Collaborative Play in Early Childhood Education (Children's Issues, Laws and Programs)

CHILDREN'S ISSUES, LAWS AND PROGRAMS

COLLABORATIVE PLAY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

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CHILDREN'S ISSUES, LAWS AND PROGRAMS

COLLABORATIVE PLAY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

W.B. MAWSON

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Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York

Copyright © 2010 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic, tape, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the Publisher. For permission to use material from this book please contact us: Telephone 631-231-7269; Fax 631-231-8175 Web Site: http://www.novapublishers.com NOTICE TO THE READER The Publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this book, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained in this book. The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential, or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or in part, from the readers’ use of, or reliance upon, this material. Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Available upon Request ISBN: 978-1-61209-104-4 (eBook)

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York

CONTENTS Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction

1

Section One – Background

5

Chapter 1

Current Understandings of Collaborative Play

Chapter 2

Early Childhood Education in New Zealand

17

Chapter 3

The Research Project

21

Section Two – Research Findings – Themes

7

27

Chapter 4

Family Roles

29

Chapter 5

Character Roles

41

Chapter 6

Functional Roles

49

Chapter 7

Pretend I’m Dead

59

Chapter 8

Funds of Knowledge – Science, Mathematics and Technological Concepts in Play

67

Chapter 9

Leadership

85

Chapter 10

Can I Play? Intervention Strategies

Section Three – Implications Chapter 11

Environments

101 111 113

Contents

vi Chapter 12

Gender

121

Chapter 13

Encouraging Collaborative Play

129

References

139

Index

149

PREFACE Young children’s collaborative play is a little-researched and poorly understood area. This solidly research-based book throws new light on a fascinating world of children’s play and relationships in early childhood settings. A key feature of the book is the weight given to children’s voices through the use of in-depth accounts of actual collaborative play episodes in two distinctive early childhood settings. The detailed, full field notes provide a substantial body of evidence of a little known area of children’s lives in early childhood settings, allowing the reader to become a participant in the children’s play. The introductory section of three chapters establishes the context. The following section provides a comprehensive coverage of all major aspects of children’s collaborative play. Dominant themes within children’s play are described and illustrated. The chapters on leadership styles, intervention strategies and children’s scientific, mathematical and technological funds of knowledge are of particular significance and provide groundbreaking knowledge for early childhood educators. The final section of the book focuses on the implications of these new understandings on the nature of collaborative for early childhood educators. New understandings on the gendered nature of children’s collaborative play and the significance of mixed gender play provide important insights for early childhood educator’s pedagogy and practice. Early childhood educators will also find the chapter on strategies to encourage and enhance children’s collaborative play of real value, especially the strategies to involve boys in more complex collaborative play episodes. The author, Dr Brent Mawson is a Principal Lecturer in Early Childhood Education in the Faculty of Education in the University of Auckland. He is

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highly regarded for the quality of his research and publications into children’s collaborative play and leadership styles.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge friendship offered to me by the sixty-nine children whose lives are laid out in this book. My life was enriched by sharing in their enthusiasm and joy of life. I would also like to acknowledge the parents and six teachers who allowed my into their early childhood settings and trusted me with their precious children. I also thank the parents for their permission to use images of their children to illustrate the book. Material in chapter 8 ‘Pretend I’m dead eh” has previously appeared in Mawson, B. (2008). "Pretend I'm dead, eh": The place of death in sociodramatic play. New Zealand Research in Early Childhood Education, 11, 5164. Funding for the research was granted by the Faculty of Education, the University of Auckland

INTRODUCTION Collaborative play in early childhood education is an under-researched and under-theorised area (Shim, Herwig, & Shelley, 2001). The overwhelming proportion of research in the nature of collaboration of young children less than five years of age has focused on family situations and the relationship between siblings and between a child and their parent. This book is focused around the findings of a two-year research project investigating the nature of young children’s independent collaborative play in two New Zealand early childhood education settings. This study provides an almost unique picture of young children’s play away from adult surveillance and intervention. Although the evidence comes from particular settings in New Zealand the nature of the play and the particular themes that absorb the children will resonate with most early childhood educators. The book is structured around three thematically linked sections. The first section provides the necessary background and contextual information for an understanding of the research findings that are the core of the work. Chapter One lays out the wider context of collaborative play. It discusses the literature related to children’s collaborative play and identifies the gap in our knowledge of children’s independent collaborative play in early childhood settings. The most significant frameworks for describing and analysing children’s collaborative play are analysed and the strengths and weakness of each discussed. Chapter Two describes the nature of the early childhood sector within New Zealand. The different services available to parents and children are outlined and the role of government policy is discussed. The nature and international significance of the national early childhood curriculum Te Whaariki is also explained.

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Chapter Three describes the settings of the research, the research design and data collection methods. The ethical and practical issues involved in researching in early childhood settings are discussed. Similarities and differences between the two early childhood centres involved in the research and between them and the New Zealand early childhood sector in general are addressed and some suggestion of the level of generalisability of the material is proposed. Section Two is concerned with describing the main findings of the research. The nature of socio-dramatic and pretend or fantasy play is discussed and a summary of the dominant themes of children’s independent collaborative play that were observed is given. The section then looks more closely at specific themes, using Ashiabi’s (2007) three categories of socio dramatic play themes; family roles (Chapter Four), character roles (Chapter Five), and functional roles (Chapter Six) as a framework. Chapter Seven describes and discusses the place of ‘pretend I’m dead” as a dominant leitmotif in the play within one of the early childhood settings. Chapter Eight uses the concept of funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) to examine the references to science, mathematics and technology concepts and knowledge within the play scenarios. It is proposed that a knowledge of the situated place of these ideas within children’s play offers insights into the nature and scope of teacher content knowledge that may be needed to effectively interact with children and scaffold their learning. Chapter Nine addresses the question of the nature of leadership within collaborative play. Specific types of male and female leadership styles and behaviours, dictators and directors are identified. The nature of leadership in mixed gender play is also addressed and the significant impact on male children is discussed. Chapter Ten discusses the intervention strategies used by the children, both successful and unsuccessfully, as they attempted to gain entry to existing play episodes Section Three focuses on the wider implications of the study. Chapter Eleven is concerned with the impact of the physical environment and the resources available to them on children’s collaborative play. Chapter Twelve addresses the question of how gender impacts on and influences children’s collaborative play. Finally in Chapter Thirteen strategies are suggested as to how early childhood educators can encourage and facilitate children’s independent collaborative play. After discussing the resourcing of early childhood settings a number of suggestions are provided for effective teaching strategies that can

Introduction

3

be used to enhance this type of play, and the interactions between adults and children in early childhood settings. I am conscious that the child’s voice is often lost among the authoritative voice of the adult commentator so I have tried to give as much space as possible to verbatim reports of children’s play interactions. They are quite capable of speaking for themselves and the detail of the play also allows readers to make their own interpretations of the evidence. Within this book you will come to intimately know some amazing young children who welcomed me into their place and gave me unconditional friendship. I am privileged to be able to share their life and experience with the wider world.

SECTION ONE – BACKGROUND

Chapter 1

CURRENT UNDERSTANDINGS OF COLLABORATIVE PLAY There is still no agreed definition of play. Play research has been “bedeviled by the search for a definition of what play is and what is does for the child’ (Bennett, Wood, & Rogers, 1997, p. 4). A wide range of explanations as to the nature and purpose of children’s play have been advanced. Moyles has identified 17 different play theories that have been promulgated since the 1870’s, seven of which have produced in the last 50 years (Moyles, 2005, p, 5). It is hardly surprising therefore that with a new theory of play appearing on average at less than ten-yearly intervals that this lack of consensus exists. Currently a Vygotskian-based socio-cultural view of play and children’s learning underpins curriculum and teaching approaches within the New Zealand early education sector (Hedges, 2003). Although a definition of play may still a matter of debate this has not prevented the development of models of the development in sophistication and complexity in children’s play. The first significant hierarchy of play was developed by Parten in 1932. Parten identified six chronological stages of play, 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Unoccupied behaviour 0 - 24 months Solitary play – 24-30 months Onlooker behaviour Parallel play – 30-42 months Associative play – 42-54 months Cooperative play (Parten, 1932, cited in Rubin et al, 1976)

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Critique of Parten’s hierarchy began to emerge in the 1970’s with a particular focus on his low rating of solitary play. Roper and Hinde (1978) and Rubin (1982) found that children involved in solitary play were engaged in more cognitive activity than children involved in parallel play, which was seen as been as low grade play. Smilansky developed the second major hierarchy of play. She used Piaget’s three categories of sensorimotor play; pre-operational play and concrete operational play (Mooney, 2000) to develop her own categories of functional-sensorimotor play, constructive play, dramatic play, and games with rules (Smilansky, 1968, cited in Rubin, 1982). Smilansky regarded these types of play developing in a relatively fixed sequence. All of the play hierarchies give a very high status to collaborative play, which is seen to produce the richest learner for young children. There is evidence that children who are involved in high levels of peer interactive play demonstrate more competent emotional-regulation, initiation, selfdetermination, and receptive vocabulary skills, and are less likely to be aggressive, shy or withdrawn. They have greater cognitive, social, and movement coordination outcomes (Black & Hazen, 1990). Recognition of the importance of collaborative play has given rise to a number of attempts to categorize and rank varieties of peer play. Howes (1980) rating scale for interactive peer play identifies them as, 1. 2. 3. 4.

Parallel play Parallel play with mutual regard Simple social play Reciprocal and complementary action and mutual gaze or awareness of the other 5. Reciprocal social play – contingent social behaviours and complementary actions. Smilansky (1990) made a distinction between dramatic play when children take on a role in which they pretend to be someone else and sociodramatic play, which involves the cooperation of two or more children interacting as they play out their roles. Smilansky identified six elements that reflect the dramatic and socio-dramatic aspects of the play activity, 1. Role play by imitation 2. Make believe with objects’ 3. Make believe with actions and situations

Current Understandings of Collaborative Play

9

4. Persistence in the role play 5. Interaction 6. Verbal communication, Smilansky felt that elements five and six must be present in order for the play activity to be considered socio-dramatic. Roskos (1990) outlined a taxonomy of pretend play, which had a hierarchy of increasingly complex play that moved from individual play with objects through to ‘episodes’, which she conceptualised as having three main elements. The first she identified as a readying stage during which the group was formed and the intention to play and the initial interest was established. This was followed with a leader directing the play and the players with the play resembling a kind of story complete with setting, characters and plot. The third element was object of repetition in the play. Verba’s (1994) description of collaborative play was based on two principles, collaboration and coherence. She identified three essential aspects of collaborative play. These were cognitive aspects (developing the goal, linking ideas), transactional aspects (developing mutual understanding, agreeing on ideas and intentions, resolving conflict) and management aspects (evaluation, intervention, decision making). Verba derived three functional categories from her analysis of the actions and behaviours of the children she studied. These were the elaboration of activity and coordination of purpose, sharing focused on interest in the partner and development of intercomprehension, and management using self-monitoring of the activity and guiding strategies Shim, Herwig and Shelley (2001) identified three categories of collaborative play. These were Interactive-functional play (when two or more players engage in complementary repetitive or active physical movements), Interactive-constructive play (when two or more players create or construct something together), and Interactive-dramatic play (when two or more players engage in complementary fantasy actions or vocalizations and role playing). They described eighteen behaviours that could be used by observers to identify children’s cooperative play. Broadhead (2004) formulated a social play continuum for the analysis of the nature of children’s play interactions. The four broad categories within her framework are the associative domain, the social domain, the highly social domain, and the cooperative domain. The cooperative domain is where fully collaborative play is situated. Broadhead has suggested a number of criteria that need to be met for play to be within the cooperative domain. These are

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offering/accepting objects that sustains/extends the play theme, sustained dialogue is activity related and clear theme(s) emerge, explanations/ descriptions are utilised, new ideas/resources extend and sustain play, children display a shared understanding of goals, they offer and accept verbal and physical help which is often combined, problems are jointly identified and solved, and sustained dramatic scenarios are enacted and linked to play theme(s). Ashiabi (2007) identified three categories of socio dramatic play themes. These are family roles, character roles, and functional roles. Family roles are fairly self-explanatory, character roles are categorised as being usually stereotyped (princess) or fictional (related often to popular culture characters) and functional roles are defined in terms of a specific action role (fireman, policeman). Ashiabi (2007) identifies a range of positive benefits that children gain from involvement in collaborative play. These include enhancement of a child’s ability to reflect before acting and to empathise with other children’s point of view, their negotiation skills, and to experience alternative problem solving and conflict resolution strategies. Perspective taking and role taking skills are developed and the ability to co-operate is fostered. Finally, Ashabi believes that the child’s ability to develop and sustain relationships and their ability to recognize the mental state of other people is developed. “Through play a child first comes to understand self-awareness, the distinction between pretend and reality, and the intentions of others” (p.203). The most recent hierarchy has been developed by Barton & Wolery (2008). Their pretend play taxonomy has the following elements 1. Functional play with pretence 2. Substitution a. Object substitution b. Imagining absent attributes c. Assigning absent attributes 3. Sequences a. Functional play with pretence b. Substitution 4. Verbalization a. Confirmatory vocalizations b. Scripts

Current Understandings of Collaborative Play

11

Although all these hierarchies of collaborative play have some distinctive elements, a common thread runs through all of them. There is a strong emphasis on intersubjectivity, negotiation and verbal communication and I used these three characteristics in my research to identify an episode of collaborative play The importance of collaborative play is a strong belief among early childhood educators and recent curriculum developers. Te Whaariki (Ministry of Education, 1996), the New Zealand early childhood curriculum is a socioculturally oriented learning document that emphasizes the place of reciprocal relationships in children’s learning. Children’s collaborative play is a key element in this process (Tudge, 1992). However, little is understood about the factors that encourage young children to play together in a collaborative manner (Carr & May, 2000). There is a reasonably large body of literature related to the benefits of collaborative play within general early childhood textbooks, but little specific research-based literature. Most of the research literature is concerned with peer collaboration in specific learning tasks with primary and secondary school students (e.g. Fawcett & Garton, 2005; Murphy & Faulkner, 2006). A significant exception to this is the work of William Corsaro who for thirty years has been researching and writing about the nature of children’s friendships and peer cultures in a range of settings in Italy and the United States (e.g. Corsaro 1979; 1992; 2005). Corsaro (1985, cited in Strandell, 1997) defined interactive episodes as, “those sequences of actions which begin with the acknowledged presence of two or more interactants in an ecological area and the overt attempt(s) to arrive at a shared meaning of on-going or emerging activities. Episodes end with physical movement of interactants from the area which results in the termination of the originally initiated activity.” Corsaro believes the major function of a children’s peer group is to establish itself in opposition to adult culture (Evalssonn & Corsaro, 1998). A simpler definition of collaborative play was put forward by Garvey (1977, cited in Barnes, & Vangelisti, 1995), “To play successfully requires that the partners communicate to each other [both] that they are playing and what is being played.” Fantasy play is a complex, representational activity which requires children to negotiate and adopt make believe roles and to jointly enact those roles, while managing two potentially conflicting agendas, their own and the groups (Barnes & Vangelisti, 1995). The spontaneous nature of much fantasy play means that children constantly have to react to and accommodate other children’s desires. The benefit of pretend or fantasy play is well established.

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Vygotsky (1978) saw socio-dramatic play as being an essential element in children’s learning. Within this type of play children transform objects and actions symbolically, develop their skill in interactive dialogue and negotiation, and show an adept ability to role play, develop complex scripts, problem solve and goal seeking. Research has shown some clear links between social and linguistic competence and high-level pretence (Bergan, 2004). Pretend play encourages children to create elaborative narratives and may facilitate children’s narrative recall and expression. An important aspect of young children’s play is a growth of preference for same-sex social partners. This begins first with girls in their third year of life and later with boys after their third birthday. By age five this preference for same-sex social partners is more firmly established among the boys (Maccoby, 1998). This clear gender segregation has led some writers to view young children as inhabiting two separate cultures. There is a wealth of literature relating to gender differences in children’s play. One area of interest is communication strategies. Sluss and Stremmel (2004) found that girls’ block play is affected by capability of play partner, but not that of boys. They also found that, unlike boys, girls’ communication was influenced by the play partner and that they were more likely to offer assistance than boys. Murphy & Faulkner (2006) also identified gender differences with regard to communication in play. They found that girl’s communication contained more collaborative speech than that of boys, while that of the boys contained more controlling speech. Girls were found to demonstrate more elaboration of peer’s proposals and more responsitivity and mutual coordination than boys. Neppi and Murray (1997) believe that preschool boys and girls differ in how they attempt to influence their partner’s behaviour. Girls were found to use indirect demands, polite requests, and persuasion while the boys relied on direct demands, commands, threats, physical force, and a greater use of statements that expressed their personal desires and asserted leadership. Similarly West (1996) found that all male groups used the loudest language, spoke in the simplest sentences and were the most physical in their play. The research of Cook, Fritz, McCornack, and Visperas (1985) indicated that males talked more to same sex peers than girls. Males also made greater use of statements that expressed their personal desires and asserted leadership. They found that males made greater use of lecturing or teaching/directing statements. Gender differences have also been observed with regard to cooperation and collaboration in play episodes. Black and Hazen (1990) found that girls were more likely to join in the activity of playmates and that the play was more likely to involve cooperative, cohesive turn-taking, On the other hand

Current Understandings of Collaborative Play

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boys were more likely to pursue their own ideas for play, and it was more likely to be characterized by abrupt shifts of topic, repeated reorganization of play episodes and in general a more dispersive social interaction. For boys the degree of liking or friendship with the chosen partner is less relevant in decisions to initiate interaction than the play activity itself (Cook et al, 1985). Other research has indicated that there seems to be some benefit for boys in superhero, war, and rough and tumble play in early childhood settings. Parsons and Howe (2006) claim that boys have a higher frequency of character/fictive and exploration/negotiation role in super hero play, than when playing with other representational toys. Reed and Brown (2000) found that boys use rough and tumble to express care for one another and to develop friendships, and recommended that early childhood educators should encourage rough and tumble, provide outdoor space for it, and give children time to play rough and tumble. Marsh (1999, 2000) has suggested that there is also value in superhero play for girls. Holland (2003) suggests that the prescription of aggressive play impacts on the self-esteem of boys, and also affects the self-confidence of girls to engage in active and boisterous play scenarios. Socio-dramatic play is another facet of play in which gender differences have been observed. Girls engage in fantasy play both more frequently and at more sophisticated level than do boys (Maguire & Dunn, 1997; Pellegrini & Smith, 1998). Both sexes enact roles related to their gender. Stereotyped themes occur in fantasy play with girls focusing on domestic items and domestic and maternal dramatic themes, dolls, dress up clothes while the boys tend to be more fantasy inclined and physically vigorous. The boys play often co-occurs with play fighting and superhero themes, adventure, villainy, danger, cops and robbers, fire, police and superheroes and is predominantly focused on action (Neppi & Murray, 1997; Pellegrini & Smith, 1998; Rogers & Evans 2006). Neppi and Murray (1997) indicate that a gender preference for sex-typed toys appears at age two and remains stable. Girls preferred soft toys such as stuffed animals and dolls, bead bracelets, art materials, dressing up and dancing while the boys preferred manipulation objects, blocks, transportation toys, guns and to play in the sandpit. When boys play with female-preferred toys, such as dolls, the play is less sophisticated than it is with male-preferred toys such as blocks (Pellegrini & Smith, 1998). Differences in the nature of gendered social interactions have also been noted. Neppi and Murray (1997) found that in social play, the girls played in small groups, most often in pairs. Their play was cooperative, usually organised in non-competitive ways, and constructive in nature. However they

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found that boys played in larger, more hierarchically organised groups and that status within the group was manipulated in their interactions with their peers. Boys also tended to indulge in functional play. Ostrov and Keating (2004) observed that girls displayed more relational aggression than boys, and that the children tended to receive more relational aggression from female peers. The boys however displayed more physical and verbal aggression than girls and the children received more physical and verbal aggression from male peers. Girls seek power by commanding the role of mother, teacher etc while boys seek power by commanding the role of superhero (Jordan & Cowan, 1995). Cullen (1993) has also observed differences in girls and boys play in outdoor settings. She believes that parents and teachers interactions with children are gender stereotyped and that this affects children’s outdoor play. Girls prefer to be where teachers are and Cullen notes that teachers prefer indoor activities, and even when girls play in the sandpit it is quieter, hometype play as compared to the boys more physical forms of play such as digging in sandpit. Cullen suggests that boys are more active and spend more time outdoors where they perform more fantasy play, making use of large open spaces and apparatus. However recent research in the field of peer relationships does not support two culture claim that girls friendships are more intimate and exclusive than boys friendships (Goodwin, 2006), nor does it support two culture claim that boys networks are larger and more hierarchically organized and that boys networks exert more influence over members to engage in deviance and rule breaking (Underwood, 2004). However, Underwood does accept that the peer relationship data partially supports the claim that the different cultures have different values and may sanction different behaviours and that children strongly prefer to play with peers of the same gender. Two cultures and peer relations researchers agree that children’s peer relations have important consequences for future adjustment. Thorne (1993) provided an earlier critique and rejection of the two culture theory. In summary therefore, although the nature of play is still a disputed area there is a consensus that collaborative play is the most complex and developmentally advantageous form of play for young children. Although a number of different taxonomies of collaborative play have been developed there is a core element revolving around intersubjectivity, negotiation and verbal communication that enables an identification of collaborative play to be made. These three elements were the basis on which my investigation of collaborative play was founded.

