The authors discuss loose parts -- pipe cleaners, acorns, fabric, stones, and so forth -- as versatile materials not originally intended for children's play that they can manipulate, modify, and use in their play activities. The authors review the historical foundations of loose parts play, focusing on influential individuals and theories, and…

Childhood states are commonly invoked by adult humans in derisory ways and as put-downs. While infantile and clownish ways of behaving are often met with insult, we argue that these ways of being could instead be seen in terms of their productive potential. Drawing on posthuman and feminist theories and invoking clownish qualities of Haraway's Bag…

Since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted in-person learning, fears about children's learning loss remain a primary concern for parents, teachers, and policymakers. These concerns, combined with longstanding issues of inequity regarding children's access to learning opportunities have sparked widespread discussion about how to reimagine education.…

Childhood play is one of the hallmarks of early childhood education, yet most early childhood educators have stereotypical views of Black boyhood play. At the same time, few scholars have addressed teachers' and school administrators' stereotypes and biases of Black boys' play styles and behaviors. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to…

The author examines the childhood experiences of formerly enslaved children. He suggests that the conventional understandings of scholars and historians concerning play may not be applicable to the complex lives of enslaved children because researchers do not consider such children as always propertied beings. Their play practices were molded by…

The "Children's Engagement Behaviour Framework" was developed to describe young children's engagement with science exhibits and how their behaviour is related to learning about the exhibits. The "Framework" was synthesised from frameworks in research literature related to family learning and the nature of play. It describes…

This study's original data were collected in interviews with 23 pioneer leaders of early childhood education in Aotearoa, New Zealand. They were asked to remember play, free play and learning through play. Their collective experiences cover over 60 years of 'the everyday' recalled in the local array of diverse early childhood services as well as…

In this article, the authors discuss the light and dark side of attachments and attachment style in physical and digital worlds. They argue that many games offer opportunities for the generation of new and meaningful attachments to both physical and digital others. They discuss two "fundamental attachment errors" and show how these can…

In the early childhood education literature, a growing number of studies have referenced "digital play." Many of these studies seek to describe how young children play with digital devices, notably, how they engage with different kinds of apps. This work collectively illustrates a range of play behaviours where a number of important…

Since Margaret Mead's field studies in the South Pacific a century ago, there has been the tacit understanding that as culture varies, so too must the socialization of children to become competent culture users and bearers. More recently, the work of anthropologists has been mined to find broader patterns that may be common to childhood across a…

Interpretations of Vygotsky's texts have generally focused on the intellectual aspects of children's development, including his theory of play. This article presents a reinterpretation of Vygotsky's theory of play and draws on this theory of art to include emotions as an important part of children's play. I will argue that in play, children's…

The authors argue that childhood played a special role in the cultural-historical theory of human culture and biosocial development made famous by Soviet psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky and his circle. Th?ey discuss how this school of thought has, in turn, influenced contemporary play studies. Vygotsky used early childhood to test and refi?ne his…

This article introduces the notion of "contemporary" play in relation to existing ideas about children's play, learning and development from a sociocultural perspective. The need to think about the nature of contemporary play is considered in response to arguments suggesting that the quality of children's play has declined in…

This article addresses teachers' perception of behavioral adjustment in preprimary school children and how they relate to teachers' cultural beliefs and to the behavioral management strategies used by the teachers. The sample consisted of 120 preprimary teachers from 60 schools in 3 regions of the mainland of Tanzania. Teachers' perception of…

This theoretical paper discusses the role of pretend play and games with rules in fostering children's self-regulation. It proposes several pathways through which play facilitates self-regulation processes. First, in play, children learn to inhibit their impulsive behaviour and follow rules which transform their behaviour from impulsive and…