie “Alvin 
and the Chipmunks.” Jenn, a child with higher social status, controlled the 
conversation. 

Jenn:    Chicky chicky wow wow and dances. [Noel sings with her 
in a duet].

Jenn:    Now was that a boy or a girl who did this? [She is rotating 
her hips as she sings]. 

Amy adds:   Alvin and the chipmunks did it like this in the movie. 
Then they threw something at the daddy. 

Julia:    Then Alvin hid it behind his head like this and then he 
sang chicky wow wow. 

Gender
Both the preschool and the kindergarten children used more linguistic markers for 
gender in their conversations and speech. The following is a typical example of 
preschooler speech that highlights gender as a social category.

Michaela:  We want to play with the boys.
Amy:   Yeah, the boys.
Michaela:  We do want to play.

Kindergarten children illustrated their understanding of gender identity, awareness, 
and gender as a social construct in the following speech events. Jack was the most 
popular boy in class and regularly controlled both the topic and the tempo of 
lunchtime conversations.

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Jack:     You are a girl and I am a boy. I’m on your team 
and you’re on my team.

Jenn:     I’m going on, the boys team that mean to chase 
us.

Jack to table counting the table: 
   There’s five girls and three boys.
Bobby:   Raise your hand if you are a girl.
Amy:    Raise your hand if you’re a boy.
Jack to Jenn:  You need to get someone else on your side. 
Jenn and Wendy:  No, she’s on my side. I’m on the boy’s side.

Friends
Both the preschool and kindergarten children were aware of the importance 
of friends as playmates. For example, these two preschoolers illustrate their 
conceptions of friends and their ability to categorize friends by setting.

James:   The other day I slept over my nana’s house. Do you 
know Joseph?

Nicky:  No.
James:  He’s my friend. I play with him at home.

The kindergarten children often discussed play dates at their table. 

Talia to Jenn:   I’m having a play party and Tom is going to 
invite you? Can you come to my house?

Jack to Bobby:   I’m still your friend and are you coming to my 
party?

Some preschool children drew attention to degrees of friendship when it came 
time to food sharing. This event was reserved only for one’s best friend. For 
example, 

Carin to Jackie:  Want a punch (fruit punch)? 
Nicola:   He’s my best friend.
Jackie:   You don’t even know him.
Nicola:   Yes, I do. He’s in my gym class.

Daily Events
The children’s daily, everyday experiences were often the topic of conversation. In 
many instances, children both commented on and tried to process their everyday 
experiences. For example, Talia, a kindergartener, couldn’t wait to tell her 
tablemates about her impending visit to the dentist.

Talia:      I have to go to the dentist. He is going 
to take pictures. He puts a little thing in 
and then he takes it out. 

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Amy:      If your tooth is wiggling, they take a 
picture. 

Talia:    I need to take pictures. 
Steven to Talia:    Pictures don’t hurt I got a picture right 

here. My friend used to live across from 
me. She got a shot in her mouth. 

Talia to Amy and Jenn:   You have to go to the dentist even if 
you don’t have a cavity.

In families with siblings often children recounted for their table mates the arrival 
and/or birth of their new sibling. For example, Jenn to David: “My mom’s tummy 
came apart when she had the baby and they had to put it back together. Next they 
do that for all moms.”

Play with Language
Unexpectedly, kindergarten children enjoyed word play more than the preschool 
children did. Preschool children tended to sing nonsense syllables or meaningless 
words. Kindergarten children enjoyed using ordinary words in comical if not 
borderline taboo ways, hoping to get the attention of adults within earshot.

Amy:    Know what, my brother says “butt.” It’s a potty word. 
My other brother says the word too. I eats butt. Mine’s a 
chicken butt, butt, butt.

Taboo Humor
Only the kindergarten children seemed to include taboo topics such as bathroom 
humor, parodies on etiquette, and things that grossed each other and adults out. 
The children seemed to take pleasure in these topics and did not seem deterred 
even if their teacher was within listening distance of their conversation. Jack, one 
of the most popular boys in class, often introduced the topic and controlled the 
flow of the conversation.

Jack to his table:   Raise your hand if you eat poop. All raise their 
hands.

Jackie:    I do like the brains (he talking about the broccoli 
in the chicken soup)

David:    Brains taste like worms. I ate all of mine. They 
taste like book racks.

Jackie:    Did you hear me? Listen, I am making farting 
sounds.

Amy to Jenn:   Everybody poops. Everybody eats. Everybody 
drinks. Everybody pees.

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54

Discussion

The preschool and kindergarten children in this project found table talk to be a 
social and enjoyable activity. Mealtime conversation was widespread and began as 
soon as the children unwrapped their food and prepared for mealtime. Although 
much of the literature has focused upon adult involvement and participation in 
children’s language development, these children primarily conversed with and 
preferred peer partners during mealtime, even when their teachers were present in 
the setting. 

For example, Massey’s (2004) and Dickinson et al.’s (2008) work reported 
that children were more talkative when an adult was present and seated with 
the children. Teachers in this project were always in the classroom and near the 
children, though they never sat with the children while they ate. Interestingly, the 
children actively engaged their peers in conversation throughout the lunch period 
and interacted with adults only when they needed assistance of some kind. This 
was true for both age groups. Girls were primarily responsible for child-initiated 
speech to their teacher and asked their teachers for assistance more than boys. 
Boys asked their teachers questions more so than girls. 