Current Understandings of Collaborative Play

15

Based on the literature the most obvious differences in the nature of children’s play appear to be related to gender and include play themes, leadership styles, conflict resolution strategies and communication styles.

Chapter 2

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND New Zealand has a very strong early childhood education service, with attendance levels and staff qualifications among the highest in the world. It has an internationally respected national curriculum Te Whaariki (Ministry of Education, 1996) that provides the curriculum framework for the educational programmes in all government subsidised early childhood settings. In July 2009 New Zealand had 4, 890 early childhood services, 4,123 of which were Licensed and/or chartered services (Ministry of Education, 2009). These Licensed and/or chartered services were led by a trained, registered teacher and met the New Zealand Government regulations regarding the physical environment, adult-child ratios and health and safety issues. They catered for 180, 910 children, 112, 047 (59%) of which were aged three and four. Approximately 90% of all three and four-year-old children in New Zealand attended an early childhood service. The official figures indicate that 60% of all children under the age of five attended an early childhood service in 2009. The most marked increase in the last five years has been in children aged less than three. There has been a marked increase in the number of early childhood centres and children attending them since the introduction of 20 hours government subsidy to parents in 2007. In July 2009 there were 14, 607 fulltime and 3, 790 part-time staff in teacher-led services. Just over 62% of teachers have a three-year qualification and teacher registration. Slightly over 50% of the non-qualified staff was in study for a qualification that would lead to teacher registration The introduction of 20 hours subsidy is one of a number of government initiatives to improve the quality and availability of early childhood education

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in New Zealand in the last decade. In 2002 a ten year plan was established (Ministry of Education, 2002) which laid down three main goals. The subsidised hours is one innovation aimed at meeting the goal of increased participation particularly for children of lower socio-economic status and ethnic minorities. Providing early childhood facilities on the grounds of all new primary and secondary schools is another element of this policy. The second goal was to create a more seamless education system in New Zealand by creating a greater understanding of the work and pedagogy between early childhood and lower primary school teachers. It was intended that this would be an important focus of the material within the revised compulsory sector national curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) but this did not eventuate. The final goal was to improve the quality of early childhood programmes and facilities. A key element of this was a target of having a totally qualified and registered teaching workforce by 2012. This created a major upheaval among early childhood teachers of whom less than 20% had a three-year teaching qualification in 2002, but who were therefore faced with either upgrading their qualifications or moving out of the early childhood work force. Increasing demand for teachers and the inability of the pre-service teacher educators to provide sufficient places to meet the demand has led to a lowering of the target to 80% by the end of 2012 and no date has now been set for the achievement of a fully qualified and registered teaching force. In 2008 new regulations relating to teacher: child ratios, minimum indoor and outdoor space provision, hygiene and sleep provisions were introduced as part of the move to improve quality within the sector. The government also commissioned a Best-Evidence synthesis of quality early childhood pedagogy (Farquhar, 2003) which identified seven characteristics of effective quality teaching that have been used inform pre-service and in-service education programmes. Within the New Zealand early childhood sector there are a number of different types of Licensed and/or chartered services. About one-quarter of the children attend kindergartens. These are fully staffed by qualified and registered teachers and cater for either 60 or 90 three and four year old children, with a staff: student ratio of 1:15. They are sessional in nature and traditionally have had five three-hour morning sessions for the older children and three two-hour afternoon sessions for the younger children. With the introduction of 20 hours of subsidised payments for three and four year olds in 2007 an increasingly large number of kindergartens are moving to one longer daily session catering for fewer children. Regional kindergarten associations

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are responsible for employing staff, managing the property and allocating resources. Although no fees are charged parents are expected to pay a small hourly donation towards the cost of the service. Over 60% of the children attend either privately owned (60%) or community run (40%) services. The number of trained and registered teachers in these services is rising due to a Government policy to have all teachers in early childhood settings to have a three-year teaching qualification by 2012. In 2009 this figure was 60%. The major difference between these two types of service is that the community-based services are essentially non-profit and often use community facilities while the privately owned services are commercial enterprises with their own premises. The third largest type of early childhood setting is the Playcentre, which about 8% of children attend. These are parent cooperatives in which the parents both act as the educators of the children and administrators of the Playcentre. In July 2009 there were 6, 960 adults on duty at Playcentres, 79% holding a Playcentre qualification. The vast majority are Licensed and/or chartered and thus receive government funding. Parents pay a small fee per session. Regional Playcentre associations are affiliated to a National Association, which is responsible for administering the Playcentre teaching qualification, which all Playcentre parents are expected to work towards. Kohanga Reo (Language Nests) also are parent/whanau cooperatives the aim of which is to foster young children’s and parent’s knowledge of te reo Maaori (language) and tikanga Maaori (culture). Kohanga Reo has their own national curriculum and teacher training programmes. Te Reo Maaori is the main language used and parents participate in the daily programme (Education Review Office, 2007) and about 6% of enrolments are in Kohanga Reo, The other main type of service is the home-based network where individuals provide education and care in their own homes for between one and four children. They have to meet a particular set of government regulations in order to receive funding but the individuals are not required to have formal teaching qualifications. New Zealand produced its first national early childhood curriculum Te Whaariki (Ministry of Education, 1996) in 1996. Prior to that each different group within the early childhood sector developed their own programmes. Te Whaariki was unique in New Zealand as the first bi-cultural curriculum document. It is a socio-culturally based document that has four fundamental principles that underpin all programme planning. These are Empowerment, Holistic Development, Family and Community, and Relationships. These principles are put into practice through five strands, which are closely related

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to the principles. The strands are Well-being, Belonging, Contribution, Communication, and Exploration. The curriculum is non-prescriptive and does not specify content that must be learned. Although three developmental stages are identified (infants, toddlers, and young children) they are seen as overlapping in terms of beginning and endpoints. It also recognized that individual children might move back and forth within these general categories depending on the particular element of their learning and development that is occurring at the time. As the curriculum was implemented in the late 1990’s a new credit-based narrative assessment process, Learning Stories (Carr, 2001) was developed to meet the need for an assessment method appropriate for a socio-cultural pedagogy. International interest and adoption of this narrative based assessment method has been a consistent factor in the last decade. It is the international acclamation (e.g. Anning, Cullen, & Fleer, 2004; Miller, Cable, & Devereux, 2005; Wood & Attfield, 2005) of the New Zealand early childhood curriculum document Te Whaariki (Ministry of Education, 1996) and the narrative assessment process of learning stories (Carr, 2001) that suggests the collaborative play experiences of children in New Zealand and the implications for early childhood educators arising from the study of that play may have a wider audience.

Chapter 3

THE RESEARCH PROJECT METHODS The study originated from a desire to explore the factors that led to the emergence and maintenance of independent collaborative play in early childhood settings. The nature of the question and cohesive nature of the groups and the confined setting (early education centres) lent itself to an interpretivist case study approach (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007; Creswell, 2007). The first site, in 2007, was a daylong privately owned centre and involved 22 three and four-year-old children. The second site, in 2008, was the morning session of a kindergarten and involved 47 children four-yearold children. In both cases I spent one morning a week from the beginning of March until the end of November in each early childhood setting. When an episode of collaborative play began I recorded it. As discussed in chapter two I used a synthesis of a number of hierarchies and taxonomies of play to identify those episodes that I considered to represent independent collaborative play. The key indicators were intersubjectivity, negotiation and verbal communication. My role was purely as an observer and I did not participate in any of the episodes observed, nor did I interact with any of the children involved in the play. My aim was to find the “well-placed bench” (Smith, 1998, pp. 50-51). Only those episodes that arose from the children’s own interests were observed. I did not record any collaborative play episodes occurring around activities the teachers had set up, and I stopped recording any episode whenever a teacher intervened in the play in any way. During 2007 85 episodes were observed in the daylong centre. During 2008 69 episodes were

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observed in the sessional public kindergarten. The episodes were documented using a mix of field notes, videotape and audiotape recordings, and digital photographs. Not all episodes that occurred were recorded. While observing inside I could not monitor play that was occurring in the outside area, and the reverse also was true. Where two episodes were occurring simultaneously in the same setting normally the episode involving the more complex themes and interactions was more closely observed, and the other episode monitored to record the main themes and direction of the play. Teacher participant feedback was obtained by means of a weekly meeting to discuss the data. If children approached me during a play episode to tell me what was happening I recorded this, but I did not break into the play, or interrupt the play that followed to question them about the episode I had just recorded. I would make available to the children photos taken of previous play episodes for them to talk about if they wanted to.

SAMPLE AND SETTING The research took place in two Auckland early childhood settings. Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand with a population of 1,303,068 (Statistics New Zealand, 2007). It is home to one third (32.4%) of the national population. It is a very multi-cultural society with just over a third of the inhabitants (37%) being born overseas. The four largest ethnic groups are European /New Zealand (55%), Asian (19%) Pasifika (15%) and Maaori (11%). Although geographical separate within Auckland City the two early childhood settings were very similar with regard to the ethnic and socioeconomic composition of the children and the qualifications and teaching experience of the three staff responsible for the children at each centre. The privately owned setting was open from 7.30am until 6pm and catered for children from six months of age up to five years of age. It was licensed for 10 children under two years and 27 children over two years, but as not all children attended every day there were actually 50 children enrolled in the centre. The children were predominantly of New Zealand European ethnicity from middle-class families. There were 31 boys and 19 girls on the roll, the ethnic composition being 44 NZ European/Paakehā children, 2 Maaori (NZ Indigenous people), and one Cook Island, Malaysian, South African, and Swedish child. The children in the centre were organised into three separate

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groups, babies (0-18 months), toddlers (18-36 months) and children aged three and four The research in this centre involved the three and four year old group. At various times in the privately owned daylong setting 22 children were participants in the research project. Initially there were 15 children (6 girls, 9 boys) in the group. During the year three children left to go to school as they turned five, and 6 children moved up into this group from a younger-age group within the centre. In November there were 18 children in the group (8 girls, 10 boys). The kindergarten had a separate morning and afternoon session. A group of 45 four-year-old children attended five mornings a week for a total of seventeen and a half hours. A different group of 45 three year olds attended for three afternoons in a two and a half hour session. Children entered the afternoon session at about three years, two months of age and moved into the morning session at about four years two months. The roll was made up of 50 boys and 40 girls. Although still heavily weighted toward European/Paakeha children, there was a more varied ethnic group within the kindergarten than in the privately owned centre. The ethnic composition was 68 NZ European/Paakehā, 2 Maaori, 10 Chinese/other Asian, 3 Indian children, and one African, Fijian, Iraqi, Italian, Samoan, Tongan/Niuean, and Turkish child. The research in the kindergarten involved the morning group. Only between 66-78% of the children who attended the session were participants in the research at any one time. There were originally 35 children (23 girls, 12 boys) in the participant group. During the year 25 children left the group and 18 children entered it. By November the participant group consisted of 28 children (16 girls, 12 boys).

ANALYSIS All field notes, audiotapes and videotapes were transcribed and the 154 episodes over the two settings yielded a considerable amount of data for analysis. Originally analysis was done using categories of gender, theme, type, and play area (e.g. blocks, home area). Other categories emerged from analysis of the data itself. Examples of these were leadership roles, friendship groupings, communication strategies, and successful/unsuccessful strategies for moving into other’s play episodes. The data is reported in regard to the episode it occurred in. The letter D or K indicates whether the episode occurred in the daylong centre (D) or the

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kindergarten (K). The number following the letter is the number of the episode that was coded chronologically as the research proceeded during the year. The research had ethical approval from the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee. Pseudonyms are used for all children in this book.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS Research with young children poses a number of important ethical issues that need to be addressed. There are a number of ethics principles that apply to all research projects involving human participants. These are respect for persons; minimization of harm and maximization of benefits; informed consent; voluntary participation; respect for privacy and confidentiality (or credit where appropriate); avoidance of unnecessary deception; avoidance of conflict of interest; social and cultural sensitivity; and justice (Cullen, Hedges & Bone, 2009). However where young children are concerned there are greater ethical challenges than is the case with teenagers and adults. The first challenge is the degree of informed consent that children are capable of giving. Children are potentially more vulnerable to unequal power relations with an adult research than other groups (Einarsdottir, 2007). To achieve informed consent the participants need to given enough information at an appropriate language level for them to clearly understand the purpose of the research, what it involves and what is expected of them. They also need to fully understand any risks involved and how the data will be used. Awareness that participation is voluntary and that they are free to withdraw at any time is also important for the participants to understand. Because of the unequal power relations involved young children may find it difficult to tell an adult researcher if they no longer wish to participate (Einarsdottir, 2007). Traditionally parents or caregivers have given informed consent by on behalf of the child. In recent times early childhood educators image of the child has changed. Children are now seen as rich, capable and competent learners who are able to exercise greater agency in their lives than previously thought. Early childhood researchers increasingly are seeking authentic ways of also gaining the child’s on-going assent to participating in the research as well as gaining the parent/caretaker’s consent, This entails the researcher constantly monitoring the child’s reactions and knowing when to remove themselves from the situation (Punch, 2002).

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Ethical research with young children will also ensure that the research topics and questions and the data gathering methods are appropriate for the age group. Time needs to be taken to build a relationship with the children to ensure authentic findings. There will be on-going negotiation and sensitivity with regard to consent/assent and voluntary participation. Ethical researchers are also take care to have as little affect on the teaching and learning environment as possible (Cullen, Hedges & Bone, 2009) Another challenge facing researchers working with young children is to ensure that the views and beliefs ascribed to the children are valid. The point has been made very clearly by Carlina Rinaldi, who said, When you take a picture or make a document, in reality you don’t document the child but your knowledge, your concept, your idea. You show not who the child is but your thought. You don’t show the child, but the relationship and the quality of your relationship with the child (Rinaldi, 2006, p.196).

With this in mind I took great care to develop a relationship with the children that was greater than that of a pure researcher. In both settings I personally greeted all the children and listened to anything they wanted to tell me or talk about before starting the data collection, and I also said goodbye to the children and again gave them the chance to talk to me before leaving the centre. Although the children, aged three and four-years-old were not able to give fully informed consent, which was gained from the parent/care giver, care was taken to explain to the children in terms that they could understand what was being observed and to make clear that they could ask not to be observed at any time. I also looked for non-verbal indications that children were withdrawing their consent. As parental consent was gained for all children in the privately owned setting the exclusion of non-consenting children was not normally a concern when collecting data. However this became more problematic in the kindergarten setting where parental consent varied from 78% to 66% of the children during the year. If non-participating children were playing with participant children then only field notes were used to record the play event, and the field notes only related to the participant children. Care was also taken to ensure that non-participant children were not captured in any video footage or digital photographs. Ethics approval for the study was obtained from The University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee, and in the case

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of the kindergarten also from the Auckland Kindergarten Association Ethics Committee.

SECTION TWO – RESEARCH FINDINGS – THEMES

Chapter 4

FAMILY ROLES Socio-dramatic play can be seen as children’s attempts to categorise and make sense of their world (Corsaro, 2003). Role-play allows children to explore and to begin to understand the complex nature of relationships and to gain a sense of control over their world. Evaldsson and Corsaro (1998) see this as a process in which children are contributing to the reproduction of adult society through their activities in their own peer culture. The family role-play was the most conducive to the emergence of mixed gender play. The two most explicit and frequent roles in socio-dramatic play are father and mother, and children appear to be acutely concerned about portraying the roles accurately (Matthews, 1981). By acting out adult roles, the children play at and practice male and female gendered behaviours and come to acquire them as their own (Maccoby, 1998). The appropriation of adult behaviours and attitudes may not be the only purpose of family role-play. It has been suggested that family role-play may be an area where children may challenge and critically comment on the forms of adult language and behaviour (Duncan & Turalli, 2003). As the play themes reflected the children’s interests and were not the result of teacher provocations or interactions then the content of the children’s play may be seen as reflecting the funds of knowledge learnt in home and community settings (Gonzalez et al., 2005). One area of fundamental inquiry focused around exploring what it means to be part of a responsible family and community. This was reflected in the high incidence of domestic scenarios acting out family responsibilities such as caring for babies and pets, preparing meals and ensuring that naps were taken by those participants taking the role of children within the group play. Preparing for and enjoying parties and

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picnics was another theme that was acted out with considerable enjoyment. One of the most significant elements of family play scenarios was the amount of mixed gender play that it engendered. Invariably in both settings the subordinate child would be referred to as a ‘sister’ rather than a ‘daughter’. An important part of family role-play was establishing the roles individual children would take. This was both an area of negotiation and arena for establishing and maintaining power relations within the group. Both aspects can be seen in the following episode of play in the daylong centre. Sally, Claire and Arthur had begun to play mothers and kittens. Two boys Simon and Alister wanted to enter the play. A conflict occurs immediately as both boys ask for the same role. Simon, “Can I be the dad, can I be the dad?” Alister, “Can I be the dad?”

Sally exerted her power as mother, the dominant role in family games saying, “You can be the dad, Alister.” Simon was not prepared to accept the decision. “I want to be the dad, I want to be the dad.” Sally began to negotiate a role for Simon saying, “You can be the baby.” Alister attempted to establish his role as dad, and protect his position as the male within the scenario by telling Simon he couldn’t be the baby. This brought Claire into the discussion as she moved to support Simon, a regular play partner of hers. Claire, “Simon can be the baby.”

Simon used Claire’s intervention to emphasise Alister’s attempt to take a power role in the episode responding, “Alister won’t let me be the baby.” This had the expected outcome of forcing Claire to make a definite statement with regard to the hierarchy within the play, “If I say yes, you can.” Content to have limited Alister’s power over him Simon then negotiated a role which accepted the baby status given to him by Sally and Claire but in a manner that gave him some control of the situation while remaining within parameters likely to be acceptable to the two girls stating, “I’m the baby kitten.” Mary and Eddie then entered the area where the play was taking place and a very complicated set of negotiations occurred which saw some of the

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original players shifting roles to maintain control of the game. The consistent role is Sally’s who as mother was the final arbiter. Eddie said, “I want to be the baby kitten.” Sally responded, “No, you can be the dog.” Mary asked, “Can be the baby dog?” Sally gave her consent, “Yes you can, cause if I say yes you can. Okay.” Mary told the other players, “Sally said I can be the puppy.” Sally now left the play area to fetch a laptop computer.

“I’m the baby kitten”.

The introduction of new animal roles into the game by Sally caused Simon and Claire to reassess their roles Claire “No I’m the puppy.” Simon “I’m the dog.” Claire “I’m the dog puppy.” They had now effectively shut Mary out of the game.

George walked in and said to Simon “Can I be the baby puppy for you?” Both Simon and Claire protected their newly acquired dog roles, both saying “no” to George.

