Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a four part pancocojams series on a paper survey of children's rhymes, singing games, and cheer that I prepared and distributed to a small targeted population in 1999 (with a few additional surveys added in 2000 and 2001).
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2025/07/categories-and-internet-links-for.html for Part II of this pancocojams series on this survey. That post presents the titles of the rhymes, singing games, and cheers that were listed in that survey, placed in their respective sub-categories. That post also presents links to pancocojams posts or other online sources for the words to these titles.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2025/07/race-gender-age-and-citystate.html for Part III of this pancocojams series on this survey. That post presents demographic results regarding that survey's respondents.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2025/07/comments-from-some-participants-in-my.html for Part IV of this pancocojams series on this survey. That post presents comments about children's rhymes, singing games, and cheers from some of that survey's respondents. In addition, that post includes a few examples of rhymes, singing games, and cheers that some of the respondents shared on their survey form .
The content of this post is presented for folkloric, socio-cultural, and recreational purposes.
Thanks to all those who participated in this survey. Thanks to Tazi Hughes for helping me distribute these surveys in 1999 and tabulate their results between July 23-28, 2025. Thanks also to Marimba Johnson for distributing this survey to a small number of people in the Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area in 2001.
****
DESCRIPTION OF THIS SURVEY
This survey focuses on helping to document Americans' familiarity with certain titles of English language children's hand clap rhymes and also included some titles of English language children singing games, foot stomping cheers (that I referred to as "sidewalk cheers), singing games, and chants. In addition, two traditional Black American folk songs are also included among the titles of compositions in this survey.
In late 1999 I conceptualized and wrote this two page paper survey independent of any university or survey organization. This survey initially had three target populations:
- girls and boys, staff, volunteers and parents who were associated with my once a week Alafia Children's Ensemble after-school cultural group in Braddock, Pa,
-girls who were attendees at my once a week Alafia Children's Ensemble after school cultural group in Pittsburgh, Pa.
-girls and boys, staff, and volunteers who were participants at Alafia Children's Ensemble one time/periodic special programming for children & youth summer programming sessions in predominately Black neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and in some of its nearby cities
In November and December 1999, with the approval of the administration of the non-profit health & social services agency where I worked, I expanded the target population to employees of that agency.
In late 2000, I enlisted the support of a family friend from the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia region (the DMV) who distributed the survey to people in her area. That resulted in a few survey respondent from the DMV in 2000 and 2001.
Copies of this two page paper survey were handed directly to participants for them to complete on their own or, in the case of the health and social services agency, placed in their work mail boxed or handed to them at a multi-Western Pennsylvania counties conference.
****
DESCRIPTION OF THIS SURVEY
This two page paper survey is named "Survey Of Children's Chants And Rhymes".
All of the participants in this survey were asked to provide demographic information (race, gender, age, and the name of their city/state. A few participants wrote the name of the city/state where they grew up (which was the correct interpretation of that faulty worded demographic request.) Some participants only partly filled out this demographic section and a few participants didn't fill it out at all. Read these results in Part III of this pancocojams series.
All of the participants were asked place a written check mark in front of each of the forty one (forty one) titles of rhymes, singing games, and cheers that they knew or had heard of. Some participants circled their responses instead of placing a check mark in front of their responses. Read these results in Part_- of this pancocojams series.
All participants were asked "What changes, if any, do you find in the subjects of current rhymes and cheers or the way they are performed?" A number of the survey participants left this question blank.
Read selected comments from these surveys in Part IV- of this pancocojams series.
Two optional sections of this survey were to
-add the words to any rhyme, singing game, o cheer that they knew [Read selected examples from those surveys in Part __ of this pancocojams series.
-add their name, address, and contact information.
Participants in a small, initial sub-set of this survey were asked to respond to the following questions
-had they ever played hand clap games, and if, yes, when did they begin and when did they stop playing hand clap games
-also, if yes to that question, what were their favorite two hand clap rhymes
-had they ever performed cheers, and if yes, when did they begin and when did they stop performing cheers
-also, if yes, what were their favorite cheers
Read several comments from these surveys in Part IV of this pancocojams series.
****
WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO SHARE RESULTS OF THIS SURVEY
On July 23, 2025 I happened upon a package containing these surveys in a desk drawer while I was looking for something else. This is the first time that I looked at these surveys since at least 2001. At some point I added a survey number to the top of each form. Some of the surveys were missing as the last form that I had numbered was 117 and I only have 112 survey.
From July 23, 2025 to July 28, 2025 I tabulated these surveys by hand with help from my daughter Tazi Hughes. I have no excuse for neglecting to tabulate these forms for more than twenty years except that life got in the way and I forgot about that survey project. During that time I moved on to other cultural projects including launching my multi-page cocojams.com website and later other blogs including this pancocojams blog.