This contrasts with Leman et al.’s (2005) findings where boys dominated their 
teacher’s attention. This may be due in part to differences in age and contexts. 
Leman et al.’s work was with older children in collaborative learning groups. 
The present study involved younger children during mealtime. As a group, girls 
were more heavily invested in lunchtime conversation than boys and this may be 
partially explained by differential socialization processes in which girls are more 
likely to concentrate on the social aspects of their world (Maccoby 1998, 2007).

With respect to conversational topics, food was discussed more than any 
other topic followed by general declarative statements and family. As Mechling 
(2000) noted, the most discussed topic – food – was framed in part by the setting. 
Children also conversed about topics relevant to them such as their family and 
friends while including topics that are framed by the setting itself such as food. 
Interestingly, girls were responsible for more than half of conversations revolving 
around food and this may also be due in part to socialization differences where 
girls are more attuned to body image and what they eat than boys are (Maccoby 
1998; 2007). 

These findings contrast with those O’Neill et al. (2009) reported. Several 
possible factors may explain the differences between their study and the present 
work. First, in O’Neill et al’s work, conversations were mainly dyadic, adults 
were not present in their setting, the setting was a laboratory preschool, and 
children from Eastern European heritages were included in their sample. They 
also recorded conversations during snack time rather than lunchtime, seating was 
prescribed, and food was served buffet style. It is possible that the findings in the 
current study differ from O’Neill et al due in part to the differences in the setting, 
freely selected seating, differing meal time events, and the fact that children 
brought their lunches from home.

Family and daily events surfaced in the children’s conversations in part because 
they were culturally relevant to them and part of their social world (Göncü, 1999). 

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Interestingly, children included their pets in family topics and when individuals 
were involved, mothers were the focal family member. None of the children 
mentioned their fathers in any family conversations. As expected, girls discussed 
these topics more than boys did. Interestingly, boys talked to each other more 
than girls and conversed more about family, play dates, and personal events 
than girls did. Jokes and teasing were rarely observed. This is supported by 
other empirical findings (Holmes 1992; Reifel 1986). As Mechling (2000) noted, 
mealtime frames the content of children’s speech and their play behavior. Children 
frequently played with their food and appeared to enjoy doing so (Reifel 1986).

Gender differences also surfaced during play at lunchtime. Both boys and girls 
enjoyed playing with their food, and this supports Holmes’ (1992) work where 
girls engaged in play with food along with the boys. As Mechling (2000) noted, 
children’s play with food often takes place in the presence of peers and facilitates 
the use of food as a prop in pretend play. Holmes (1992; 2011) also found that 
play during mealtime also centered upon the food. Numerous examples in the 
literature support Mechling’s (2000) and Bronner’s (1995) utilization of food in this 
unique way in children’s cultures (Holmes 1992; 2011). 

Although there is an existing literature on the influence of gender on children’s 
conversations (Leman 2002; Leman, Ahmed, and Ozarow 2005; Leman and Lam 
2008), surprisingly few, if any studies have explored how gender influences the 
extent and content of children’s conversations. For example, Leman et al. (2005) 
found that in mixed collaborative groups, boys capture their teacher’s attention 
more than girls do. In line with Maccoby (1998; 2007), differential gender 
socialization should influence children’s conversations in content, interaction style, 
and quantity. If one accepts the two cultures approach, girls in the United States 
generally are socialized to be more cooperative and attuned to social relationships 
than most boys are. In contrast, boys are socialized to be more competitive and 
dominant than most girls are (Leman et al. 2005). 

Also of interest, findings from this study support those of Holmes (1992) in so 
far as boys were primarily responsible for the taboo humor and jokes and rhymes. 
It is possible that engaging in such acts helped boys established their social status 
in the classroom, whereas girls used conversation as the mechanism with which 
to solidify this social status. Boys may have played with food more than girls did; 
however, girls clearly talked about their food more than boys did.

One interesting difference between the preschoolers and kindergarten 
children was the occurrence of conversations that included taboo humor and 
bathroom etiquette. Although Guerra (1989) found preschoolers engaged in 
verbal swaggering – attempts to leave conversations in children’s control – these 
preschooler children neither uttered declarative statements nor discussed any off 
color material during their lunch time. By contrast, kindergarten children seemed 
to take pleasure in trying to gross each other out or moving into fuzzy boundaries 
with taboo body humor such as farting.

There were some limitations and challenges to this study. First, the sample was 
homogeneous with respect to ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Second, in the 
preschool lunchtime attendance varied widely. Third, children freely chose their 
own seats, which often produced single-sex tables. Finally, there was no attempt 

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56

to control for the children’s familiarity with one another. Thus, some conversations 
may have been influenced by the children’s prior relationships.

Future research might pursue content and text analyses of young children’s 
peer conversations. Such studies will help expand our knowledge about the 
cultural transmission of knowledge between children, the role of language in that 
process, and the role of children’s peer conversations in helping them interpret 
and rebel against the adult world. Other studies might focus upon young children’s 
talk as power with peers, given the importance of forming and maintaining 
friendships in children’s lives. Finally, the inclusion of different settings and diverse 
cultures and the nature of same-age and cross-age conversations would also be 
interesting avenues to pursue. 

NOTES

1. The author gratefully acknowledges the cooperation of the director, 
caregivers, teachers, and, of course, the children. She also extends her thanks to 
her student assistants: Ashley Battista, Kara Connelly, Csilla Greiner, and Darian 
Merlonghi. 

2. This project was funded in part by a Grant-in-Aid-for-Creativity from 
Monmouth University.

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