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Mary attempted to create an alliance with the other outsider to see if a united front would give them access to the game by going up to George and saying, “Can I be the kitten?” Sally immediately on coming back re-established her authority saying, “There’s only two kittens.” George accepted her power status and appealed, “Can I be the kitten, Sally.” Sally reinforced her dominant position, responding, “No there’s only two kittens.” Mary also appealed to Sally, asking, “Can I be a kitten” but she too received the same answer, “No there’s only two kittens.” Mary then showed her understanding of the rules of group family play by identifying a possible role that was not being played, asking Sally, “Can I be your baby?” and Sally said, “okay.” George observing Mary’s successful entry into the game asked Sally if he can be something else but is again told no. In view of his obvious determination to be part of the game Sally tried to find a suitable role for George saying, “We don’t know what you are going to be, you can be the bird.” George was not keen to accept this role so tried to negotiate a more acceptable role saying, “Please can I be the dog.” Sally was still certain that there were enough dogs in the game saying, “No, you’ve got to be something else.” George finally decided that although it was not his preferred role there was one role that Sally seemed likely to agree to. He asked, “Can I be the baby?” Sally responded, “Yea. Babies!” With the roles and the power hierarchy finally established the children proceeded to develop an increasingly complex scenario incorporating all the roles in episodes of eating, sleeping, being taken for walks, and being sent to play outside while ‘mummy and daddy’ did some work.” (D44) Although the majority of mixed gender family play episodes were initiated and controlled by the girls, a recognized leader among the boys could also initiate and control this form of play. The different leadership styles of boys and girls (explored more fully in Chapter Nine) meant there was always a greater likelihood of conflict and a greater difficulty in resolving it in the boys’ play. Although negotiation of roles was normally unproblematic as the other children accepted the rulings of the recognized leader and played the role assigned to them there were occasions when conflict over role allocation seriously disrupted the play. Although the children were involved in the

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following episode for 47 minutes much of the time was taken up with disputes over roles, which severely constrained the development and complexity of the play episode. John, the dominant male within the centre initiated the episode by saying to Bill, “Let’s play dad’s and babies eh. I’ll be the dad and you can be the baby.” He got Bill to lie on the garden seat and pretend to be asleep. John then called out to Mary, “Mary will you play dad’s and babies with us. He can be the baby and you can be the mummy.” Mary moved over to join John and said, “Okay, I’m the mummy, eh.” She quickly moved into role bringing a big pillow and putting it on the seat behind Bill. John picked up a length of material lying on the deck and said, “Daddy can sleep on this, eh” He lay down on the deck and covered himself up. He then called out to Mary, “Hey Mary, I need to lie down with some cushions.” Mary had been getting some water from the water trough in a small container. She said “I’m just getting some juice for baby” and took the water over to Bill saying, “I just brought you some water.” John was still maintaining his daddy role. He stood up with his cushion and said to Bill, “Would you like this cushion baby?” and proceeded to put it on the seat behind his head. At this stage John decided that the baby role was the one around which the play was revolving, and that Bill was the centre of interest. He attempted to take over the baby role by saying, “Let’s make it I sleep there, eh Bill.” He got on the seat and tried to displace Bill. Bill resisted and John tried to exercise his power status saying, “You are the dad now, you are the dad now, Bill. You can sleep in the house down there.” He eventually forced Bill off the seat onto the deck and lay down on the seat. For the next two minutes Bill and Mary ministered to his needs, bringing him water as he called out, “Mummy, mummy, mummy.” After a while John decided to go inside and transferred the baby role to Bill saying, “Hey, pretend you’re the baby.” Mary continued in her role as mother to minister to Bill. A serious confrontation that lasted five minutes occurred when John came back on to the deck and wanted to take back the baby role. He returned with the blanket and pillow and called out, “Hey baby, I’m coming in now. Beep beep, I’m coming.” Bill challenged John’s power position by replying, “I don’t want to get off.” John response was to use force. He tried to push Bill of the seat, crying out in a whining voice, “ I want.”

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John and Bill then engaged in a pushing contest that carried on for some time before John tried another physical approach. He climbed on the arm of the seat and loudly said, “I’m coming in now. Bill, I’m going to put my legs in.” As Bill continued to resist his attempts to gain possession of the seat John kept trying to re-establish his hierarchical ascendency saying, “Bill, you can’t do that, I’m going to sit here.” As Bill continued to resist and John found he was unable to physically push Bill of the seat John tried to reach a compromise that would allow him some possession of the seat saying, “Hey Bill, pretend this is my side, eh Bill.” John was now sitting on the arm of the seat with his feet on it behind Bill’s back.

The adversarial dialogue continued to develop. John “This is mine.” Bill, “This is mine.” John, “No this is mine. I’m sleeping here.” Bill “No, I’m sleeping here.”

John then appealed to Mary who had been standing by watching the tussle for her support, using her role rather than her as an individual to assert authority, “Hey Mum tell my baby. Hey Bill, stand up, come on.” The struggle had been going on for nearly two and a half minutes and Simon, the boy who was second in the boys’ hierarchy and who had recognized negotiating skills

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among both boys and girls arrived to sort it out. Simon said, “Excuse me, excuse me Bill, John was sitting there.” Bill refused to recognize Simon’s power status, saying, “No.” Simon repeated, “John was sitting there” but when Bill continued to resist John’s efforts to dislodge him, crying “No” all the time Simon accepted defeat and left the area. Saying loudly, “Hey Bill watch out, I need to come in, I need to come in” John continued to push against Bill’s back but was unable to budge him as Bill had his feet braced against the seats armrest. After Bill ignored Mary’s direction that he should get off John looked to access a higher authority by then appealing to a teacher. “Hey Allie, I was here first.” Allie responded in a neutral way, seeking to encourage the children to resolve the dispute themselves saying, “Do you think you can talk to Bill and sort it out?” John tried to put the problem back on to the teacher saying, “I did but he didn’t listen to me.” Allie was still not prepared to take John’s side and she said to him, “What do you think Bill would like.” Simon then returned and had another attempt at intervening, telling Bill he should get off. Bill continued to occupy the seat so John turned again to Allie providing some less than accurate information, “Hey Allie, I was here first, I was.” Another burst of ‘yes/no’ type of interaction resulted. Bill, “No, I was here.” John “I was” Bill “I was here” John, “Allie, He’s not listening to me.”

Allie continued to try and get John to consider Bills point of view, “Do you think maybe Bill wants something different.” John, ignoring the fact that he had originally transferred the role of baby and possession of the seat to Bill when he left the deck some ten minutes previously again tried to convince Allie that he was in the right and the ensuing conversation identified to Allie the reason for the conflict. John, “I asked him, it was mine, he just came and took it.” Allie, “Do you think maybe Bill wants to play with you.” John “Yes, but we’re playing mums and babies and Mary is the mum. I want him to be the daddy, and I want to be the baby.” Bill “And I want to be the baby instead.”

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The presence of the teacher even though she has not intervened on either side had the affect of allowing the two boys a way of amicably resolving the impasse. John leant round to talk in Bill’s ear. “Hey Bill, I want to be the baby, you be the daddy and I be the baby eh!” After resisting very strongly for the last five minutes Bill merely said, “Yea” and climbed off the seat. John lay down on the seat and said, “But I need a cushion” and Bill and Mary resumed their mummy and daddy roles seeing to baby John’s needs. They held a birthday party for Bill and sing, “Happy birthday, daddy.’ Two other boys, Chris and Alister joined the play with John on the seat as the baby directing all the play including a ‘baby is sick, get the doctor’ scenario (D41). Where the leadership was taken by a girl the play tended to be more complex and less confrontational. This is evident in the following picnic scenario that began with Sally leading Susan and Sasha out on to the deck and declaring, “This is the perfect place for a picnic.” They were carrying dolls (their ‘babies’) and Sally had a basket with plastic food and plates, and a disused cell phone in it. Sally picked up the phone and said to the other children, “Our friends are coming out. We can have visitors.” The three girls then set about pretending to feed the dolls with the plastic food. Sally and Susan then showed a sophisticated understanding of pretence play by taking the role of both the mother and their baby, often in the same sentence as is the case when Sally said, “My baby’s crying, Mummy, Mummy.” Once the babies were feed they began their own picnic. Sasha had laid the food out on a blanket and she called out, “Time for food everyone. Has everyone got their chocolates?” Jenny and Simon joined in the picnic. Sally then returned to the beginning of the scenario, picking up the telephone and saying, “Oh we can call our friends and tell them we’re having a picnic.” She talked into the telephone, “Friends, were having a picnic, come and see us, yes goodbye.” Sally put the phone down, and said to the others “They’re coming, they’re coming at twelve o’clock” Jenny asks, “For a sleepover?” and Sally replied, “No, just for a camp out.” Simon then introduces a new character into the play saying, “I’m going to be the dad, I’m going to be the dad.” The girls immediately accepted this new role, changing their own role to suit the situation, with Sally saying “Hi dad” and moving over to Simon. Simon continued to direct the game, introducing a car into the scenario by saying, “I’ve got the keys” and going and sitting on the garden seat on the deck, pretending it was a car. Sally also sat on the seat saying, “I’m going out to the party so can you take me to the party.”

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Susan said, “ The girls are going on a sleepover, the girls are at the door. “ Sasha also came over and sat on the seat beside Sally as they waited to be driven to the party.

“Friends, we’re having a picnic”.

Simon stood up and said, ‘get in the car.” Sally and Sasha moved over to him and Simon started to walk off, holding the keys in front of him and making car sounds with the girls following him (D15). Caring for babies was an important part of family play. Dolls were a common element within the play, although as illustrated in the episode just described children also were keen to take the role. Although most of the interactions with babies focused on care routines such as feeding, bathing, putting them to sleep and dealing with crying, at times the discussion turned to the nature of babies. Susan, Sasha and Katy were busy tending to their babies and the discussion turned to whether babies have teeth. “My baby does,” said Susan “My baby doesn’t,” replied Sasha. “Babies are supposed to have teeth,” said Susan, “They have teeth when they are this big (indicating the size by holding her hands apart). That’s right, isn’t it Katy” (D55).

The activities built into episodes of family play provided a snapshot of the children’s interests and life outside the centre. For these four year-old children sleepovers with their friends and birthday parties were a new and exciting element and many references were made to these activities. The discussion at

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times also threw light on the children’s understanding of family dynamics. This can be seen in the following dialogue. Sally “Mum, can I have a sleepover?” Claire, “Only at your friends place.” Sally, “Mum says no.” Claire “No, I said you had to phone her.” John (Dad), “I say let her go. You can Sally” (D44).

Picnics were clearly a common and well-enjoyed family event. Much of the play was devoted to preparing for the picnic, rather than the picnic itself. Carol, Steve, Andrew, and Allan were in the home corner. They had organized breakfast for themselves and the two babies (dolls) and then they decided to have a picnic outside. Carol, as the mother, took control of the proceedings.

Carol, “And you two boys have to carry the basket together because it’s very heavy. Yes all of you boys, Andrew, Allan and Oliver have to carry the basket because it is heavy.” Carol, “Everybody, plates, everybody gets some plates, let’s see, that should be enough. Now a bowl, we need one each.” Steve, “If you find any of my baby’s clothes you tell me.” They fill up the big basket with clothes from the dress up racks. Allan, “See if you can find the baby clothes.” Carol, “Now Steve, you do, Josh you do that please.” Allan and Steve, “If you find any of my baby’s clothes you tell me.”

Allan and Steve come over to the big basket with an armful of clothes. Steve puts his basket on top of the big basket and says, “I think we’ve got too much clothes in here.”

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Ajax, “This is too heavy.” Carol, “Get it in another bag” and she reaches over and takes a bag down from the rack. “This would be good.”

Steve starts to leave the home corner and Carol says, “Stay here daddy” and he comes back. Carol, “Put some more baby clothes in there and more baby clothes in this.” Steve, “Do we need this?” Carol, “Yes, carry, you carry it by yourself.”

The group go outside and enter the fairy house, but Carol decides it is not a good place for a picnic and she moves them on to the table by the wall outside the home corner. Carol, “Come with me, this is where we should be. This is a perfect place for a picnic. Guys, all of you come over here for the picnic.” Carol, “Time to change your nappies, you did a dirty pooh, you did.”

Steve “This is the phone for daddy, it’s my work” and he takes a phone out of the basket and pretends to talk on it (K56). Aspects of consumerism and one-upmanship also emerged. Katy and Sasha were acting out a role-play where both were mothers with babies. They were talking about what they had done and Katy said to Sasha, “Then we went downstairs and then we went to the park.” Sasha replied, “I went to the shops and spent $15 in one single day” to which Katy responded, “I spent $500.” Often when talking about going shopping the discussion focused on who bought the best or the most or spent the most money (D60). This chapter has explored the children’s play within one of the most important areas of collaborative play. A significant element of the children’s exploration of adult behaviours was the focus on the nurturing role. Both boys and girls spent much of the time caring for and feeding the ‘babies’ and ‘pets’ within the role-play. The role-play tended to be very gender stereotyped, with the ‘mother figure’ having the dominant role in these domestic scenarios. The allocation of roles could at times be a contested area but in general the children were content to play out the roles assigned to them. The next chapter looks at play that is focused on character roles.

Chapter 5

CHARACTER ROLES An unexpected finding of the research was the limited range of character roles taken by the children, particularly roles based on characters from popular media. Contrary to what might have been expected, superhero play was not a significant theme, featuring in only one of the 154 episodes recorded in the two centres during the two-year period of observation. Occasionally one or two boys would wear a superhero costume, most often Spiderman, but Superman and Batman costumes were also recorded. Even when wearing the costumes, the play episode entered into by the children was only related to the superhero characters on one occasion. The kindergarten had a superhero day at which most of the children dressed in a range of superhero costumes, but there was no superhero themes or scenarios in their play during the morning. In neither setting was superhero play actively discouraged so it may be that for children of this age in New Zealand superheroes are not enough part of their lives for them to be driven to include role playing superheroes into their play. The children appeared quite ambivalent about the nature of superheroes. The debate about whether they were good or bad became the focus of the one, recorded episode of superhero play. The episode began with Chris and Simon dressed in their Superman costumes jumping and running about as they dealt with “the baddies.” Attempts by George and Alister to join the superhero play were rejected by both boys, George responded by trying to add a new element to the game, jumping up and down while calling out, “I’m a Ninja turtle, I’m a Ninja turtle!” This led to a debate as to whether superheroes could be baddies. Simon and Chris were convinced that Superman could not be a baddie but George

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had quite a different view saying, “Look what I am, who I am, I am a baddie, I am a superhero and I am a baddie.” Chris attempted to give another reason for superheroes being good, introducing a new character, “Spiderman doesn’t have to have gun, he only does this” (making ‘pssp, pssp’ sounds, while making throwing actions with his hands). “Like that eh!” Simon supported him saying, “Yea yea. Like that, Spiderman.” George was not prepared to give way and tried to start a mock fight with Chris saying, “Ninja Turtle can sort it out. Come and get me.” When Chris and Simon continued to resist his intrusion into their game, both saying a loud and drawn out “Noooo” George continued to make karatetype gestures at them chanting, “I’m a ninja turtle, I’m a ninja turtle, I’m a ninja turtle, I’m a ninja turtle I’m a ninja turtle I’m a ninja turtle.” This altercation resulted in the teacher coming over to intervene and George gave in and left the area. Simon and Chris then made some cars from the construction set which they identified as ‘Batman” cars. A reversal of roles now occurred with Chris saying, “There’s a baddie Superman and he has smashed our house.” At this stage they were able to go outside and went to play in the sandpit (D34). Monsters were incorporated into a range of scenarios, as there were a number of ways the theme could be acted out. At times the monster was the protagonist, and the plot revolved around being chased and captured, and then escaping or being rescued. At other times the children set themselves in the roles of the protagonist and the monster became the prey. The introduction of a monster or giant into the scenario tended to occur more frequently in girls play, and was often associated with a family scenario. Sherry and Pat were outside pretending to be mother and daughter going on a picnic. Suddenly Sherry cried out, “There’s a giant coming.” Pat responded, “We have to get up there” pointing to the rising ground beyond the sandpit. Sherry, “Hurry, he likes blood.” Pat, “we’ll hide here” and the two girls hid behind the tree on the hill.

Sherry stayed in role saying, “Mummy, don’t leave me. The giants coming after you” (K5). As well as being an imaginary player the monster could also be played by another child. This role could often be swapped during the scenario and it was

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common for a boy, who the girls trusted to be a ‘gentle’ monster to be invited into girls play. The following episode illustrates both these aspects of monster play. Claire was pretending to be a monster and ‘scaring’ Katy by making threatening noises and gestures. Jenny intervened to save Katy but on being informed by Claire that, “we’re playing scary monsters” both she and Sally joined in the game and allowed themselves to be monstered by Claire. A new element was introduced when Simon arrived carrying a large syringe, which he started thrusting at Claire. Jenny said, “It’s a monster”. Sally and Claire echoed, “Monster” and Sally said “We’ve got to put the monster in the cage.” Simon accepted the monster role and said to Claire, “and then you push me eh, and then I fall in the cage.” Claire reached up and pushed Simon who fell back on to a chair where he lay kicking his legs. A new element was introduced to the scenario when Sally picked up a teddy bear and said to Jenny, “Baby’s safe, now you kill that monster.” Jenny pointed at Simon and said. “Kill” but Claire who did not want the monster to die deflected the play by saying, “pretend you didn’t know where the monsters house is eh.” Sally picked up the new theme saying, “Where’s the monsters house?” Jenny tried to maintain her interest in killing the monster by saying, “There” and pointing at the chair where Simon had fallen. She moved over saying, “kill monster” but again Claire sought to gain control of the storyline saying, “No, no, Jenny, pretend you didn’t know where the monsters house is.” Jenny and Sally accepted Claire’s direction and returned to the ‘baby in danger’ scenario, running in and out of the space holding the doll and the teddy. Sasha came into the space and Sally called out “Save us Sasha, Sasha here comes the monster.” At that Simon came out of the chair and the game continued with Simon chasing the girls and the girls putting him back in the cage (D7). Simon and Jenny were involved in another monster game in which they switched roles. The children had been read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk the previous week and this was reflected in a play episode the following week. A number of children were playing on the outside deck. Simon came out on to the deck and roared, “Fi fie fi fie fo fum, I smell blood in the Englishman!” Simon began to chase Jenny who ran away laughing and squealing. Simon stopped and said to the other children, “I’m a big giant.” Chris wanted to join in the action by becoming another giant and he said, “Who will be a baby and I will say fi fie fo fum.”

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Mary responded, “Oh I don’t want to be chased by the big giant” but Jenny instead saw the opportunity to take on a power role asking, “Can I be the other giant Chris?” Chris responded, “No you be the girl giant.” Jenny immediately moved from the role of be chased to doing the chasing chanting, “Fi fie fo, fi fie fo, I’m going to eat you guys up when I catch you. Fi fie fo, fi fie fo, catch a tiger by the toe, fi fie fo, catch a tiger by the toe, Fi fie fo, fi fie fo.” Simon challenged her, “Come and get me” and a lot of noise and excitement ensued as Jenny chased Simon (D46). Ghosts were another character role that was adopted in the children’s play. This tended to be a variant of the ‘monster’ play and invariably involved boys chasing girls. Although children of both genders were comfortable with taking on a monster role, possibly because of the existence of benign monsters such as Shrek™, there were some character roles that were seen as less desirable. While girls often dressed up and pretended to be ‘good’ fairies, being a witch was more problematic. This provided a bone of contention in the following episode that was only resolved by an agreed change of the theme of the play. The episode also provides an interesting example of how the particular knowledge of a choosing game gave one child the power to direct the play. Liesha, Gretchen and Sherry were in the sand pit. Sherry said, “ Can we have a witch to guard the house?” Gretchen chanted, “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo – who will be the witch today”, pointing in turn to each of the three girls at every word. On the last word she pointed to Sherry saying, “You will be the witch to guard us.” The three girls worked away making food in the pie dish and the muffin tray. After a while Sherry said to Gretchen, “It’s your turn to be witch.” Gretchen responded, “I’m not going to be the witch” and Liesha said, “Not me either.” Gretchen repeated her ‘eeny, meeny miny, mo’ game and again pointed to Sherry. “Not me,” said Sherry, “I don’t want to be the witch.” Gretchen asked, “Who wants to be the witch?”

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“Making the food”.

