Play and learning in early childhood education: tensions and challenges
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/childstudies.4124Keywords:
Play, socio-cultural theory, policy, curriculum, pedagogyAbstract
International research promotes the value of play for children’s learning and development. However, in early childhood education the development of national policy frameworks highlights a tension, and possible contradiction, between play for its own sake, and educational play. This paper explores these two positions, drawing on contemporary socio-cultural theories. Freely chosen play reflects children’s choices, interests and inquiries, and is understood as complex socio-cultural activity. Educational play focuses on curriculum goals and outcomes, and requires early childhood educators to plan for play in ways that direct children’s learning towards those goals. Recent research on children’s interests and inquiries offers solutions for pedagogical approaches that connect the curriculum as lived experiences, and curriculum as planned experiences, both of which reflect children’s cultural repertoires and peer cultures.
References
Arnott, L., & Duncan, P. (2019). Exploring the pedagogic culture of creative play in early childhood education. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 17(4), 309-328. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X19867370 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X19867370
Barblett, L., M. Knaus, & C. Barratt-Pugh. (2016). The pushes and pulls of pedagogy in the early years: competing knowledge and the erosion of play-based learning. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. 41(4), 36–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/183693911604100405 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/183693911604100405
Brooker, L., Blaise, M., & Edwards, S. (Eds.) (2014). The SAGE handbook of play and learning in early childhood. Sage. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473907850
Cheng Pui-Wah, D., Reunamo, J., Cooper, P., Liu, K., & Vong, K. P. (2015). Children's agentive orientations in play-based and academically focused preschools in Hong Kong, Early Child Development and Care, 185(11-12), 1828-1844, https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2015.1028400 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2015.1028400
Chesworth, L. (2016). A funds of knowledge approach to examining play interests: listening to children’s and parents’ perspectives. International Journal of Early Years Education, 24(3), 294-308. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2016.1188370 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2016.1188370
Chesworth, L. (2019). Theorising young children’s interests: Making connections and in-the-moment happenings. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction. 23, 100263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2018.11.010 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2018.11.010
Cowan, K., Potter, J., Olusoga, Y., Bannister, C., Bishop, J., Cannon, M., & Signorelli, V. (2021). Children’s digital play during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from the play observatory. Je-LKS : Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society, 17(3), 8-17. http://doi.org/10.20368/1971-8829/1135590
Dýfjörđ, K., & Hreiđarsdóttir, A. E. (2022). Dora’s doll got sick: preschool children’s wellbeing and play during the COVID-19 crisis. In L. Henderson, K. Bussey and H. B. Ebrahim (Eds). Early childhood education and care in a global pandemic (pp. 17-29). Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003257684-2
Gunn, A., & Nuttall, J. (2019) (Eds) Weaving Te Whariki: Aoteroa New Zealan’s early childhood curriculum document in theory and practice. (3rd edition). New Zealand Council for Educational Research Press.
Hedges, H. (2021). The place of interests, agency and imagination in funds of identity theory. Mind, Culture and Activity. 28(2), 111-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2020.1833931 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2020.1833931
Hedges, H. (2022). Children’s interests, inquiries and identities: Curriculum, pedagogy, learning and outcomes in the early years. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003139881
Hedges, H., Stagg Peterson, S,. & Wajskop, G. (2018). Modes of play in early childhood curricular documents in Brazil, New Zealand and Ontario. International Journal of Play. 7(1), 11-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2018.1437379 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2018.1437379
Hill, M & Wood, E. (2019) ‘Dead Forever’: an ethnographic study of young children’s interests, funds of knowledge and working theories in free play. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 23, 100292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2019.02.017 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2019.02.017
Marsh, J. A. (2017). The internet of toys: A posthuman and multimodal analysis of connected play. Teachers College Record, 119(12), 1-32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811711901206
Pyle A, Danniels E. (2017). A continuum of play-based learning: the role of the teacher in play-based pedagogy and the fear of hijacking play. Early Education and Development, 28(3), 274-289. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2016.1220771 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2016.1220771
Rogoff, B., Moore, L. C., Correa-Chávez, M., & Dexter, A. L. (2015). Children develop cultural repertoires through engaging in everyday routines and practices. In J. E. Grusec, & P. D. Hastings (Eds.). Handbook of socialization: Theory and research. (pp. 472-498). The Guilford Press.
Stagg Peterson, S., & Friedrich, N. (2022). (Eds). The role of place and play in young children’s language and literacy. University of Toronto Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487529239
Stagg Peterson, S., Young Jang, S., & Tjandra, C. (2020). Young children as playwrights and their participation in classroom peer culture of sociodramatic play. Journal of Early Childhood Research. 18(3), 227-242. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X19888721 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X19888721
Tatham-Fashanu, C. (2021). A third space pedagogy: embracing complexity in a super-diverse, early childhood education setting. Pedagogy, Culture and Society. Published online. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2021.1952295 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2021.1952295
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society. The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press. Edited by M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman.
Wood, E. (2014). Free choice and free play in early childhood education: troubling the discourse. International Journal of Early Years Education, 22(1), 4-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2013.830562 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2013.830562
Wood, E. (2020). Learning, development and the early childhood curriculum: A critical discourse analysis of the Early Years Foundation Stage in England. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 18(3), 321 – 336. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X20927726 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X20927726
Worthington, M. and van Oers, B. (2016) Pretend play and the cultural foundations of mathematics. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 24(1), 51-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2015.1120520 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2015.1120520
Yang, W. & Li, H. (2019). Changing culture, changing curriculum: a case study of early childhood curriculum innovations in two Chinese kindergartens. The Curriculum Journal. 30(3). 279-297. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2019.1568269 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2019.1568269
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Elizabeth Ann Wood
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
