scholarly journals Children’s Play and Social Relations in Nature and Kindergarten Playgrounds: Examples from Norway

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-93
Author(s):  
Hanne Værum Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Kindergarten Teachers ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Cultural Formation ◽  
Video Observations ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Outdoor Playtime

AbstractIn kindergarten, outdoor playtime is usually a break from more structured activities. It is leisure time and an opportunity for children to engage in free play with friends. Previous research indicates that time spent outdoors facilitates playful physical activity and that playing in nature inspires children’s creativity, imaginations and play across age and gender. In short, play and social relations are crucial for young children’s development and cultural formation. This study investigated children’s play activities during outdoor playtime in nature and on kindergarten playgrounds. Its empirical materials consisted of video observations of 12 four-year-old’s activities in nature and on a kindergarten playground and interviews with two kindergarten teachers. One child, Benjamin was the primary focus, and five more were also included. Two examples of one child’s social play in nature and on the playground were analysed to illuminate the different conditions and challenges he encountered. The findings indicate that children’s play in nature tends to be more creative and inclusive than that on kindergarten playgrounds, that kindergarten teachers participate more in children’s play in nature than on playgrounds and that children are sensitive to and try to engage in what they view as a correct form of discourse with their teachers. The author argues for further research on the subject to learn more about children’s social relations, creativity and cultural formation during outdoor playtime in nature.

scholarly journals A swing and a child: how scientific phenomena can come to matter for preschool children’s emergent science identities

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 885-910
Author(s):  
Anna Günther-Hanssen
Keyword(s):  
Field Study ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Perspective Drawing ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Scientific Phenomena ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
Emergent Science

AbstractThe focus of this study is the co-actings of a 5-year-old girl, a swing, and physical phenomena. The study explores how the swing and physical phenomena worked as co-creators of the girl’s scientific explorations as well as her bodily capacities and identity construction. Empirically, the study makes use of a video sequence generated during a field study in a Swedish preschool with 5-year-old children. The field study focused on the children’s play and explorations together with the preschool environment, during activities not specifically guided by teachers. To conceptualize children’s emergent scientific learning as mutual with their identity construction and as being co-created together with nonhuman agents, the study combines perspectives from new materialism, emergent science, physics, and gender theory. As a theoretical and methodological foundation, a new materialist perspective drawing on Karen Barad’s (Meeting the universe halfway. Quantum physics of the entanglement of matter and meaning, Duke University Press, London, 2007) theory of agential realism and diffractive methodology were used, as well as Elizabeth de Freitas and Anna Palmer’s (Cult Stud Sci Educ 11(4):1201–1222, 2016. 10.1007/s11422-014-9652-6) notion concerning how scientific concepts can work as creative playmates in children’s explorations. The findings show how the girl, together with the swing, could experience and explore various physical phenomena as well as, extend her bodily capacities and become brave and strong. As such, new materialism shows how scientific phenomena can create affordances for an individual’s becomings as scientific as well as how “becoming scientific” can be understood. At the same time, the findings also indicate the importance of teachers not assuming that scientific phenomena are automatically part of children’s play or can be experienced by all children all the time. The explored situation was rare. On most occasions, the girl did not get the same kind of experiences with the swing because of gender norms. I argue that norms and discourses connected to science and gender are not things that “come with” older children or are only introduced by adults. These are instead already in the making and re-making within children’s co-actings with the material-discursive environment in preschool. It is therefore important that teachers engage in children’s embodied play with scientific phenomena, with the aim to empower the children, their bodies, capacities and (science) identities.