Sherry attempted to find a way out of the impasse that would not leave her in the witch role saying, “I’m being the witch first, and then you” pointing to Liesha. Gretchen took this opportunity to bring in a role for herself that would prevent her from taking a turn as the witch, saying, “I’ll be Cinderella.” Sherry also tried to get into this more valued role saying, “How about there being two Cinderellas.” Gretchen was not prepared to share the role, firmly stating, “There can only by one Cinderella.” Sherry then attempted a compromise by offering Gretchen the choice props that went with the Cinderella role saying, “You get the high heels first and the handbag.” Gretchen reverted to her winning power strategy saying, “let’s do the eeny meenie, minie mo to see who will be Cinderella first.” This time when she got to the final “mo” she pointed to herself but Sherry was not prepared to accept the decision saying, “Mo means no!” Gretchen tried another tack, saying, “Cinderella has a dress on”, using the fact that she was wearing a dress from the dress-up box and Sherry was wearing jeans. Liesha attempted to advance her right to be Cinderella saying, “I have a dress on.” Sherry was not prepared to accept Liesha’s everyday dress as appropriate for Cinderella responding, “A proper dress like that” pointing to Gretchen’s dress. The issue was resolved by deciding to go to the dress-up area and all dress up as princesses (K12).

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A small group of boys in the kindergarten became involved in spaceship play. The boys took the role of spacemen using Mars as a base to chase and kill aliens. This play was connected with a lot of construction of spaceships and rocket bases using blocks and other construction sets such as Duplo™. Barry, “Make the space ship blast off.” Fred, “Yeah, make the space ship blast off.” Barry, “We’re after aliens” (K 46).

“Blast-off!”

Other activities within the centre would occasionally become incorporated within children’s collaborative play, although these themes would normally be quite short-lived. In the daylong centre, a special pirates day lead to pirate scenario’s emerging in the boys collaborative play during the next week, but the interest was not sustained after that. Even the pirate play was combined with other themes suggested by the day-to-day activities in the centre. A favourite book in both centres was Wombat Stew (Vaughan, 1984) and this often was the focus of pretend food making activities in the sandpit. John incorporated this theme into his pirate scenario when he started to put plants and rocks and soil into a plastic container, saying, “Who wants to put these in the pirate stew.” Bill and Alister soon joined in adding items to the container and stirring it with sticks. Jenny had been part of the pirate play and

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now attempted to re-establish her position saying, “Its nearly dark, it’s nearly dark eh.” She hit the metal sculpture with the stick continuing, “Ding ding ding, it’s night time.” John responded, “But pirates don’t need to sleep” and he continue to bail the water out of his pirate stew. Jenny persisted, “But today we do, eh! Night time, night time everybody” but the three boys ignored her and continued to focus on their pirate stew. At this point John introduced a new direction to the play saying, “We should play baddies, eh. We can be the goodies eh, and they can come to our pirate ship.” He shouted, “Turn the boat around” and Jenny pointed to the far wall of the veranda saying, “ Turn it quick, look, there’s a big ship in front of us. There’s a big ship we must turn the boat quick.” George had joined the play and he ran to look over the wall crying out, “Ahoy there.” He then turned to John shouting, “They’re shooting, turn the boat.” John went over to the far wall, looked over and called out, “Stop the boat.” George comes and joins him, and starts to pretend he is shooting a cannon. Soon he yells, “I’m killing the people, I’m killing the people. They are all dead. We’ve killed the baddies.” John suddenly turns to face the far wall and cries out, “Oh no, there’s another pirate ship, there’s another pirate ship. Look! We must get the cannons” and he points over the wall. George comes back with his long stick, looks over the wall and says, “yea” and starts pretending to shoot at the pirate ship with the stick. John picked up the large water container and also started to shoot at the ship.

“Shooting the ship”.

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The episode ends with John walking round making a vigorous punching action and saying, “boof, and “the pirates are dead. So the pirates are dead and the ship is sinking” (D46). Character-based collaborative play therefore tended to focus on traditional non-specific characters such as ghosts, giants and monsters, and rarely on media-based characters such as superheroes. Although the children were both aware of and consumers of children’s films, books and television programmes these did not provide roles or scripts for them. Play involving character role was often a sub-plot within other play themes, and was incorporated to bring an element of risk, fear and excitement into the play.

Chapter 6

FUNCTIONAL ROLES Functional roles are defined in terms of a specific action role such as fireman or policeman (Ashiabi, 2007). They play an important part in children’s developing understanding of the adult world of work. The roles explored in their collaborative play provide a good insight into the interests and community relationships of the children. The children in the two centres that were studied had a fairly limited, but universal range of functional roles that they explored in their play. Four roles predominated, that of policeman, fireman, teacher, and doctor. Other roles that were explored were builders, milkmen, factory workers and coffee shop owners. The children’s conception of the work of policemen was focused strongly on apprehending and imprisoning ‘baddies.’ Paul, “We put them in the gaol, Lance.” Lance, “We’ll just find another baddie” (D2). “Everyone hop on board the police car. We’re on a job,” said Melanie and Clive proceeded to drive the police car making car motor noises. Peter came up to Melanie and said, “Baddies, look the baddies, I’ve got the baddies” (K6). Boys playing the policeman role invariably brought guns into the situation, even though in New Zealand policemen do not carry guns as part of their equipment. When two policemen visited the kindergarten as part of the community education programme, the first question they were asked was if they would show their guns. The boys perception of the integral part guns and shooting play in a policeman’s job may be a reflection of the dominance of law and order shows on television, even though they are screened at a time

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when they would normally be in bed. There was one episode of mixed gender play (episode K6), reported below, during which a girl took a shooting role, but that was an exceptional case. Peter, Clive and Melanie had placed some chairs behind the metal steering wheel stand in the outside area and began to develop a scenario in which they pretended that the vehicle was a police car. Barry came up to the three children sitting in their police car and said, “I’m a burglar.” Peter and Clive put on their policemen’s helmets, picked up some ropes and start chasing Barry. Melanie, also wearing a police helmet, sat at the steering wheel for a short time, but soon got up to chase Barry. She pretended to shoot Barry, using a short length of plastic hose as a gun. Clive shouted “Policeman, policemen! Who goes there?” This was followed by lots of shouting and cries of “They’re getting away.” Peter said to Melanie, “They’re a baddie and you’re a police girl.” Melanie replied, “We’ll hide behind the tree.” She continued to pretend to shoot Barry with her hose. Barry scrambled to the top of the climbing boxes as they continue to chase him. Tiring of this the three policeman returned to the police car, Barry again came up to them and said, “I’m a baddie, come and get me” and the three again chased him, shooting at him as they went (K6). The children’s portrayal of doctors and nurses was much closer to reality than their depiction of policemen. A typical example of the doctor scenario is this excerpt from episode D 11. The children’s own experiences of having cuts bandaged and being inoculated were used within the play episode to give support to their medical roles. The children were involved in a family dramatic play involving Mum (Jenny), big sister (Sasha) and a doll representing the baby. Sasha looked at the doll and said, “I hope she’s not sick the doctors not coming.” Jenny picked up the telephone and said, “I’m calling the doctor by myself. Bye, bye, doctor.” Alister had been standing watching the play and Jenny said to him, “You can be the doctor, baby’s got a sore arm.” Sasha said, “We just need to put a bandage on it don’t we.” Alister responded, “Now you stop bleeding.” Sasha picked up a spike for putting accounts on from the light table and gave it to Alister saying, “This is the needle.” Alister said, “The baby’s got poison” and picking up the doll injected it in the heel with the bill spike. Jenny added, “we need to make it clean.” Alister, “I need the medicine pouch.” Jenny responded, “Sasha has the pouch.”

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Sasha handed the bag representing the first aid kit to Alister who said, “Oh thanks Sasha.” The roles now changed as Jenny said, “We’re doctors aren’t we” and Sasha responded, “yeh.” The three children were now all working on the baby. Jenny, “I’ll help you get the splinters out.” Sasha,“I’ll do it a bit.” Alister, “I think she’s all right” (D11).

As discussed in more length in the next chapter, the doctor role-play was often associated with a ‘pretend I’m dead’ theme. Jenny’s initial statement in the following episode allowed the children to role-play an ambulance ride and to move easily from being ambulance drivers to doctors and nurses caring for a patient. Jenny, “Pretend I’m dead because I’m 20 eh.” Sally, “She’s going to be ok, I hope the doctor will be here soon.” Susan and Sasha put a cloth over Jenny who is lying on the floor. Sasha and Sally leave and come back with the medicine bottles. Sasha, “There are lots of things wrong eh. I will just see if sister is all right.” Susan, “Jenny is waking up.” Sally, “No she’s dead, I think the ambulance is here.” Susan pretends to ring on the phone “Hello, hello call the ambulance” Sally, “The ambulance is already here. We’re the ambulance.” Sally sits in the chair and says, “Let’s sit in the car.” She makes a siren noise and then says, “Click, click, click Susan, click your seatbelt, click Sasha.” Sasha, “I have clicked.” Sally pretends to drive the ambulance. Sally, “we’re here, we’re here.” Sasha, “We’re at the doctors aren’t we.” Sally and Sasha make Jenny comfortable with her head on a pillow. Sasha, “Are you the doctor Susan?” Susan, “Yes.” Sally, “I’m the doctor, I’m the hospital leader.” Sasha, “And we’re doctors too, aren’t we.” Sally, “Yes”. Sally and M continue to doctor Jenny (D50).

Children were aware of the importance of the medical records kept by doctors and they occasionally built this into their play. Sally had started the game by saying, “We’re doctors, eh? And we have to go to the hospital. There

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is an accident, come on doctors.” Susan proceeded to draw a diagram on a piece of paper. She then sat down in front disused computer keyboard and showed me the picture she had drawn saying, “This is my screen, I made it. We’re doctors and if I press this special button (key on keyboard) then its asthma. Then you have to type your name here, E . . L . .L . . A” (D57).

“And we’re doctors too, aren’t we”.

In both settings making coffee and pretending to run a coffee shop occurred during functional socio-dramatic play. In the day long setting Chris and his two friends had initially been involved in some parallel water play, but Chris soon moved it into a joint scenario by stating he was making coffee. He offered the teacher a cup of coffee saying, “I’m the coffee man.” After she had accepted and pretended to drink the coffee Chris asked her to make she a sign for him that read ‘Café Shop’, informing her that it was, “Alister’s, Eddie’s and Chris’ café.” When another child came up and tried to play with the water he was quickly informed by Eddie, “That’s the coffee shop Bill. We’ve made a coffee shop and that’s the sign.” The teacher maintained her role in the play by asking Chris to make her a croissant, to which he responded, “I only make donuts, not croissants.” Eddie and Chris then worked with the teacher to make the sign and to look up donut recipes on the Internet, which they then cooked for the rest of the group’s morning tea (D77). In the kindergarten the coffee shop play in the sandpit showed an awareness of a wider context. Starting from the simple task of making the

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coffee, “Put that in there and that in, then you make a hole, then you make coffee” the play then moved to a discussion of the means of making coffee. Oscar, “That is the coffee maker.” Ned, “Now its stopped we have to wash it [coffee maker].” Peter and Oscar then attempted to explain the process by which the coffee reached their coffee shop. Peter to Ned, “It goes from the coffee into the coffee machine, then it goes into boxes, then it goes on a truck, and the truck takes it to the supermarket.” Oscar, “And the people come and buy it.” Peter, “That’s how you make coffee beans, we make lots of coffee” (K4). Role-playing of teacher’s was very much a girls' activity, and although a boy might occasionally play the role of student, the teacher role was definitely seen as a girl prerogative. This may be a reflection of the almost totally female (98.8%) early childhood teaching composition in New Zealand early childhood settings. The children’s perception of the role of the teacher was dominated by their mat time or group time experiences and the stories told to them by older siblings who were attending schools in the compulsory education sector. The teacher was very much in command and the children playing the student roles were given ‘work’ to do and their behaviour was strictly monitored. The exchange between Sally and Jenny is typical of this, “Pretend I’m the teacher and you’re the girl. You say, OK teacher.” This representation of pedagogical strategies did not mirror the child-centred teachings strategies that they experienced most of the time in their own settings. Actual computer use was not high in either setting but use of disused keyboards and laptops was a common element of pretend school play. When children did focus on ‘mat time’ as the theme of their play they were able to replicate the structure and activities very closely. For example, in the kindergarten Pat proceeded to sit down in the teacher’s chair and called out to Sherry and Wendy, “It’s mat time, come and sit on the mat.” Both her friends quickly sat down on the mat with Sherry quickly getting into role saying, “Yes teacher.” Pat then proceeded to pretend to read to her friends the same book that the teacher had used earlier in the day, and to lead them in singing a mat time song and playing a popular mat time game. By now April and Sara had joined the class and the played moved into a long game of ‘Doggie, doggie, who’s got the bone’ (K 23).

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“It’s mat time, come and sit on the mat.”

Firemen play was attractive to both genders and normally focused on saving people from the fire. As in the police play, possession of a fireman related prop was an important part in initiating the play and identifying the role to be assumed. An example of this is when Sherry said to Lucy, “Come on Lucy, we have to find a fire because that’s a fire hat.” Both the importance of the prop, and the focus on saving people are evident in the following episode. When Melanie wanted to move a police chasing burglar game into a fireman game the first thing she did was to introduce appropriate props into the game saying, “Quickly, put the suits on now, you have to have suits.” Once the three children had put the rescue bibs on, they were quickly into the role with Peter saying, “Firemen to the rescue.” Soon there were five children sitting on seats behind Melanie who was driving the fire engine. Clive, “Hurry up, there’s a fire. Quickly get the hose.” He pretends to put out the fire on playhouse. “Get the people out of the house.” Melanie, “I got everybody out of the house.” Clive, “There’s a fire, a fire, help police, put out the fire.” Barry “A fire, go, go, go.” Peter, “A building on fire.” He goes over to the playhouse and then says, “I’ve saved all the people.”

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Clive, “We must save the people from the trap.” Barry comes over with a bottle of water that he has filled from the water trough. He says “I’ve got real water” and he tips it over the playhouse roof. Melanie, Clive, and Peter now also go to the water trough and fill up containers of their own. Clive runs back with his container shouting, “Fire, fire, put out the fire.” Melanie goes to put water on the house saying, “It puts the fire out” (K6).

“Bob the Builder’ was a popular television programme among the boys and this provided a stimulus for an episode of role playing builders. Construction focused play could become quite complex as this snapshot of a 48 minute long play episode illustrates. On coming outside Chris and John discussed if they wanted to be firemen and build a fire station, or if they should be builders and construct a builders yard. Deciding to be builders they put on the construction helmets and moved over to the table outside. They quickly put a ladder on the table and put up the traffic light and give ways signs that were part of the outside play resources.

“Where does the stop sign go?”

A long discussion took place about where to put the ‘stop’ sign to stop the traffic, and where to start to dig the pretend hole. Once this was John made

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vigorous digging motions on the designated spot. Both John and Chris then ran down to the water tank to get water to make the concrete to mend the road. As John went back for some more water he said, “It’s going to be sticky now” referring to the consistency of their concrete. John then spotted the basket of plastic drainpipes sitting near the sandpit, about twenty metres away. Both boys made several trips to get a drainpipe and lay them on the ground behind the table. Eventually Chris decided that this was taking too much time and he laboriously dragged the basket up the path to where they were working. By now they had constructed an elaborate construction with the ladders and pipes.

Setting up the builder’s yard.

Manuel now joined the play and the three boys continued to lay out the pipes and pieces of wood. The boys then went down to the front gate and brought back the wooden stepping-stones, which they piled, on the table. Chris came over to me and asked me to take his picture in the building station they were making. Manuel who had continued bringing over the wooden stepping-stones asked John, “What can we do now?” John replied, “We need a sleeping place” and he moved over to the bark area with Chris. They picked up a gym mat each and brought them back to their site, singing to themselves, “Can we do it? Yes we can.” John walked round the table saying, “I’m going to put my bed, my bed goes right here” and he laid his mattress on the ground. Chris had

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originally put his mattress on the table but he soon put it on the ground next to John’s. John went and got another mattress, folded his first one up, put the second one on the ground, and then put his first mattress back on top of it. Chris came back pulling a wedge-shaped mattress, and he put his new mattress in place of the first, and then put the first on top of it. John stood on his mattress and said, “This is mine.”

“This is my bed”.

John and Chris lay down on their beds. John said, “I’m sleeping” and Chris after asking, “John, are you sleeping?” came across and took the helmet off John saying, “Hey John, I’ll just take your helmet and put it on the table, okay.” He started to put it on the table and then put it on the ground before lying down on his bed. John lay on his back with his hands behind his head and said, “Hey, the job is finished now.” Chris replied, “Yeh, it’s finished, John” (D 30). Play based on functional roles was more dependent on props such as police or fire jackets and helmets, play medical equipment, builders vests and helmets than family or character-based play. The changing face of the adult workforce was echoed by the willingness of the girls to take roles as doctors, policewomen and firewomen. Teaching and manual work were still seen as gendered roles by the children. The fire and police role-play tended to reflect

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images of popular media rather than the reality of the occupation. The medical system was an area where the children had a good deal of personal experience and collaborative play involving doctor and nurse roles was more closely aligned to actual practice. The next chapter focuses on one particular area of the children’s play that throws light on a largely unexplored theme of children’s play.

Chapter 7

PRETEND I’M DEAD Most of the literature on the theme of death in children’s socio-dramatic play is related to Play Therapy and is focused on using play to assist children to deal with actual death (Gil, 2006; Keith & Whitaker, 1981; Wilson, Kendrick, & Ryan, 1992). Within child development literature violent fantasy play has been explored (Dunn & Hughes, 2001; Howe, C.M., Jennings, & Petrakos, 2002) but the focus has been on the development of social and moral understandings rather than as an integral element of children’s positive collaborative play. There appears to be little written about children’s pretence of death as a theme in young children’s play. What literature there is suggests that this theme is common within European cultures. Chris, Bearne and Alexander (2004) observe that the weaving of the fundamental issues of life and death with everyday concerns was a recurrent theme throughout their research in England. They report an episode in which children plan for dog's death and decide who will play the role. In a second reported scenario a boy plays a dead father, who is soon dragged back to life. Guss (2005) in her research in Norway notes that a child acting as a wolf dying and coming back to life was continuous theme in play studied. In the United States West (1996) records a child introducing new theme of being turned into a dog, being poisoned and pretending to be dead. Danger and death was the most recurrent theme in the play she observed, being present in all six site visits made to the kindergarten during the research. Sellares and Bassedas (1995) state that death was a theme strongly present in young children’s play in their Spanish research. Although playing dead occurred on twenty-one occasions, one child, Jenny, consistently initiated it. She normally used it as means to focus the play

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on herself, to move from the periphery of the play to the centre, or to move into the play of others. Occasionally the two other girls in her particular friendship group, Claire and Sally, would initiate the theme, but invariably it was Jenny who was to play dead.

ESTABLISHING THE RULES On nearly every occasion it was made clear that it was only a pretend death. For instance Jenny came back into the area where Claire and Sally were playing, said, “and pretend I was dead eh” and laid the floor pretending to be dead (D7). On another occasion Jenny entered a family scenario involving Sally, Susan and Sasha and said, “Pretend kitty’s dead” and rolled over on her back. Sally responded, “Oh look, kitty’s dead” and the dead kitty was incorporated into their family play (D15). The dead person/animal was always brought back to life during the play episode. This was done in a number of ways. Often the dead person was regarded as waking up as though she had been asleep. This theme was consistent revisited. A typical example of this is contained in the following exchange. Sally gets up and moves over and pushes Jenny saying, “Wake up, wake up!” Jenny responds, “No I’m dead.” Simon, “You have to tell her to wake up now.” Sally starts jumping up and down calling, “Wake up sister, wake up sister.” Jenny wakes up. Sally, “She’s waking up, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray” (D7).

Another common method of coming alive was associated with medicines and being sick. This was clearly expressed by Jenny when she stated, “I’m sick now eh because after you are dead you are sick.” (D15). On another occasion Simon had been pretending to be dead. When Sally returned to the tent Claire said to her, “Sh, he’s dead eh.” After a short time Claire said, “Pretend he’s alive eh.” After some seconds Sally finally entered the tent and said, “ and I’m going to make a new medicine so I can wake him up.” (D7) Often coming alive was associated with being treated by a doctor or going to the hospital. Sally, “Mary, and we turned into doctors, and she’s going to be ok” (D62). After a fight between their toy animals Chris says to Simon, “Now King Kong is dead from the bat, and King Kong goes to hospital, eh” (D1).