I sincerely apologize for the length of time that it has taken me to tabulate and share this survey's results. I especially apologize to all those participants of this survey, and especially to those participants who added their contact information in an optional section of that survey and may have expected to receive some communication from me about the results of that survey. (I didn't attempt to communicate with any participant of that survey.)
****
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THIS SURVEY
The results of this survey confirmed that race, gender, and age appears to influence people's familiarity with particular examples of children's recreational rhymes, singing games, and cheers.
*in the context of that survey, "cheers" refer to a sub-category of children's cheerleader cheers that are called "sidewalk cheers". I later changed that term to "foot stomping cheers". In early 2000s internet social media discussions and in other online and off-line sources I have come across these compositions/performances being referred to as "steps", "cheers", "ciphers" and other terms.
As shown in the Results post of this pancocojams series (Part III), Black American females under 12 years old and 12-17 years old were the population groups that consistently checked the largest numbers of titles (indicating their familiarity with those rhymes, singing games, and cheers. Furthermore, most of the people in those groups consistently checked nearly the same titles. .
Given that that part of the Black female under 12 year old, and the Black female 12-17 year old population are (were) the ones most closely associated with the performance of foot stomping cheers (that I referred to as "sidewalk cheers" in this survey), those results weren't surprising to me. However, I was surprised at how many persons in those two groups were familiar with some of the older, traditional examples (such as "Down In The valley Two By Two" and "Who Stole The Coockie From The Cookie Jar" that were included in this survey. .
Furthermore, it should be noted that a few individuals from other race, gender, age cohorts (such as Caucasian females 26-35 years, and a Black male 12-17 years checked more titles in this survey than were checked by some Black females over 35 years.
****
I'm glad that I finally buckled down and put in the work of compiling these surveys and sharing the results on this pancocojams post.
Again, thank you to all those who completed this decades old survey.
****
This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
Much of my motivation for preparing this survey in 1999 was that I was impressed with the new to me recreational examples* that I was being introduced to by members of my Braddock, Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Alafia Children's Ensemble groups.
ReplyDeleteI was interested in finding out whether other people in that race, gender (almost all female) and age groups knew those compositions and what other recreational titles they also knew.
*I'm particularly referring to what I then called "sidewalk cheers". A little later on after that survey I referred to those compositions as "foot stomping cheers" and continue to use that term now.
When I prepared that survey in 1999 I hope that I was aware that the respondents' familiarity with that somewhat randomly compiled list of rhymes, singing games, and cheers was heavily weighted toward Black Americans (since almost all of those examples were originally created and/or adapted by Black Americans.)
ReplyDeleteIn 2025 it occurs to me that an interesting survey would be to find out how familiar similar American target populations (race, gender, age, city/states and other populations) would be regarding children's recreational rhymes, singing games, and cheers that originated among White Americans or were adapted mostly by White Americans from White European rhymes singing games, and cheers. (Examples such as "Great Big Globs Of Mutilated Monkey Meat", "Open Up The Barndoor Kick Up The Hay", "Eeny Meeny Miney Mo", "Hokey Pokey", and "Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory Of The Burning Of The School".)
I have no intention of doing such a survey. Please let me know if any such surveys have already been done, and what their results are. And, for all those who have the time and energy to do such a survey, please do so and share the results online!
As somewhat of an aside, I found these 1999 survey forms during a Mercury Retrograde period [July 17-2025 to August 11, 2025].
ReplyDeleteHere's some information about Mercury Retrograde" from https://www.almanac.com/content/mercury-retrograde-dates:
"What Is “Mercury Retrograde”?
Three to four times a year, the planet Mercury appears to travel backward across the sky. We refer to these periods as times when Mercury is in apparent retrograde motion or simply ”Mercury retrograde.” To those who practice astrology, these times were traditionally associated with confusion, delay, and frustration. Think undelivered love letters, email blunders, and frazzled travel plans! This is an excellent time to reflect on the past, however, and it’s said that intuition is high during these periods. Coincidences can be extraordinary."
-end of quote-
Astrologically speaking, during this particular Mercury retrograde period, the planet of communication Mercury was in the fire sign Leo.
I'm a heavily fire sign person (My Sun, Mercury, and Jupiter are in Sagittarius and my Saturn and Pluto are in Leo). For those who might be curious about some of my other signs, my ascendant (rising sign) and my Mars are in Virgo which explains my interest in finding out and sharing details and below the surface information about different subjects. Also, my moon is in the air sign Aquarius which also is a communication sign.
All of this to say, my finding those long forgotten surveys during this Mercury retrograde time strikes me as being a heaven sent occurrence.