‘Serious Games’: Licences and Prohibitions in Maasai Sexual Life

Africa ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aud Talle
Keyword(s):  
Serious Games ◽  
Sexual Life ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Sexual Relations ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Analytical Device

AbstractThis article discusses sexual licences and prohibitions among the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania with particular reference to the institutionalized yet controversial sexual relations between young pre-menarche girls and adolescent unmarried men. These relations are referred to as children's ‘play’ in the local vernacular, and as such fall within a larger moral order of age and gender hierarchies that privilege male seniority. The article uses the metaphor of ‘serious games’ adopted from Sherry Ortner as an analytical device in order to capture the dynamic and ambiguous character of Maasai sexual licences and prohibitions. Being at once serious and playful, ‘games’ lend themselves particularly to players' creativity, initiative and agency. The article aims to demonstrate how the structures of the games open up and create space for women and other ‘juniors’ to act intentionally and with purpose in their sexual lives.

scholarly journals Role Substitution in Preschoolers’ Play with Toy Characters

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-50
Author(s):  
I.A. Ryabkova ◽  
E.G. Sheina
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Specific Function ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
Family Home

This paper is a part of the research devoted to observing free play with different role-playing materials in preschool children.Here we describe the results of our observations of preschoolers’ play with toy characters (dolls, figures, soft toys, etc.).It was found that there are significant gender differences in this type of play: boys either do not play at all or play in the director’s position; at the same time, if they take on a role, they tend to ignore toy characters.As it is shown, the number of role-playing names is quite high in the children’s play with toy characters.This may reflect the specific function of this type of material in play.Among the prevailing play topics are family, home, pets, everyday life and motives of care and attention in general.Age analysis showed that the number of children with roles increases at 6 years, while at 5 years — when play is at its peak – role substitution in playing with toy characters is rather ignored by children.

Teachers' Roles in Supporting Children's Literacy Development through Play

2002 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 675-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia N. Saracho
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Development ◽  
Kindergarten Teachers ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Instructional Guidance ◽  
Children’S Play ◽  
Children's Literacy ◽  
Smooth Transitions

This study focused on the roles five kindergarten teachers assumed to promote literacy. Data were collected through systematic videotaped observations during the children's play periods. Saracho's analysis of the transcriptions in identifying the roles of the teachers suggested teachers' roles in the children's literacy-play include director of instructions (instructing students to follow directions and learn concepts), transition director (directing students to make smooth transitions), supporter of learning (acknowledging and praising students' work to promote learning), storyteller (reading or telling a story and encouraging children to respond), and instructional guide (providing instructional guidance for learning).

scholarly journals Do Children Need Adult Support During Sociodramatic Play to Develop Executive Functions? Experimental Evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolai Veresov ◽  
Aleksander Veraksa ◽  
Margarita Gavrilova ◽  
Vera Sukhikh
Keyword(s):  
Executive Functions ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Sociodramatic Play ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Children’S Play

The cultural-historical approach provides the deep theoretical grounds for the analysis of children’s play. Vygotsky suggested three critical features of play: switching to an imaginary situation, taking on a play role, and acting according to a set of rules defined by the role. Collaboration, finding ideas and materials for creating an imaginary situation, defining play roles, and planning the plot are complex tasks for children. However, the question is, do children need educator’s support during the play to develop their executive functions, and to what extent? This experimental study was aimed at answering this inquiry. The four modes of sociodramatic play were created which differed in the adult intervention, from non-involvement in the play to its entire organization. The play could be child-led (with adult help), adult-led, or free (without any adult intervention); and there was also a control group where the children heard the same stimulus stories as the other groups but then followed them up with a drawing activity instead of a play activity. The study revealed that, firstly, the ways of educator’s involvement in the play differed in their potential in respect to the development of executive functions, and, secondly, this influence was not equal for different components of executive functions. Free play in the experiment was not a beneficial condition for the development of any of the studied components of executive functions, compared to the conditions involving the participation of an adult in the play. Furthermore, the type of adult intervention stimulated the development of various executive functions. The entire organization of the play by the adult had a positive impact of their general development. In contrast, the adult’s assistance in the organization of the children’s play had a positive effect on the development of inhibitory control. The study results can be helpful when considering educational practices within a cultural-historical approach to engaging the potential of play in children’s learning and development around the world.

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