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Sasha looks at Jenny lying on the floor and says, “She’s dead, doctor.” Sally responds, “Can you take her to the hospital” and Jenny is carried to the hospital to become sick (D11). The most unusual way of coming back to life was to become younger. Jenny had introduced death into the scenario giving the reason as “Pretend I’m dead because I’m 20 eh.” Later in the play episode the following exchange occurs. Jenny, “I can’t come alive for ever and ever.” Sally, “And Jenny, your parents came to see you.” Jenny, “And when I turn back to 19 I come alive eh” (D56).

DIRECTING THE PLAY As well as normally initiating the dead person scenario Jenny would often move in and out of role in order to keep the play going. Jenny has been lying on the floor pretending to be dead and the group has started to get sidetracked attending to a doll with a syringe. Jenny then directs the attention back to her. Jenny, “Someone has to carry me, someone has to carry both of my arms. No, two people, only Sally, carry me this way eh, you take me feet eh, no Sasha takes my feet.” Jenny is then carried over to the hospital and becomes the centre of attention as they work over her, the doll forgotten and discarded (D11).

On another occasion Jenny not only directed the dead play, but also carried on a separate conversation with her friend who was not part of the play episode while pretending to be dead. Susan, “I’m doing this because Jenny is dying and we’re playing doctor.” Jenny, “I’m the big sister and I’m dead.” George, “Mum and dad are the doctors because that’s their work.” Jenny, “I don’t need the eyeballs in here anymore, but I’m still dead eh.” George continues to doctor Jenny in the fireplace as she directs him what to do. Claire crawls to the fireplace and Jenny stands up. Claire “Hey, Jenny.” Jenny, “Hey sister, but I’m dead eh.”

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W.B. Mawson Jenny lies down again and Claire goes behind the curtain and they start to talk quietly to each other (D56).

AREAS OF RESISTANCE Rarely did children kill each other in the play scenario. On the occasions where this happened it was invariably connected with a conflict over leadership of the scenario between two close friends, Sally and Claire. Sally and Claire were playing a sick baby scenario and were having a conflict over who would be the doctor. At that stage Simon entered the space, picked up the syringe from where Sally had left it, and began thrusting it toward the girls in an aggressive manner. Claire called out “Kill her, kill her Simon” and he pretended to shoot Sally with the syringe (D7). In another example Sally had started the game by saying to Susan, “We’re doctors, eh? And we have to go to the hospital.” Sally went over to the chimney saying, “There is an accident, come on doctors. You have to come in the ambulance, there’s been an accident.” Claire joins in the game at this point and Sally said to her, “And you’re dead and you’re sick.” Claire, “And I’m the kitty and you’re my mum, eh.” Sally comes back and says, “You’ve got to pretend you’re dead.” She leaves the fireplace once more and says, “You stay in there, stay in there” before returning with a basket. Claire then tries to introduce a new element to the game. Claire, “Every time I’m alive I turn into a monster, eh.” Sally, “But you’re not alive, you’re dead.” Claire, “I’m a monster.” Sally, “But when I shoot you you’re dead” and she pretends to shoot Claire with a piece of wood. “You have to be dead.” Claire stands up. Sally, “Are you playing with me?” Claire, “I’m not now” and she leaves the space (D57).

Being killed was acceptable if agreement was reached with the other person first. Claire said to Jenny, “I’m going to poison you, pretend that you are dead when I do this.” Claire injected Jenny with the syringe. Katy moved over to the tent and said to Claire, “Do that to me, I want to be dead. But don’t do it hard because I will cry ok” and Claire then injected Katy (D7).

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“But don’t do it hard because I will cry, okay”.

Occasionally being dead was resisted. Claire said, “Pretend he killed everyone and pretend they were dead, but when I call everyone like this (touching Katy and Sally gently on the chest) they are dead.” Claire touched Sally who fell on to the floor. Claire then touched Katy who resisted. Claire said, “No, when I do that you’ve got to be dead.” Katy still resisted saying “No, you’re not allowed to do that to people, then they’ll hurt their selves” and she pushed Claire’s hand away (D7).

DEVELOPING THE THEME Once the theme of being dead was incorporated into the play episode, the play then could develop in a number of ways. The most common was for the play to move into a doctor/hospital scenario. The death theme normally was introduced first and the doctor theme emerged as a way to deal with the dead person. On one occasion having established that they would pretend that the mother was dead, Sally then said, “Mary, and we turned into doctors, and she’s going to be okay” (D62). On another occasion Chris said, “Now King Kong is dead from the bat, and King Kong goes to hospital, eh” (D1).

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Once the doctor had arrived, or the dead person was taken to hospital, often by ambulance, the children would undertake a number of remedies. There was frequently a focus on stopping the bleeding and bandaging the patient. Susan, “There’s blood, urh.” Sasha, “We need to put a bandage on it don’t we.” Medicine was normally administered by injecting the patient, although at times it was seen as being a substance of some kind, “A special cleaner to make you be not dead” (Sasha, D56). The special nature of these substances was made clear by Sally, “We need some magic cream” (D11). The role of the ambulance often featured highly in these doctor scenarios. Sally in particular liked to introduce an ambulance into the play action, being careful to observe the appropriate safety precautions. Sally, “No she’s dead, I think the ambulance is here.” Susan pretends to ring on the phone. “Hello, hello, call the ambulance.” Sally, “The ambulance is already here. We’re the ambulance.” Sally sits in the chair and says, “Let’s sit in the car.” She makes a siren noise and then says, “Click, click, click Susan, click your seatbelt, click Sasha.” Sasha, “I have clicked.” Sally pretends to drive the ambulance. Sally, “we’re here, we’re here.” Sasha, “We’re at the doctors aren’t we” (D50).

Family scenarios where a second common context for pretend dead play. This was particularly so when only girls were involved in the play. Death and loss were combined in some scenarios. “Mummy!” cried Claire, taking a train from inside the ramp. Sally looked around the house and said, “she’s lost, she’s dead.” Claire got to her feet calling, “mummy, mummy, mum, mummy.” Sally turned to her and said, “I think she’s locked in the gaol.” She looked in the ramp saying, “No, no, where’s she gone?” (D4). There was no particular family member who was the focus of pretend dead play. At various times the mother, the father, the sister, the baby, and the kitten were all subjects of pretend dead scenarios. On no occasion was a brother the subject, and this seems related to the apparent reluctance of the boys to pretend to be dead. That occurred only twice in the twenty-one episodes. On one occasion Simon had been a monster and was killed to protect the baby. On the other occasion Jenny was playing with Simon in the block corner. He said, “Pretend I’m dead and you can fix me” (D49) and the block building play moved into doctor play for a short time.

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A third common element was the introduction of monster characters into the play episode. This normally was used to explain how the death occurred and often led to a hiding from/being chased by the monster, particularly when boys were involved in the play episode. Sally calls out, “Save us Sasha, Sasha here comes the monster.” Simon comes out of the tent and tries to wake Claire who has been killed by the monster. Sally gives the syringe to Sasha and says, “We kill the monster with this.” Katy says to Sasha, “we are playing monster games.” (D7)

There were occasions when the impact of death on the other characters was recognized, and ways of dealing with this were built into the play scenario. Simon, Claire and Paul were playing a family scenario with the doll’s house when Claire said, “My cat died dad. When my cat died my kitten cried.” Simon immediately responded, “But the baby will miss her mum. Ok she can be dead, but only for a little while, not long, only this much. She can’t be dead for 10 minutes, only this much” (D71). “Pretend I’m dead, eh” was a regular element of the collaborative play of this group of children in the daylong setting. It was a long-term interest, occurring as often in October as it had in March when the observations began. The majority of the children in the group were involved in at least one observed episode during the year. Although Jenny was the lead character in many of the episodes recorded she was not particularly interested in the concept of being dead, but more in using a scenario which she knew would be picked up by the other children as a means of entering or taking the leadership of the play scenario (Ghafouri & Wein, 2005). The theme continued to occur regularly in the children’s play after Jenny’s departure for school in midAugust. There appeared to be no real interest in the concept of death by any of the children. Having one of the group play dead was a means of bringing other more interesting elements, particularly playing doctors, into the play action. At no time was there any discussion about what it meant to be dead. Being dead was given no more importance than being the mum, the dad, or the kitten. In none of the twenty-one episodes was pretending to be dead the main focus of the play. None of the episodes started from a “pretend I’m dead” statement, this element was always introduced into an existing collaborative play situation, and served primarily to provide a stimulus to extend and enrich the play. It was a narrative that allowed them to explore other social and work relationships (Guss, 2005).

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It did seem important to the children that they clearly established that playing dead was a pretend situation, and that the ‘dead’ player was brought back to life before the play episode was finished (Ma & Lillard, 2006). This was clearly different from the situations in the boys ‘shoot the baddies” game in which the ‘dead’ object was an inanimate object and not one of the group. Although it was usually introduced by the girls, and featured a girl as the ‘dead’ player “pretend I’m dead” provided an opportunity for boys to become involved in the girls collaborative play. There were 22 mixed gender episodes of collaborative play recorded in the period March to October and on 10 occasions the pretend dead element was part of the play. Invariably the boys assumed the role of the monster or defender against the monster or became a doctor, roles they appeared to feel appropriate for boys to assume (Parsons & Howe, 2006). There was clearly a greater use of language in the play episode by the boys when playing in mixed gender settings than was evident when they were playing collaboratively in boy-only scenarios. Pretending to be dead was one of the main strategies used by this group of children to maintain collaborative play episodes. It was a consistent theme within the play of Sally, Claire and Jenny over an eight-month period. As a theme it appealed to most of the children and at one time or another they participated in one of these play episodes. The death itself was inconsequential; it was a mechanism for introducing new scenarios and roles into a play episode. There was no morbid fascination with death, everyone knew it was pretend, that the dead character would wake up, the monster be chased away, and that someone else would die again tomorrow.

Chapter 8

FUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE – SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS AND TECHNOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN PLAY INTRODUCTION The importance of early childhood teachers having domain knowledge is now well established. It was identified as one of the seven pedagogical principles of quality teaching in early childhood settings in a Best Evidence Synthesis commissioned by the New Zealand Ministry of Education (Farquhar, 20003). There has been an increasing call for early childhood educators to increase their subject content knowledge and to move to a constructivist pedagogy (Backshall, 2000; Fleer, 1993; Gabett & Yourn, 2002; Hedges, 2000; Rodd & Savage, 1997). Hedges (2004) suggests that a lack of emphasis on subject knowledge can no longer be justified in early childhood education. There is a fear that focus on subject knowledge will undermine holistic approach of early childhood education. Traditionally the knowledge base of early childhood teachers was focused on material from the child study movement and developmental psychology, and content knowledge was not valued. Experiences in mathematics, science, and technology have been regarded as less critical to children’s development than play based experiences. This has been related to prior negative experiences and a lack of confidence in their own knowledge in these areas by many early childhood teachers (New, 1998). Certainly teachers have an important role in influencing children’s dispositions toward learning in these areas.

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Young children come into early childhood settings with rich prior experiences that they use to develop and increase the complexity of their play episodes in the early childhood setting. As the play themes documented in the research projects reflected the children’s interests and were not the result of teacher provocations or interactions then the content of the children’s play may be seen as reflecting the funds of knowledge learnt in home and community settings (Gonzalez, Moll & Amanti, 2005). Much of these funds of knowledge were mathematical, scientific, and technological in nature. These mathematical, scientific, and technological references provide insight into the content knowledge needed by early childhood educators in this domain area and offer some possible avenues of interest that might profitably be explored within an extended learning experience.

SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS There are a number of areas of scientific knowledge that provide appropriate learning experiences for children within early childhood settings. Children in their play were often involved in the scientific processes of observing, exploring, experimenting, comparing, and problem solving. They were interested in the properties of objects and materials and the characteristic of living organisms. Their play involved experiences of forces, floating and sinking, hot and cold, light and sound, and electricity and magnetism. The following episode illustrates the way in which the exploration of mathematics, science and technology concepts were seamlessly integrated in children’s dramatic play. Sally and Claire had been playing together for nearly thirty minutes. They has started out building a house for their animals (a complex technological process that involve establishing the intention, gathering resources, planning the shape and evaluating and modifying the emerging outcome) and this had evolved into a scenario in which the model trains in the block corner became baddies that had to be locked in jail, represented by a large cardboard cylinder which they had stood up on it’s end. The two girls proceeded to put all the trains in the cylinder, giggling and laughing together as they did, and then they knocked it over spilling the trains on the floor. “Let’s do that again,” said Claire.

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“Yea, let’s,” said Sally and they refilled the cylinder and knocked it over again. “Do that again,” said Claire. “Yea,” said Sally. The act was repeated three times, the girls giggling and laughing all the time (exploration of force and gravity) “Let’s get it heavy,” said Claire (estimation) “Let’s get it heavier,” said Sally. The girls searched for more trains. “More trains,” said Claire (number concept) Sally got up and ran over to the train set box and rummaged through it before returning to Claire with another train. “Another one,” said Claire (quantification), and Sally returned to the train box to find one. Claire moved over to the train box also, held out her hand and said, “I’ll put them in the pot” (exploration of position and location of objects in space). They couldn’t find any more trains so returned to the cylinder. “Are you ready?” said Sally. With a squeal, Claire leant down and scattered all the trains. Sally began to collect up the trains and put them back in the cylinder. “This is another working which is to throw them like this” (pushing the whole cylinder vigorously onto the floor),” said Sally (exploration of position and location of objects in space, exploration of force an gravity). “No, we don’t throw them like this,” said Claire reaching over to pick up the cylinder. “Pretend we go like this (looking out the window) and then we don’t look (miming sweeping the cylinder onto the floor with her hand while not looking at it) (D4).

Children have a real fascination for the living world. The discovery of an insect would often bring dramatic play to a stop while the children investigated their new find. Sally, Jenny and Claire had been playing a family scenario in the sandpit making an elaborate meal. They moved across to the climbing frame, which they were imaging to be their house to eat the meal but then all three girls attention became focused on a ladybug sitting on the climbing frame. They were clearly involved in observing in a scientific manner as they interacted with the bug and the teachers. The ladybug now became the centre of their attention. “A bug, a bug up there,” says Jenny trying to pick it off the frame with a piece of bark. The bug falls to the ground and Jenny picks it up on a piece of bark. Claire has come out of the frame to join them. ”Go back home now,” says Sally and she repeats this to Jenny but neither Jenny nor Claire takes any notice of her and Sally goes back to the table leaving Jenny holding the bug. Jenny walks over to me and shows me the bug. “I want to hold it,” says Claire.

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“It’s nearly going to flap its wings though,” replies Jenny. “Let me hold it,” says Claire, holding out her hand. Sally has joined the three of us now. “No!” shouts Jenny as the bug starts to spread its wings. Sally says, “We’re going home darling, because it’s late, poppa’s going to be home soon.” Jenny moved off toward the table still holding the bug. Sally and Claire followed her with Claire saying, “I want to hold it.” Jenny walked past the table, Claire followed but Sally stopped at the table momentarily before following J and Jenny to the far side of the outside space behind the wooden climbing tower and tree. The girls spent a little time looking at the bug that they had put down on the bark, and then ran to the fence and looked over it at the bushes on the other side. Jenny found another ladybug on the bush and while Sally and Claire remained looking at it, Jenny went and got a teacher to come over and also look at it. They spent about two minutes looking at the bugs on the tree before moving to the bark area and closely inspecting the ground. Sally found a ladybug and ran around showing to a number of children and teachers before returning to Claire. Both girls examined the bugs they had found before Sally squealed and threw hers away. She squatted down to see where it has gone and Claire and Sally spend the next three minutes looking intently at the bugs (D5).

Investigating the ladybug.

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The children often explored the concepts of hot and cold, and cooling strategies in their dramatic play. Typical of these developing understandings is the interaction between Sally and Jenny. Jenny has sat down by the pot and she called out, “Mummy, It’s cooled down.” Sally returned, poured sand from the bucket onto the sand already in the pot, smoothed it over and said, “It’s hot.” “I’ll blow on it,” said Jenny turning and blowing on it. “That makes it warm” (D5).

Art focused play often led to exploration of colour mixing. Jenny and Claire had been working for fifteen minutes painting on a large hessiansurfaced cylinder that was suspended from the ceiling.

“I’m going to turn red into pink.”

Katy came up to them and asked, “What are you doing?” The following interchange then took place among the three girls as they explored the changes that occurred as they experimented with trying to change one colour into another. Claire, “We are changing colours to paint.” Katy, “Can I help?” Claire, “Yes.”

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W.B. Mawson Jenny, “Shall we change it, um, shall we change the white to black?” Claire, “Yes. Now we mix it around.” Jenny, “I’m turning yellow into black.” Jenny (to Katy), “No we’re not, that’s not yellow, it’s black, what we’re changing it, um, we’re doing it black.” Claire, “Let’s change the pink bit.” Katy, “Look it’s black. No it’s green.” Jenny ignores this and says, “I’m changing the brown into yellow, I’m going to change the brown into black too.” Claire, “Watch out, I’m going to black into this white patch.” Claire, “I’m going to turn red into pink.” Jenny, “Now it goes on green” (D6).

The children were consistently using non-functioning information and communication technology such as laptops, phones camera, printers and fax machines in their play and they showed a rich understanding of how these artifacts worked. On this occasion the children were playing with toy animals in the water trough. Sally pretended to take a photograph with the starfish. Jenny said, "That doesn’t flash?” Sally replied, “Yes, it did flash.” Jenny responded, “That’s my old camera and it runs on batteries” and Sally showed the camera to Jenny saying, “It needs some more batteries in it” (D27). Boys in particular incorporated exploration of the affects of force in their collaborative play. This was most common in the block area but even play with model cars could turn into exploration of the affects of force and energy as this extract from episode D14 illustrates. Paul has arrived with a toy racing car and he and George begin to play a car ‘bashing’ game, hitting the other’s car with their own. George says to Simon, “We are playing bashing, so you will have to bash us.” There is great laughter when pieces are knocked off the cars with the violence of the impact. George, “We have to play hard bashing, as hard as anything, eh, harder than bricks, eh.”

Four months later this was still a recurrent element in the play of the boys in the daylong setting. Paul and Simon start playing crashing cars, looking into the mirror behind the tiled floor to observe what is happening. Then Chris puts a

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wooden ramp on the floor and the three boys played with the toy cars on the ramp. Simon, “Did you see mine, mine went spinning.” Paul, “Did you see mine, mine went like this (demonstrating with his arms) eh.” Simon, “Can you see mine?” Paul, “Hey, see whose can go the furtherest” (D70).

In both settings water was a common element in sand play and the children were continually exploring the way in which the two materials combined as they strove for the perfect mixture for their muffins, pizzas, cakes and mud pies. The scientific concepts of experimentation and comparison were integral to these episodes as they persevered to get the mixture right. The play with water constantly involved observation of the way water flowed from one container to another. The daylong centre had a series of hoses and tubing attached to the wall of the outside deck and this provided a regular source of play and experiment with water for the children.

“Here is the waterfall’

MATHEMATIC CONCEPTS A whole range of mathematical experiences within the fields of measurement, number, geometry, algebra, and statistics were also present within the children’s collaborative play. Many episodes included a range of

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mathematical concepts within them. A typical example are the interactions that took place during a forty-five minute dramatic play in the sandpit as the children cooked the food and prepared for the picnic they had planned (D29). As they talked about what they were doing they were constantly showing understanding of quantification, order and sequence of numbers, and one to one correspondence as the following excerpts from the transcript show. “Shall I get even more in this cup?” “I’ve got some more water for you.” “Now we just need one more and that’s enough.” “We need one more.” “Here goes lots of more water.” “That’s the very last one.” “I’ll put one shovel in here and one shovel in there.” “I’ll put two shovels in here.” “There’s two for me and one for mummy and sister.” “The three of us, one two three.” “I need one of my spoons.”

