Investigated the role of educational personnel in children's dramatic play in Icelandic preschools, how they intervened, and their views on dramatic play and their own role and function. Findings indicated that adult participation in children's dramatic play was not common and most frequently occurred outside the theme of play, although personnel…

Examined knowledge of mothers with children from 6 to 58 months regarding which item in play and language pairs was more advanced developmentally. Found that mothers' orderings matched those established in developmental literature and were stable over two weeks. Language knowledge was stronger than, and unrelated to, play knowledge. Accuracy was…

Uses alienation as the conceptual framework for analyzing dynamics of preschool children's failed play interactions. Maintains that this perspective centralizes the sociocultural context out of which failed play interactions arise rather than identifying alienation as a problematic behavior. Discusses play episodes in a nursery school setting to…

Discusses youth theater in India, especially the programs for children in slum colonies and schools, as well as those for elitist children. Describes a "caravan" of 100-200 artists, educators, children, and book vendors who encourage young people to ask questions and read books. Includes an account of teacher workshops and an informal…

Suggests that adults have a responsibility and opportunity to support preschoolers' play by: (1) manifesting positive attitudes toward play; (2) establishing exciting play environments; and (3) offering ideas and play objects. Explores how best to accomplish these supports. (HTH)

Nine teachers of 4-year olds described their theories of play and the influence of the British National Curriculum on practice. Although the curriculum requires shaping content into subject areas and focusing on assessment, teachers maintained their commitment to play and tried to integrate the curriculum's desired outcomes with unintended…

Discusses what multicultural empowerment means and why it should play a major role in educating middle-school students; how elements of multicultural empowerment can be incorporated into middle-school social studies; and how drama pedagogy can be used to integrate middle-school multicultural education and social studies, outlining a progression of…

Investigated the relationships between inferences and judgments of a target girl by preadolescents and early adolescents, their self-endorsement of female traits and gender of playmates, and gender-typedness of the game. Results with 251 Israeli students show gender differences, which are discussed within the framework of gender-schema theories.…

Argues that interactive play increases literacy learning in grades K-12 by fostering a community atmosphere, encouraging teamwork, and reducing the influence of social hierarchies. Outlines three games designed to teach an aspect of English language arts, and describes a vocabulary review game the author has used for years in a variety of classes.…

Examines the author's daughter's experiences of being socialized into the language of Iceland through the eight-year-old's immersion in Icelandic culture. Shows how play-based activities with native-speaking peers was critical to her language and literacy development. Argues that authentic activity in social life is the key to learning literacy…

Content analysis of children's Halloween costumes explored how children's fantasy dress reproduces and reiterates conventional gender messages. Both male and female costumes contained high proportions of heroes. Feminine costumes were clustered in a narrow range depicting traditional femininity, with higher proportions of animals and foodstuffs.…

Describes drama teacher Carl Martin's "Home Shakespeare Festival," a series of games that enable non-actors to tackle Shakespeare with little preparation and no training, using Martin's instructions, pared-down scripts, basic toy props, and tip sheets. Describes how Martin's games came to be and discusses their use in a variety of…

Examined processes by which 4- and 5-year-olds initiate, organize, and maintain language play interactions. Found that as children voice incongruities of greater proportion, the emotional climate of play is heightened and ingenious verbal representations are provoked. Identified developmental features of hyperbolic language play. Contextualized…

Puppet script training was used to teach the social skills of greeting, responding to conversations, and initiating conversations to a preschool child with visual impairments. A single-case study using a multiple-baseline design demonstrated that the intervention increased performance of social skills during recess with peers. (Author/MKA)

Discusses arts based research/alternative forms of representation. Discusses creating drama as a form of research and describes the author's own work in "collective creation/play building" with a research based Theatre-In-Education program to demonstrate that some of the practices employed in educational drama can be considered a…