This natural use of mathematical language was an integral part of the children’s discourse in most of their collaborative play and would seem to indicate that they have a much greater understanding of basic mathematical concepts than more structured testing approaches would show. As educators we both need to understand the complexity of these concepts and to use this knowledge in our daily interactions to build on and enhance these developing understandings. In their play the children showed an understanding of position of objects in space as they drew treasure maps (D14) and used language such as on, top, and over there (D4). The children were keen to show their developing ability to count within the play when it was contextually appropriate. Sara had been working with April and Mandy writing out the things they needed to do for the puppet show they were going to put on for the other children and she wrapped the discussion up by saying, There’s lots of things on our list, 1, 2, 3, 4” (K21). On another occasion Sara was leading a group of four other girls around the kindergarten in a circular route going out one door and coming in the other. They were linked hands to elbows and as they made a back and forth motion they chanted, “Up, 2, 3, 4, up, 2, 3, 4” (K20). At times the counting techniques were quite sophisticated. Susan, Sally and Sasha were playing a card game and were trying to decide who would go first. Susan made the decision by dealing out the cards to show how it could be done saying as she put them down, “I, 2,

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3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 2, 4, 6, 8 Eenie, meenie, minee, mo, like that” (D54). The ability to understand one to one correspondence was limited at this age. There were six children who as part of the dramatic play episode imagined they were all on a bus. The question of how many people were on the bus came up and Elise decided to count them. She counted them accurately one to six, pointing to each child as she did so, but the others dispute this and decided to count for themselves, They came up with number ranging from five to eight, but only Elise arrived at the correct number (K16). Turning five, which in New Zealand is a major rite of passage as this is the age the vast majority start their compulsory schooling, was a major topic of children’s conversation. In the kindergarten a child leaving to go to school was a weekly occurrence and was celebrated with an elaborate ritual. The children also understood aging as a component of gaining greater power and competency. This was a mathematical area where working theories were still being developed, and it was clear that the concept was not yet well understood. Andrew and Alf were having an argument as to who was the strongest man and the following exchange took place Andrew, “I think I’m the strongest because I’m 5.” Alf, “No, you’re not. I think I’m the strongest man because I’m 4 ½” (K35).

Later in the day in a different play episode they returned to the discussion, using almost exactly the same words as they explored the concept of the relationship between strength and age (K37). Jenny was also trying to make sense of the relationship of age and well being when during a protracted “pretend I’m dead” scenario she set the scene by saying “Pretend I’m dead because I’m 20 eh” but also established the criteria for coming back to life by later saying, “and when I turn back to 19 I come alive eh” (D50).

TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS The technological knowledge and understanding evident in the children’s play can be encompassed within the categories of technological practice, technological knowledge, and understanding of the nature of technology (Ministry of Education, 2007). Technology is defined in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007, p.32) as,

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W.B. Mawson intervention by design: the use of practical and intellectual resources to develop products and systems (technological outcomes) that expand human possibilities by addressing needs and realizing opportunities. Adaptation and innovation are at the heart of technological practice. Quality outcomes result from thinking and practices that are informed, critical, and creative. Technology makes enterprising use of its own particular knowledge and skills, together with those of other disciplines. Graphics and other forms of visual representation offer important tools for exploration and communication. Technology is never static. It is influenced by and in turn impacts on the cultural, ethical, environmental, political, and economic conditions of the day.

Technologically oriented play in early childhood settings has a number of facets (Mawson, 2002). One aspect involves children setting and achieving a clear goal in their socio-dramatic play such as preparing and having a picnic or constructing animal enclosures for animals. A technological process begins with the identification of a purpose or aim and ends when the final outcome is developed and evaluated. In early childhood settings the purpose is invariably identified by the child and is focused on satisfying a personal desire. Another aspect of technological play is exploring how everyday artifacts function and are used.

TECHNOLOGICAL PRACTICE Technological practice involves identifying a need or opportunity, defining the attributes of the required outcome, developing a plan of action, making the product, and evaluating how well the finished product fits the original purpose (Ministry of Education, 2007) There were three significant contexts that encouraged the development of technological practice where an outcome was purposefully pursued within dramatic play. These were the home corner, sandpit and block area. A typical example of a technological process is provided by this edited play episode (D4) of Mary and Jane. They moved into the block area with a number of toy animals in their hands. Mary said, “We need a home for the animals” [Establishing the purpose/intention.]

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Mary stood up and went behind the ramps and then over to the block shelves and took out a long block and brought it back and began building a wall on the other side of the ramps [collecting resources]. Young children prefer to plan orally and to develop their design as they work through the making process (Mawson, 2002). This was evident in this case. As they began to build the house they continually developed, evaluated and modified their plans. “Do this, here?” asked Mary picking up two ramps and placing them side-by-side [planning]. Jane picked up one of the blocks from her wall and said, “No, we don’t need these.” “We need these off,” said Mary and Mary and Jane began dismantling the wall. “We just need these ones, eh,” said Mary. “And we don’t need these,” said Jane, dragging both ramps away from where Mary was sitting. “We are making a better one, we don’t need these” said Mary moving a cube shaped block away. They continued to build the enclosure, adding rooms as they went. Jane knelt and grabbed hold of one of the ramps. “Let’s just move this” [evaluation and modification]. “Yes,” said Mary “This is the two bedrooms,” said Jane. “And this is the two living rooms,” said Mary, putting a wooden cube into the enclosure. Mary stood up. “This is the house.” “Yes,” said Jane, moving one of the ramps over to Mary. “And there’s the TV,” said Mary. “Yes,” said Jane. When they finished the building they made a final assessment as to whether the house met their original intentions (fitness of purpose) with Mary saying, “This is a good building, eh” (D4).

A technology process could also emerge from children’s imaginative view of the potential of common resources. Some large cardboard cartons had been given to the kindergarten one morning and when Sara spied them she said to Patsy “let’s make cars” [establishing purpose/intention]. They each got a cardboard carton and after opening out the bottom [modification] climbed inside and stood up, holding the cartons under their arms. “We need a steering wheel and seat belt,” said Sara and the two girls got out of their cartons and went inside. They came back with paper plates, string, glue and Sellotape [planning, gathering resources]. They glued the paper plates on to the front flap of the carton to act as the steering wheel, and Sellotaped the string from one side of the carton to the other to act as the seat belt [making the desired

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outcome]. Patsy stated to walk around the kindergarten ‘driving’ her car [testing outcome] and Sara called out to her “You haven’t got your license. Patsy, you need to come home and get your license” [technological knowledge of systems]. They proceeded to use their cars to go from home to the library and the shops. Patsy’s string came unstuck and she looked very sad and said, “I can’t get my seat belt on”. Sara came up and looked at the problem and went and got some more Sellotape to re-secure it [failure analysis]. The two girls played with their cars for nearly an hour until tidy up time [satisfaction with fitness of purpose of outcome] (K13).

“Driving the cars”.

As technology is a process, then teacher content knowledge also includes knowledge and understanding of the technological process. In order for teachers to effectively enhance children’s technological practice they need to understand the activities involved within a technological process. There are two aspects of the process that are particularly important as sites of meaningful teacher interaction with young children. These are planning for action and evaluation of the end product. The nature of children’s planning and the role of the educator in early childhood settings has been clearly identified by Ann Epstein.

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Planning is more than making choices. Planning is choice with intention. That is, the chooser begins with a specific goal or purpose in mind that results in the choice. . . . When we engage children in planning, we encourage them to identify their goals and consider the options for achieving them. For example, they might consider what they will do, where they will do it, what materials they will use, who they will do it with, how long it will take, and whether they will need help. Planning thus involves deciding on actions and predicting interactions, recognizing problems and proposing solutions, and anticipating consequences and reactions (Epstein, 2003, p.29).

Helping young children evaluate their technological outcome requires teachers to understand the concept of fitness of purpose. The role of the educator is to help a young child reflect on the degree to which the outcome meets his or her original intention/purpose and to help the child develop ideas about how the outcome could be modified to more closely satisfy his or her needs if that is what the child desires.

TECHNOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE Technological knowledge relates to understanding how and why things work (Ministry of Education, 2007). The children’s play embodied a strong awareness of the various parts of the medical system. The children explored the roles of doctors and nurses and hospitals on a regular basis. They incorporated syringes (D7, D11, D68), bandages (D68), and ‘medicines’ (D11, D56) into the play in appropriate contexts. The role of ambulances (D50) and hospitals (D57, D59, K7) were explored as the play developed. A typical example of the doctor scenario is this excerpt from episode D 11. The children were involved in a family dramatic play involving Mum (Jenny), big sister (Sasha) and a doll representing the baby. Sasha looked at the doll and said, “I hope she’s not sick, the doctor’s not coming.” Jenny picked up the telephone and said “I’m calling the doctor by myself. Bye, bye, doctor.” Alister had been standing watching the play and Jenny said to him, “You can be the doctor, baby’s got a sore arm.” Sasha said, “We just need to put a bandage on it, don’t we.” Alister responded, “Now you stop bleeding.” Sasha picked up spike for putting accounts on from the light table and gave it to Alister saying, “This is the needle.”

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Alister said. “The baby’s got poison” and picking up the doll injected it in the heel with the bill spike.

“Injecting the baby.”

Jenny added, “We need to make it clean.” Alister, “I need the medicine pouch.” Jenny responded, “Sasha has the pouch.” Sasha handed the bag representing the first aid kit to Alister who said, “Oh thanks Sasha.” The roles now change as Jenny said, “We’re doctors, aren’t we” and Sasha responded “yeh.” The three children were now all working on the baby. Jenny, “I’ll help you get the splinters out.” Sasha, “I’ll do it a bit.” Alister, “I think she’s all right.” The children then moved back into the family play incorporating runaway kittens as other children joined the play (D11). A second area of consistent interest was the world of transport. Ambulances (D50), buses (D51), police vehicles (D14, K6), systems (keys, D33, seat belts D33, K6) and maintenance (oil, petrol, tyres, D28 K6, K29) of motor vehicles featured in dramatic play scenarios. The children took great

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pains to ensure that their ‘vehicles’ were operated in a manner consistent with the adult world. The following exchange comes in the middle of a complex police, firemen, ‘baddies’ game that six children were playing outside in the kindergarten. They have just come back from chasing the ‘baddies’. They sit in the car they have made by placing six chairs and a large box behind the steering wheel mounted on a portable frame that is part of the outside equipment, Melanie, “to our car quickly, seat belts on.” Jim puts his helmet in the last container making up the car saying, “That’s where we put our stuff.” Melanie, “Guys, seat belts on quickly. Seat belts on." Allan, “I’ve got my seat belt on.” Jim, “Where are we going, are we going to Africa?” Melanie, “We’re going to Africa.” Allan, “There’s lots of baddies there.” Jim, “Stop the car.” Melanie, “Seatbelts off. We have to lock this.” She ties up the steering wheel and they leave the car (K6)

Popular culture, media and new technologies are fundamental features in the lives of young children (Marsh, 2005). The children in this study naturally incorporated a wide range of information and communication technologies (ICT) in their play. Computers were incorporated appropriately into work related scenarios (hospital, D7; school, D31) and recreationally in familybased play (D41). Mobile phones (D56, K12, K15, K56) were also incorporated into the play in ways that mirrored their use in the wider community. References were also made to computer programmes they used at home (e.g. Kidpix, D23), television programmes (e.g. Bob the Builder, D45) and films (e.g. Shrek, K13) that they had watched. Educators need to have awareness and knowledge of the physical and functional nature of the technological products the children are referencing in their play. What are they made of? How do they work? The gendered imbalance of early childhood educators would suggest that educators’ knowledge and understanding of the medical and health interests of the children is likely to be greater than that relating to the car and transport interests. In order to build on the children’s interest in transport educators may need to develop their own knowledge base so that accurate information can be provided to extend and enrich children’s play with appropriate adult interventions. The consistent use of medical terminology and practices by the

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children in their play seemed to be a reflection of personal experiences with the health system and health practitioners. Talking to children and their families about these experiences will provide educators with insights into the range of content knowledge needed to develop and support a range of experiences that will build on the children’s knowledge and interest. Early childhood educators are ambivalent about the place and value of ICT in early childhood settings (Yelland, 2005) and these attitudes may stand in the way of recognizing and responding to children’s interest in ICT.

THE NATURE OF TECHNOLOGY Learning about the nature of technology is focused on developing the ability to “critique the impact of technology on societies and the environment and exploring how developments and outcomes are valued by different peoples in different times” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p.32). The nature of technology is an aspect of technology literacy that may need a greater proactive approach from early childhood educators. Children need adult support in reflecting on why people have made the products they incorporate in their play and how the products have affected people’s daily life. Although the children were constantly involved in exploring adult roles they did not explore to any deep extent the wider ramifications of technology on their lives in their collaborative play. There was some understanding of the way in which seatbelts had improved the safety of people in cars and of the need to use them, even in pretend situations. The impact of medicines and medical technologies on the health and daily lives of people was another area explored by the children in which a developing understanding of the social affects of this was evident. There was no evidence of the children critiquing the impact of ICT or popular media on their lives or that of their families in their play. Because of their young age the ICT had always been present in the home and centre environment and was accepted as an integral part of their lives. All references to popular culture (e.g. Bob the Builder, Spiderman, Barbie, Ben10) were made in very positive terms with no reference to the values inherent in these products. This may be an area where early childhood educators committed to addressing all aspects of technological literacy might want to take a proactive stance (Carrington, 2003) and introduce discussion of these matters in an intellectually honest form (Bruner, 1960) into their centre curriculum. The aim would be to equip children with the skills to critically analyse the messages

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given by the popular media and to make informed judgments as to how they accept or reject these messages. Discussion could include consideration of globalisation, consumerism, cultural hegemony, racism and gender (Diaz, Beecher, & Arthur, 2007). It is very difficult for educators to do this unless they are familiar with the movies, computer games, television programmes and advertisements that young children watch. Being familiar with the programmes and advertisements allows early childhood educators the chance to talk about these things and their subliminal messages in the many informal conversations which are a feature of early childhood education, but which rarely happen in primary and secondary schools

IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATORS In order to build a curriculum based on children’s’ interests two elements need to be present. The most important element is the ability of the early childhood educator to accurately identify children’s real interests (Hedges, 2007). Secondly, the educator must have sufficient domain content knowledge (Hedges & Cullen, 2005) and pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986) to be able to effectively encourage and enhance the identified interests. This is particularly difficult in Technology, which encompasses the entire made world and involves practical, intellectual and theoretical perspectives. I have suggested that the themes of children’s independent collaborative play provide an insight for curriculum planning for early childhood educators. An understanding that children will often be using a recognizable technological process in their dramatic play allows educators to incorporate technological experiences into their planned programme and to make explicit to the children the various aspects within the process. The focus should be on aiding children’s planning and evaluation. Three areas of particular interest have been identified from the analysis of the independent collaborative play in the two early childhood centres in which the reported research took place. These were health and medicine, transport systems and information and communication technologies. Listening to children talk about their own experiences (for example within the health system) will give educators an initial list of things they need to be knowledgeable about and suggest other related areas that could be explored with the children. The importance of these interests is recognized in Te Whaariki (Ministry of Education, 1996), one of the learning outcomes being

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that children develop “knowledge about the role of the wider world of work, such as the hospital, the supermarket, or the fire service” (p. 56). Knowledge of the forms of transport that the children have experienced or are interested in is another starting point. Exploration of local public transport systems is one way in which links can be made with the wider community and children’s life outside the centre. Visits to local historical villages and transport museums provide another rich source of knowledge and learning experiences. Vintage car and other car clubs are normally very happy to bring their automobiles to centres to show the children. The ICT devices within most centres provide a wealth of opportunities for teachers to have conversations about the materials they are made of and how they work. These conversations also provide a bridge to finding out about the children’s out of centre experiences with ICT. I have suggested that these discussions need to go beyond the use of the ICT devices to also cover some of the social impacts of their use, particularly those which are aimed at influencing young children. Knowledge of the programmes and advertisements the children watch on television and the merchandising associated with movies is fundamental for these deeper discussions to take place. As a socio-cultural approach to assessment gains ascendency in early childhood education (e.g. Ministry of Education, 2004) there appears to be a tendency for early childhood educators to view children’s learning predominantly through a social or dispositional lens. Much rich learning in technology, science and mathematics would be revealed if learning stories or similar narrative assessments were also viewed through a subject-oriented lens by teachers who had appropriate in-depth subject knowledge and understandings of technology systems and processes. Teachers find it reasonably easy to notice and record children’s constructions in the block corner or at the carpentry table. It is also important to notice the episodes when children work in a focused manner to plan and bring to fruition socio-dramatic scenarios and the objects associated with the role-play. These socio-dramatic episodes also provide rich opportunities to develop children’s technological practice and their understanding of the systems involved within the artifacts they use and the social practices they are exploring.

Chapter 9

LEADERSHIP INTRODUCTION Young children’s leadership is an under-theorised and under-researched topic (Lee, Recchia & Shin, 2005). Much of the research literature involves paired children working on adult set tasks that are aimed to provide data on specific aspects of children’s collaborative work (e.g. Fawcett & Garton, 2005; Murphy & Faulkner, 2006). Lee, Recchia and Shin (2005) discuss the importance of relational and contextual elements to explain both styles of leadership and the nature of other children’s interactions. In their study of four children (3 girls, 1 boy) aged between 40 to 56 months who had been identified as leaders by their teachers, they identified four leadership styles, the ‘director’, the ‘free spirit,’ the ‘manager’, and the ‘power man’. In their study a clear gender difference in leadership style was evident. The boy (‘power man’) was much more overtly subversive of the teachers’ expected standards of behaviour and this constant challenging of the limits was an important reason for his popularity. Related research (Mullarkey et al, 2005) offered insight into the relationship between young leaders and educators. Ghafouri and Wien (2005) identified four kinds of social literacy that frequently and successfully sustained play in their study. These were leading and following the roles in play, supporting emotional well-being among the participants, collaborating by including others in play by sharing or adding props, and conflict resolution skills, both among participants and between participants and intruders. They found that leadership and power negotiation are important in both developing and sustaining play.

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Gender-focused research has provided some insights into the nature of leadership in children’s play. Girls use indirect demands, polite requests, and persuasion to influence their partner’s behaviour while boys rely on direct demands, commands, threats, physical force, and a greater use of statements that expressed their personal desires and asserted leadership (Neppi & Murray, 1997). The research of Cook, Fritz, McCornack, and Visperas (1985) indicated that males made greater use of statements that expressed their personal desires and asserted leadership. They found that males made greater use of lecturing or teaching/directing statements. Girls’ communication contains more collaborative speech than that of boys, while that of the boys contains more controlling speech (Murphy & Faulkner, 2006). Girls were also found to demonstrate more elaboration of peer’s proposals and more responsitivity and mutual coordination (Sluss & Stremmel, 2004). Research on cooperation and collaboration in play episodes also offered some explanation of the leadership gender differences. Black and Hazen (1990) found that girls were more likely to join in the activity of playmates and that the play was more likely to involve cooperative, cohesive turn-taking, On the other hand boys were more likely to pursue their own ideas for play. Boys’ play was also more likely to be characterized by abrupt shifts of topic, repeated reorganization of play episodes and in general more dispersive social interaction. Differences in the nature of gendered social interactions have also been noted. Neppi and Murray (1997) found that in social play, girls play was cooperative, usually organised in non-competitive ways, and constructive in nature. On the other hand they found that boys played in larger, more hierarchically organised groups and that status within the group was manipulated in their interactions with their peers.

LEADERSHIP STYLES My interest in and definition of leadership developed as I observed the children’s collaborative play. It soon became evident that there were individual children within on-going play groupings who assumed a dominant role in initiating the play, assigning roles within the play, and controlling the direction that the play episode took. I therefore identified these children as leaders. Originally two of the categories (‘director’, ‘power man’) suggested by Lee, Recchia and Shin (2005) seemed to also be appropriate as general descriptors of the leadership styles I was observing The girls’ leadership style

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was similar to that described by their term ‘director’ and I adopted this term with the aim of adding further depth to their description. There was sufficient difference between the boys’ leadership style I was observing and Lee, Recchia and Shin’s description of the boy in their study as the ‘power man’ for me to need to find a term that better encapsulated the leadership style I was recording. It was only midway during the second year of the research project that I decided that the term ‘dictator’ best described the behaviours I was observing. Apart from seven children who consistently preferred to play and work by themselves joint play was the common pattern of play for all 75 children in the study. Friendship was the key factor in determining whom children played with, and the nature of the play. Most of these joint play episodes were of a social nature involving parallel play, and regular collaborative play was confined to a small group within both settings. The crucial element underpinning collaborative play seemed be the existence of a leader within the girl’s friendship group or the boys interest-based group. Within each setting there was quite a marked difference in the amount of collaborative play undertaken by individual children and the involvement of a recognized leader seemed to be an important factor in this. The most significant difference between the play in the two settings was the much greater incidence of mixed gender play in the daylong centre. In the kindergarten there were four clear social groupings (two dyads of boys and two dyads of girls) that consistently were involved in collaborative play when the data collection began at the beginning of March. During the year, as children left the group to go to school and new children came in to replace them both the boys and girls groups coalesced to form larger collaborative play groups. The change in the size and membership of the group resulted in changes in leadership and control patterns within the group. Unlike the kindergarten there were no fixed groupings of boys collaborative play groups in the daylong centre. The boy’s groupings depended more on particular interests on the day than on friendship ties. Two boys however did tend to assume leadership and control when involved in collaborative play. John had a dictatorial leadership style while Simon had a more directorial style. Simon was more able than any other boy in the group to move into and be accepted into girls play. There was a group of three girls (Sally, Claire, Jenny) who consistently played together. They provided a core group that several other children moved in and out of from episode to episode. The play was invariably of a socio-cultural nature with a focus on domestic

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relationships and enactments of school life. The three had different leadership styles and control of the play varied depending on the theme of the play.

BOY’S COLLABORATIVE PLAY In both settings there was a very hierarchical structure to the boys’ collaborative play with the dominant boy using a very dictatorial approach to maintain his control of the play scenario. Control was established through a mixture of aggression and intimidation. Leaders tended to be bigger and more aggressively oriented than the other boys. The use of a loud voice, repeated demands, exclusion from the play episode, standing over the others, and if need be physical struggle were the common elements of this style of leadership. One boy, John, was the uncontested leader of the boys play during the year in the daylong centre. The membership of the play group varied from episode to episode, and friendship was not an important element in this, the action and plot being more significant in attracting participants. John relied on his size and physical presence to assume control of any collaborative play episode he was involved in. It was rare for other boys to challenge his domination of the play script or of his right to have the policeman’s hat and coat or builders helmet and jacket when playing games with those roles in them. John was always the driver or the captain, whether in a boat or in the police car (D26). John tended to direct the play using gesture rather than words, and a feature of the collaborative play episodes he was involved in were the long silences while the boys worked together on a common task. They would continually look back to him for assurance that they were on task. His decision on whether other children could join the play was always the binding one. It was rare for him to get involved in mixed gender play but when this occurred it was normally with Sally who was able to direct John’s involvement is subtle ways that did not challenge his need to assert his position of primacy. She would build ‘men’s work’ into the scenario and give him the freedom to move in and out of role. In the kindergarten, where there was a much greater movement in and out of the group, leadership was always an area of contestation. In March the two pairs of boys (Barry and Henry, Peter and Clive) tended to play with each other for the whole of the morning session between the end of mat time and the beginning of clean up time. At times they would drift off to other activities or allow other children into their play, but essentially they were self-contained

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units. At this stage of the year Henry and Barry would at times move into the play of Peter and Clive, but the reverse did not occur. The social dynamics within each pair of boys were quite different. Clive was the accepted leader of his pair but leadership and control of the play was nearly always a contested zone with Barry and Henry. Rejection of the play situation was a common strategy used when this occurred. When working with other children both Barry and Henry were prone to respond to challenges to their leadership with some act of physical force. When Ned objected to what Henry was doing while playing together in the home corner Henry’s reaction was to twist Ned’s arms (K4). Barry was one of the biggest boys in the kindergarten, and he had a minor speech impediment that often made it difficult to understand what he was saying. He would frequently resort to physical action apparently in frustration when he couldn’t get his point across. While this would usually lead to the end of the play episode it did serve to reinforce his position within the hierarchy. Barry and Henry would often use exclusion of other children as a way to emphasise their leadership and control. On one occasion they were in the sandpit making poisoned wombat stew when Peter came over. The following exchange took place. Peter, “Can I help? Henry, “No!!” Peter, “Can I?” Henry, “I’m in charge.” Barry, “No, we’re in charge of our one, we’re in charge of our one. You’re not allowed over.” (K8) Clive and Peter spent virtually all their time at kindergarten in the sandpit. They had a number of common themes to their play and did not talk very much as they worked together. Clive would often let Peter orchestrate the scenario and their play was marked by very little conflict. When playing with other children in the sandpit both were content to share leadership and control of the play with others. On one occasion Clive and Peter were involved in a very complex scenario focused around policemen and firemen with Melanie and Barry. The play episode lasted for 57 minutes and during that time Melanie, Peter and Clive offered suggestions to maintain and develop the scenario that were accepted without question by all the other children. However, when Henry joined in the play he instigated a physical conflict over

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possession of a seat in the police car and then of the rope to tie up the baddies as he sought to establish his place in the play hierarchy (K14). The close friendship of Clive and Peter was threatened in early April by the arrival of Fred into the morning session of kindergarten. Clive and Fred had been close friends in the afternoon session and Fred quickly moved into the group. This changed the dynamics quite dramatically as Peter and Fred competed for Clive’s attention. Clive now became the dominant person in the play, assigning roles and determining the script. Fred had entered the morning session on April 11th, and by the end of May Peter had left the group and the sandpit and was looking for new playmates inside. Although Clive made an effort to revive the friendship, saying to Peter on 20th June “Excuse me Peter, I do want to be your friend” (K32) the friendship and joint involvement in collaborative play was not fully re-established before Peter left for school at the beginning of July. No longer needing to compete with Peter for Clive’s friendship Fred was able to become more assertive. As time passed Fred became the dominant partner, firstly with Clive and later with the wider group of boys. The assertion of Fred’s leadership in his play with Clive was not uncontested, and was normally associated with possession of objects associated with the play. In these dispute’s increasingly Fred came to be the winner. After Henry went to school toward the end of June Barry started to become a regular member of Clive and Fred’s play episodes. Barry was not predisposed to accept Fred’s leadership and take a subordinate role in the group play. The battle for power commenced the first week after Henry departure when Fred, Clive, Andrew, Peter and Barry were in the sand pit. Fred, Clive, Andrew, Peter had dug a hole looking for treasure and Barry had dug another close by it. A joint leadership of the large group had been established, with Andrew saying to Clive “You’re doing all the right stuff. And me and you and Fred are all in charge.” Fred came back with some water and Barry attempted to gain some leadership and control of the play by firstly saying, “Look at my hole, he brings water to me too.” When that failed he tried to change the direction of the play saying, “We can put the poo in there” and putting liquid sand into Clive and Fred’s hole. Andrew rejected this change of theme responding with, “We was making poo last week.” Barry tried another approach saying, “Join them together,” referring to the two holes they had dug. Fred responded to Barry’s leadership challenge by introducing a new theme, “We’re going to poison all the people in the lake.” Barry persevered with his idea; “We’re making poo, not poison.” Faced with

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this continuing challenge Clive and Fred left the sandpit and started playing at the water trough leaving Barry to direct Andrew and Peter in the sandpit (K35). At this stage both Barry and Fred could claim some allegiance within the boys’ group The competition between Barry and Fred for prime leadership in the wider group of boys continued for a couple of months. It was characterised by heated arguments, conflict over possession of play artifacts and attempts to exclude the other from the play. However, they would always unite to prevent other children attempting to direct the play. The paramount leadership of Fred in the eyes of the other boys was clearly established by the beginning of October. This is clearly illustrated by incidents within a play episode in the sandpit. A group of six boys were digging a waterfall in the sandpit. Lawrence was about to pour water into the hole but Carlos stopped him saying, “don’t pour it in the hole until Fred comes.” The boys moved away from the hole and two girls took possession of it. Some time later Carlos came back and saw the girls digging in the hole and the following conversation took place.

“Stop that, that’s Fred’s hole.”

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Carlos, “Stop that, that’s Fred’s hole.” Elizabeth, “We’re making it deeper so the baddies will fall in.” Carlos, “That will make Fred angry” and he goes back inside to tell Fred what is happening to the hole. Elizabeth, “We’re going to keep digging, we’re going to.” Alf comes out with Carlos and says, “Stop digging the hole, Fred will be really angry.” Carlos, “Yeah, we told him.” Alf, “He will be very angry and he will push you in the hole” (K56).

GIRL’S COLLABORATIVE PLAY In both settings girls’ collaborative play was characterised by co-operation and leadership. It was exercised in a more benign and directorial manner than was the case with the boys’ play. There was more conflict within the dominant threesome in the daylong centre than among the pairs in the kindergarten. This was due to there being two competing leaders among the three, and a two-onone situation would sometimes eventuate when two competing scenarios were being advanced. In the kindergarten initially there were two pairs of girls (Wendy and Pat, Sarah and April) who regularly played together. Two other girls May (April’s twin sister) and Susan sometimes were also part of the play of both groups. Wendy and Pat’s play was closely associated with the home corner and family play, and nearly all their play episodes began there before extending the scenario into the wider kindergarten setting. Sarah and April’s play tended to have a literacy or fantasy theme. In both these dyads the leadership of one girl (Sarah and Wendy) was clearly recognized by the other friend and when conflict arose a negotiated solution was normally attempted and achieved by Sarah and Wendy. The leadership was based on Sarah and Wendy’s creativity in setting up and developing interesting scenarios for the play. Sarah and Wendy also had better-developed fine motor skills than April and Pat and they would often provide help in making things. Sarah and April had made cars out of cardboard boxes, and when April’s broke she brought it to Sarah to fix (K13). Developments within a scenario were normally couched in terms of a suggestion and a positive response. Sarah, April and Flora had a family roleplaying game that moved into pretending to be a train and chugging around the kindergarten. As the train was moving along Sarah said, “Let’s play hospitals.”

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Flora responded, “Yes, lets play hospitals” and the three girls quickly moved into a scenario with nurses and patients in the hospital (K7). A typical example of this accepted power and leadership in the girls’ relationship can be seen in this episode involving Sarah, April, and May. Sarah had established her own and April’s roles as sisters and proceeded to give May her role. Sarah to May, “You’re the baby.” May, “I’m the cat.” Sarah, “No, you have to be the baby.” May proceeded to pretend to be sucking on a bottle of milk. Sarah then said, “April, pretend you’re in the fairy dress and you can blow out the candles.” April, “I’m just excited about the cake.” Sarah, “We’re going to have party games, first we will play statues.” Sarah then said to May and April, “Do you want to come to the play school with me?” As they walked out the door Sarah showed April how to dance, saying, “Put your hands on your hips – skip, skip, skip” as she demonstrated the steps. April, “Now we’re big sisters.” Sarah, “You sit down because I’m going to be the teacher” and she showed April a book and began to read it to her (K38). The dominant leadership role of Wendy is evident in the following block area interaction with Pat. Wendy and Pat moved to block corner and started to build a tower-like construction. Wendy said, “It’s done, it’s done, Pat” and used her hand to stop Pat from putting more blocks on the tower. Then Wendy said, “We need more blocks” and Pat put another block on the tower. The two girls continued to build up the tower. As Pat put each block on top she looked to Wendy as if for approval. Wendy said, “We need more, we need more of those” pointing to the small blocks they had been standing on end. She followed this with, “Start making the side bits” indicating that enclosures should be made for the plastic animals that were lying on the floor in the block corner. As the play continued Wendy continued to direct the building and created a story involving dinosaurs, elephants and sharks to provide a purpose for the construction (K43). At the end of May the two groups of girls slowly began to coalesce. This was only an occasional event at this time, but by September their play together was an established practice. From the beginning there was an acceptance of

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joint leadership. Rather than competing for leadership Wendy and Sarah worked harmoniously together to direct the play of the enlarged group. Both offered suggestions for roles and for themes and it was rare for one of them to challenge or refuse to accept the suggestion of the other. Each recognized the other’s particular strength, whether it was Sarah’s ability to make crowns (K51) or Wendy’s expertise in organizing and directing family and cooking scenarios in the sandpit (K.52). In the daylong centre there was a group of three girls Sally, Claire, Jenny) who consistently played together. Within the three there were conflicting leadership styles and control of the play fluctuated among the three girls depending on the situation. Claire was more inclined to want to dominate the play. She would move out of the play, often saying, “I don’t want to play this anymore” if she did not get her way. Sally was more inclined to direct the play and to compromise to keep Claire within the play episode. Sally was usually the person who allocated the roles within play episodes she was involved in. Jenny had a much more complex leadership style, moving from a dictatorial to a directorial approach from episode to episode. Jenny also was the girl most able and prone to move into boys play. Just as Simon could take over and direct girls play so Jenny was able to do this with the boys. This was due to her ability to bring new and interesting scenarios into the play, such as “Pretend I’m dead, eh” (Mawson, 2008). The girls’ play was often punctuated by shortterm conflict between which was usually quickly resolved. If resolution was not achieved then this generally led to the withdrawal of one of them from the play. Instances of Claire’s dominant style and Sally’s conciliatory style can be seen in one block corner episode involving them. Within a two-minute period Claire responded to Sally’s refusal to put a block where she had told her with “No we don’t. I’m not your friend anymore” and Sally responded to Claire’s removal of the blocks with “I’m going to make a birthday cake and you can’t have it. You’re not coming to my birthday.” Nevertheless they continued to play cooperatively together for another 12 minutes until Sally dropped to the floor, rolled on her back and said to Claire, “I’m pretending, I’m not going to play” and laughed. Claire walked away and then turned and said, “Don’t say that. Okay, bye” and turned and left the space. Sally ran after her calling, “Hey Claire” (D4). Sally normally acted as mediator in these disputes, often suggesting new play themes to take the focus off the original cause of conflict. During a cooking scenario in the sandpit Jenny and Claire had a disagreement that led Jenny to sit in the sandpit refusing to play with or look at the other two. Sally

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went over, bent right over to look her in the eyes and said “darling’ and offered Jenny her hands to pull her up. When Jenny refused to relent Sally introduced a new idea, “school time, school time” and Jenny decided to join in the new scenario (D5). Maintaining the friendship was an important purpose of the group and others within the threesome would also act as mediators if Sally was one of disputants. One morning Jenny, Sally and Claire were all painting at the easel. They had been enjoying social chat about going to the dentist and doctor and “not being hurt” but “being brave.” Then a dispute developed between Jenny and Sally over the use of the paint and the following exchange occurred. Sally, “But you’re not playing with us Jenny.” Jenny, “I am, eh Claire.” Claire, “No.” Jenny, “Would you be my friend Claire?” Sally, “She’s not anymore.” Claire, “You can be our friend, what about we be all friends, we can be three friends.” Jenny comes back to the painting easel and set about re-establishing the friendship, by asking, “Claire Are you my friend, and Sally are you my friend?” Both Claire and Sally answer “yes.” Claire, “we are all friends.” Jenny asks Sally if she could help her with her picture, and she agrees. Sally, “And did you know, you help me paint my painting, you’re helping me with my painting aren’t you.’ Jenny “Can you help me, do a painting with me” Claire, “Oh, can I help?” Claire, “Can I put some circle white on it?” Jenny, “Yep” (D19).

LEADERSHIP IN MIXED GENDER PLAY There was a clear difference in the amount of mixed gender collaborative play in the two settings. Mixed gender play involved nearly one-third of the episodes in the daylong centre (26/85), but only one-eighth (8/65) in the kindergarten. Three of these kindergarten episodes evolved as a result of boys’ aggressive intervention to disrupt girls’ play in the sandpit. In all three cases the girls were able to resist the boys’ efforts to drive them from the sandpit by

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providing a new and interesting scenario that drew the boys into their play. This aggression/redirection process did not occur in the daylong centre. In the first half of the year in the kindergarten there was little mixed gender collaborative play. An element of mixed gender collaborative play emerged as a group of children entered the morning session at the beginning of July. The key element was the leadership of one girl, Carol who became the recognized leader in a number of collaborative episodes that normally involved several boys. It was very unusual for another girl to be involved in the play. Her core group included four boys, two of whom Joseph and Allen were normally involved in active play involving guns and goodies and baddies. When playing under Carol’s direction however, they were happy to take part in quite different domestic type play. Examples of this type of play were cooking in the sandpit (Field Note 29/8/08), water play ((Field Note 19/09/08), dramatic play as office-workers (K59) and preparing and going on a picnic (K64). In each of these cases Carol set the scenario and allocated the roles and her leadership was never questioned by any of the boys. The picnic episode is a good example of Carol’s leadership. She allocated the roles and actions of the boys, “And you two boys have to carry the basket together because it’s very heavy. Yes all of you boys, Joseph, Steve and Allen have to carry the basket because it is heavy. Everybody, plates, everybody gets some plates, let’s see, that should be enough. Now a bowl, we need one each.” Joseph was allowed to bring his gun to the picnic, and while Carol changed the baby Steve who had been given the role of the father said, “This is the phone for daddy, it’s my work” and he took a phone out of the basket and pretended to talk on it. Joseph also picked up a phone and started a conversation, “I need to . . . one one one, hello fire engine” (K64). Carol already had a strong friendship relationship with her main playmate, Steve that had developed socially outside the kindergarten. There was no strong friendship link with the other three boys prior to moving into the morning session, and Carol’s leadership was based both on an ability to communicate with them in a manner that was firm without being overly dictatorial, and by her ability to incorporate roles and actions that allowed the boys to pursue their own interests within the framework of the play scenario. In the daylong centre mixed gender collaborative play was almost always initiated either by Jenny, Claire, or Sally. Mixed gender scenarios tended to revolve around three themes, ‘monsters’, ‘doctors and hospitals’, and ‘family and pets.’ While Claire and Sally were adept at bringing boys into their play, Jenny, who could adopt either a dictatorial or directorial role, was also able to

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move into boy’s play and take control of the scenario and widen the number of participants in the episode. One of the boys also had this ability. Simon was able to move into other children’s play episodes and change the direction of play without causing conflict in the process. When he moved into a performing animals scenario being acted out by Jenny and Chris he soon transformed the play into much more dramatic scenario involving vampire bats, King Kong, and hospitals (D1). On another occasion Claire, Sally, Jenny, and Katy were involved in a family and school scenario. Simon arrived holding a large syringe and the play quickly turned into a 'monsters, doctors and being dead' scenario into which two other boys and another girl entered (D7). Similarly a group of girls were involved in a family scenario when Simon arrived on the scene. He immediately entered the play announcing “I’m going to be the dad” and within two minutes had introduced a car into the play and was walking round the centre with the girl passengers following him (D15). Friendship ties were the most important element in defining the play group for girls. For the boys, particularly in the daylong centre, the action and plot was more important in the emergence of a collaborative play episode. In both settings control of non-core members into the play was strongly policed, and ‘outsiders’ could never be sure whether their overtures to join in the play would be accepted. Within both settings there were clear gender differences regarding leadership and control in collaborative play. Within boys-only play leadership was invariably dictatorial in style with a clear hierarchical status among the participants. Leadership was asserted in a number of ways. One was to speak in a loud authoritative voice, issuing demands rather than requests (Neppi & Murray, 1997) and to maintain this until opposition was silenced. This was often accompanied by standing up to assume a dominant posture over the rest of the group. Very rarely did they take physical action against another boy, and this was normally seen within the group as an unacceptable use of power, ending the collaborative play that had been occurring. A second technique was to exclude other children from joining the play, or prevent them from taking some action within the play experience. Some boys such as Simon, Peter and Chris were able to act in a directorial manner but this was usually related to episodes of mixed gender play. In both settings the leadership style in girls collaborative play was invariably directorial. Leadership within a play episode was rarely contested. Conflict was usually related to negotiation over the allocation of roles or the development of the scenario and was soon resolved either by incorporating the

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cause of dispute into the existing scenario, or re-directing the play into a new scenario that the entire group felt happy with. Individual strengths were recognized and respected and consensus and compromise was an important element of successful leaders. In situations where the differing strengths of recognised leaders were complementary the leadership would be shared between them. There was significantly more talk in girls’ play than in the boys’ play, in line with the findings of Murphy and Faulkner (2006). It was only in the area of mixed-gender play that clear differences emerge between the two settings. This type of play was both more prevalent, and more invitational in the daylong centre. In the kindergarten not only was mixedgender play much less common, nearly half the observed episodes began with boys attempting to disrupt the girls’ play. However, in both settings involvement in mixed-gender play allowed boys to experience leadership roles and styles that were not often available to them in boys-only play. There was also a greater use of talk by boys in mixed-gender play episodes. There would seem to be real social and language advantages for boys who become involved in this type of play. The key to this different level of involvement in mixed gender play may be related to the different nature of the settings and the length of the children’s interactions within them. The group within the daylong centre was less than half the size of the kindergarten group (18:45) and they were together for at least seven hours every day compared with the three hours a day for the kindergarten children. Most of the children in the daylong centre had also been attending the centre for a number of years so that a strong friendship group had developed, with little change of membership. There was a large turnover of the children in the kindergarten setting during the year and this, combined with the size of the group and the much greater space and freedom to move from inside to outside play resulted in a much less cohesive group. The children in the daylong centre worked within a space created by combining two rooms in an old villa for most of the day. They had access to a small outside deck, but the outdoor play area was at the other end of the house, and their access was limited to set times. The boys and girls were therefore working in close proximity for much of the day, and this contributed to the greater interaction between them. The pedagogy and culture of the centre also was strongly influenced by the example of Reggio Emilia and this may have helped to create a strong group identity among the children. In the kindergarten the children had open access to a large indoor, and expansive outdoor area. As a result the girls tended to focus on indoor activities and the boys on outdoor activities, with little interaction between

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members of the other gender group. Play episodes tended to be shorter and less complex than those in the daylong centre and this appeared to be related to the greater range of activities available to them and the ability to move freely about the whole kindergarten environment. It would appear that there are positive affects for boys who participate in mixed gender play. The significant difference in the amount of mixed gender play between the two early childhood sites appears to be related to environmental factors and the affect of space and available range of resources on children’s collaborative play seems to be worthy of further investigation. This is explored in more depth in chapter eleven.

Chapter 10

CAN I PLAY? INTERVENTION STRATEGIES One of the real challenges that face children is how to successfully enter collaborative play episodes that are in progress. Some children achieve this with little trouble while other children struggle to be included. This chapter uses five children as case studies to explore the nature of intervention strategies and to offer an explanation for the differing success that the children had. Two children, Simon and Jenny invariably were able to enter other children’s play episodes. Their personalities played some part in this. Both children were outgoing, very socially competent, and were recognized as leaders by the other children. These characteristics predisposed the other children to accept them into the play. Another significant factor was the ability of both Simon and Jenny to bring something new to the play that changed its nature and direction. This ability was the most significant difference in the strategies used by successful children like Simon and Jenny and the strategies used by less successful interventionists. An important aspect of this was that the new themes were of high interest to the other children. The following examples are typical of Simon’s success in joining and redirecting other children’s play. Jenny and Chris were playing together in the block corner. They had developed a scenario in which toy animals were performing on a stage they had built with the blocks. Eddie had already attempted to join the play saying, “I’ll sing the music” and proceeding to sing. He had been totally ignored by Jenny and Chris and had not persevered, leaving the block corner. Simon then entered the area carrying a toy bat in his hand. He picked up one of the

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animals on the stage saying, “and he took this one.” Immediately the two other children took up this new theme. Jenny said, “and he took everybody in the whole wide world. And it was a dream eh.” Chris responded, “It was a dream from the bat, eh.” Jenny added: “and he took the daddy” and the play continued developing this new theme. (D1) On another occasion four girls had spent some time creating and acting out a family picnic theme. Simon came over and listened to what they were saying. He went inside and came back with a bunch of keys in his hand. Saying, “I’ve got the keys” he sat on a bench slightly apart from the girls, pretending it was a car. Sally moved over and also sat on the bench and saying “I’m going out to the party so can you take me to the party.” Susan picked up the new theme in her role of mother saying, “The girls are going on a sleepover, the girls are at the door. “ Simon said ‘get in the car” and Sally and Sasha moved over to him and followed him as he walked off holding the keys in front of him and making car sounds. (D15). Another time a group of boys were playing a game in which they were crashing their toy cars into other cars. Simon moved over to the book area where a teacher was handing out wings to the girls and came over to the group of boys wearing fairy wings and saying, “I’m a butterfly, look at my back.” Soon all the boys except Alister moved off to get also wings. With the wings on the boys started a ‘family’ game with Simon allocating the roles, “You can be the dad, you can be the brother” (D10). Jenny also was very adept at moving into other children’s play and redirecting the course of the current scenario. Sasha and Susan were waving long coloured streamers and to doing a butterfly and bird dance. Jenny came along wearing her gymnastics leotard and also picked up a streamer. Jenny gained their attention saying, “Guys, guys, Sasha and Susan, Sasha and Susan, Sasha and Susan, I’m a gymnastics butterfly eh.” The two girls accepted the new idea. Susan said, “And we’re butterflies and got to do gymnastics.” Sasha echoed, “We’re gymnastic butterflies too aren’t we?” Jenny then took control of the play saying Sasha, “You can go and sit over there and you guys can have your go after me” (D45).

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The introduction of “pretend I’m dead’ provides a further example of Jenny’s ability to enter other children’s play by introducing an interesting new theme. Sally, Susan, and Sasha were playing in the block corner. Jenny came up and lay down on the floor saying, “I’m dead, pretend I’m dead eh.” The following conversation then took place as the new theme was developed. Susan, “Who are you?” Jenny, “I’m dead.” Sally, “And pretend I am home and pretend you’re the sister.” Sasha, “And I’m the sisters dog. She’s dead, sister died.” Susan, “Sister died, sister died” (D52). Jenny was able to move into the play even when her first idea had been rejected and then later successfully reintroduce the idea. Jenny came up to John, Alister, and George as they were playing on the deck and asked, “Do you want to play giants?” John responded, “No, we’re playing pirates” Jenny said, “Can I play?” She moved over to the boys picking up a stick in her hand saying, “and this can be mine. This can be my sword.” John took up this idea and pointed to Alister who already had a stick in his hand saying “And that’s Alister’s sword” (D48). Later in the play episode the pirate scenario changed focus when John said, “We should play baddies, eh. We can be the goodies eh, and they can come to our pirate ship.” Jenny seized this opening to reintroduce her original giant suggestion by striding about saying loudly, “Fe, fi fo fum” and stamping vigorously with each phrase. John took up the chant “Fe, fi fo fum” and within seconds Jenny and John were chanting “Fe, fi fo fum” in unison and pretending to be giants chasing George (D48). A number of children found entering existing play episodes much more problematic. Their entry into the play was very dependent on the reaction of the children already playing and there was not a clear consistency of the group, which made it hard for the children to understand which intervention strategies worked and which did not. Katy who was the only girl who consistently played by herself was an interesting individual. This was by choice, she was not rejected by the other children, nor could she be considered an outsider (Rubin, 1982). Often she would be part of a group of children who started to play together. However when she wanted to join in a group already involved in play she had varying success. The more the group had a strong recognized leader, the less likely

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Katy was to succeed. Claire and Sally had been painting a large hessian cylinder for 10-15 minutes. Katy joined them and asked them what they were doing. Claire replied, “We are changing colours to paint.” “Can I help?” asked Katy. This created a conflict of opinion as Claire said, “Yes” and Jenny said “No.” Jenny resolved the matter when she said, “I’m the boss here.” At that Katy left the painting activity. (D6) On another occasion Jenny again thwarted Katy’s effort to join in an existing play episode. She came back from morning tea to a group playing with the toy animals and the blocks. Katy had been part of the group before leaving for morning tea but her re-entry was disputed. When she went to sit down Jenny said, “No Katy, I was sitting, you went away for a while.” Katy replied, “No I was coming back, Jenny,” Despite her continued efforts to establish her prior claim to the place, “But I was here first” Katy was unable to counteract Jenny’s determination to keep her out and the dispute ended with Katy saying, “I know, now you made me very sad. I am sick” (D52) Where there was a less dominant personality directing the play Katy was more likely to successfully enter it, particularly if she was prepared to fall in line with their wishes. Katy joined a group of girls playing a family sociodramatic game. She asked, “Can I be a doll’s sister?” but was told by Sally, “No because we’ve already got two sisters, but we need two babies.” Once she indicated her willingness to take the part by acting in an appropriate baby manner Katy was integrated into the scenario. (D12). Sometimes Katy finally achieved success more by a fortunate chance than by a clear strategy, Katy had attempted on two occasions to join in the play with three other girls, spending a long time kneeling close to them. Despite a couple of verbal injections she was unable to find a way in. Katy finally found a place by starting an irrelevant conversation about a sunny day. Katy, “You know a sunny day means we won’t be able to have a sleep.” Susan, “Why?” Katy, “Because it’s too hot. If we have lunch we won’t be able to sleep, the sun will burn our faces.” Claire echoed, “Burn our faces.” Katy elaborated, “and our bottoms” Claire, “and it will burn our faces and our bottoms.”

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Katy, “We never will be able to have any food or sleep, won’t we.” Having gained their interest Katy was quickly given a role and finally incorporated into the game (D61). Sasha found entering other children’s play more difficult than Katy. Whereas Katy was quite self-sufficient and happy to play by herself Sasha was less independent and actively sought other children’s company. However her lack of social competency skills gave her less popularity and social standing with the other children, which exacerbated her difficulties in intervening in play. She was much more likely to get a strong negative reaction than Katy, who was normally ignored if the other children did not want her in their game. This negativity can be seen in the following interaction. Claire and Sally were playing together in a tent made out of net material. Sasha came over and attempted to join in, grabbing the net. Claire shouted,” No Sasha” and when Sasha continued to pull on the net again cried out, “Hey don’t Sasha.” Sally used the possession of the space to establish their rights saying, “This is our tent.” The possession of the space then became the means of shutting Sasha out of the play. Claire, “Hey, Sasha don’t do it.” Sally, “Yeh, because this is out tent, we made it.” Sally and Claire continued to play ignoring Sasha, while restating their control of the space. Sally, “No-ones allowed in out tent.” Claire, “Yeh, no-ones allowed in out tent, eh.” Sasha left at this point. Sasha tried again later, but by this time Jenny had joined the play and Sasha was rebuffed even more directly as Sally said, “We are playing a game” and Jenny added, “But not with you Sasha” (D7). Unlike Katy Sasha was not able to recognize that compromising on a desired role could provide an entry point into a game. She came over to where Sally and Claire were playing one of their regular family games and asked, “Can I play?” Sally replied, “Yes, but you have to be the big sister.” Sasha responded, “I don’t want to be the big sister.” Claire stated, “If you can’t be the big sister you can’t play” and Sasha again failed in her effort to join the play (D12).

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Even her efforts to use the strategy used so successfully by Jenny and Simon of introducing a new, interesting idea into the play did not work for Sasha. Later in the morning Sasha returned to the group who had spurned her advances earlier. Her best friend Susan had joined Sally and Claire so Sasha said to her, “We’re going to play doctors, aren’t we Susan, eh.” Sasha then said to Sally and Claire, “Do you want to play doctors with me and Susan?” Sasha tried to develop a scenario involving a sick baby using the doll she has taken from Sally saying to her, “Pretend you’ve got a sick baby and she’s got a sore tummy. She’s sick!” Sally, Claire and Susan refused to get involved in Sasha’s scenario and left the area to play on the computer leaving Sasha to play with the doll by herself (D12). Whereas the children who had successful intervention experiences were able to use the play objects as a means of involving themselves in the play Sasha did not have this knack. Eddie and Susan were playing an involved game in the block corner. They were building a city and developing a concurrent storyline about a flood and the need to rescue people in the toy boat they had collected. Sasha picked up and played with a few of the pieces of the city but was unable to use them to involve herself in the developing storyline. Neither Susan nor Eddie gave her any vocal or bodily encouragement as they were engrossed in their own interaction and failing to achieve this Sasha put down the pieces and left the area (D8). This inability to recognize the theme of the children’s play and thus offer an appropriate opening gambit was a common occurrence for Sasha. Claire, Jenny, and Sally were playing a kitten game, meowing and crawling around the floor and picking up a toy dolphin in their mouth. There was lots of kitten play and meowing going on when Sasha came up and said, “Are you going to be sick?” Claire replied, “No, we’re going to be kittens” and Sally and she continued to crawl around the floor meowing leaving Sasha standing where alone (D11). Even Katy’s strategy of introducing an irrelevant topic didn’t work for Sasha. Sally, Jenny and Claire were playing a family game in the climbing frame. Sasha had tried before to get into the game without success. She came back and said, “Sally, guess what, you can come to my birthday.” Sally answered, “I’m going to have a sleepover and a birthday.” Sasha tried to increase the interest level, “I’m going to have a mermaid birthday.”

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However this intervention on Sasha’s part didn’t raise enough interest and Sally turned back to play with the other two girls leaving Sasha still out of the game (D47). Even when she was incorporated in the play Sasha was often treated less fairly by the other children. Sasha had joined Katy and Susan to play a game finding matching pairs of cards. Although the game required children to take turns Sasha really struggled to assert her rights. Once the cards were all spread out Susan said, “My turn”. Katy responded, “I get a turn first.” Susan agreed and Katy turned two cards face over. Susan reached out for a card saying, “I’m after Katy.” Although it was Sasha’s turn Katy had another turn. Susan reached out next and Sasha said, “I didn’t get a turn” but Susan continued to turn over the cards saying, “You’re after me.” When Susan had completed her turn Katy reached out for a card. Sasha complained, “I didn’t get a turn. I’m after Susan” but Katy continued to pick up the cards even though Sasha repeated, “I’m after Susan.” Sasha finally got a turn. She turned up one card, but before she could look for a pair Susan reached across saying, “My turn.” Susan found a matching pair and held them up to show Katy with Sasha yet to have a turn in the game (D37). However Sasha was not excluded every time she attempted to enter other children’s play as often strategies that failed one time would work next time with the same children. This inconsistency made it very difficult for Sasha to understand which strategies would work for her and to learn from the experiences, which needed to be changed or rejected. For instance on once occasion Sasha approached Sally, who as we have seen often acted as a gatekeeper to exclude Sasha from entering play and asked, “Sally, can I play?” Sally, “Yes you can be the other doctor” and Sasha was effortlessly integrated into the group play (D47). One of the boys, Alister also had similar experiences to Sasha in his effort to join in other children’s play, although his intervention strategies illustrated some clear gender differences. Alister also tried to get into play by introducing a new idea, but often it was not related enough to the current scenario for the children to easily incorporate it into their game. Alister had been watching a mixed-gender group playing a mother, father, sisters, babies scenario. He came up to the group and introduced a new idea, “You are going to gaol,” but none of the children respond to this and Claire returned to the existing scenario, saying to Sally, “Pretend I turn into a mummy again and pretend you turn into a daddy again.” Alister persisted in

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his efforts to get into the game, saying, “I’m a monster too” and he kept repeating this. This second attempt to enter the game by providing a new scenario was also ignored and Alister moved off (D7).

“I didn’t get a turn.

Often Alister’s attempts to join others play would disrupt the play and cause conflict. Alister wanted to join in with Lance and Paul as they did a puzzle together lying on the floor. His attempted entry was prevented as the two boys ignored him and carried out a private conversation about friends, birthday parties, stop signs and policemen. Alister then tried a more obtrusive intervention strategy by taking a piece of the puzzle they were working on and hiding it behind his back. Alister was still ignored as Lance and Paul continued to work on the puzzle with the other pieces. Eventually Alister gave his piece back, but was still ignored when he attempted to strike up a conversation with them and he then left the area (D18). Boy’s attempts to enter other boys play tended to be greeted with a greater degree of negativity than was the case with the girls. When George and Alister tried to enter an episode of superhero play that Chris and Simon were involved in they were rejected by both boys with a loud “No!!” from Chris (D34). Often Alister was invited into the girls’ play, especially if they needed a ‘monster’ in their scenario. Alister was the biggest boy in the group, but was very gentle with the girls so was able to be a scary but not threatening monster

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for them. However when he tried to intervene in girl play without their invitation he was normally rejected. A group of girls were playing a fantasy game with revolving around their fairy horses. Alister came and started to play with Claire’s fairy horse and the necklaces it was wearing. Katy came up and said, “That’s girls stuff, that’s girls stuff, Alister.” Alister ignored Katy’s comment and continued to play with the horse and the necklaces. Katy then said, “I’ll go and ask Claire.” Katy left the area and went to talk to Claire. She came back and said Alister, “Alister, Claire says you can’t use her pony.” Claire also came in to the area and said to Alister, “You can’t use that” and Alister put down the pony and left the area. This episode has some significant elements of leadership status among the girls, and gender stereotyping as well as being an example of the Alister’s ineffective intervention strategies. Whereas the girls accepted Simon on his terms, Alister’s acceptance into girls play was very much on their terms (D36). Even when he was involved in mixed gender play Alister’s status was always being challenged by the girls in a way that Simon’s never was. A complex game of family, death, doctors, and hospitals had been going for over 20 minutes. When Alister attempted to increase the importance of his role in the game he was immediately challenged by Sally. A conflict arises as Alister says, “I’m the boss!” Sally retorts, “You’re not the boss ‘cause I’m a boss.” Alister repeats, “I’m a boss doctor.” Sally, “You’re not the boss.” Alister, “I’m a boss doctor.” Sally, “You’re not.” Alister concedes and goes back to his initial role as the family dog. Simon’s role as the most important doctor was not seen as problematic by Sally and the other boys and girls involved in the play (D56). The success of Alister’s efforts to enter boys play depended very much on who was leading the play. Because of his physical presence Alister could normally integrate himself into the play of other boys. However whenever the dominant male, John was involved in the play, entry became much more problematic for Alister. Often the intervention effort resulted in conflict, with Alister invariably the loser. The intervention strategies in these events became intertwined with the intricacies of boy’s leadership and hierarchical status. On one occasion John and Bill were on the deck pouring water from plastic containers into a series of hoses attached to the wall. Alister came over

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with a cup of water and a piece of hose. When he attempted to pour his water into the hose on the wall John stopped him saying, “Alister I want to put mine up here.” Alister, in a whining voice, protested, “But I need to pour some water. John I have to put some water on.” Alister tried to push John’s cup away, and John hit him causing Alister to cry. Alister continued to complain and cry for a while and then went and got another cup of water. When he came back John again prevented him put the water in the pipe. When he tried again Bill prevented him from pouring his water in to the pipe. It was only after John and Bill moved away that Alister was able to pour his water down the pipe (D48). Where other boys of reasonably equal status were concerned Alister found it much easier to enter their play. Even permission seeking strategies were likely to be successful in these cases. Paul was in the sand pit smoothing the sand using a long plastic pipe. Alister was sitting on the sandpit wall holding a ladle. He looked at Paul and said, “Paul, do you need some sand on it now?” Alister got up and put a ladleful of sand on the smoothed area. Paul smoothed the new sand into his road and the two boys continued to work together to place and smooth the sand (D65). Children such as Jenny and Simon who were very popular and accepted as leaders by the other children had a wide repertoire of intervention strategies that usually allowed them not only to easily enter other children’s existing play episodes but also to take a dominant role as the episode developed. For less popular children who rarely experienced leadership in collaborative play episodes, entering other children’s play was much more problematic. Alister and Sasha tended to try both permission seeking and intrusion strategies with limited success. They were unable to develop a portfolio of successful strategies because of the inconsistent responses they were getting as the same intervention gambit in similar play contexts would sometimes be accepted by the other children and at other times be rejected out of hand.

SECTION THREE – IMPLICATIONS

Chapter 11

ENVIRONMENTS The affect of the environment on children’s play is well recognised The environment is an intricate interaction of spaces, resources, values, patterns of expected behaviour and interactions, but these are under the control of early educators and can be shaped and sustained by them (Anning & Edwards, 2006). The nature and significance of the environment on children’s play covers not only the physical context, but also is inextricably tied in to the personal and social contexts also (King, 1991). Children’s frequent participation in shared activity is a key characteristic of potentiating environments that stretch and develop young children (Claxton & Carr, 2004). The constraints of the environment on children’s play have been recognized by Kritchevesky, Prescott and Walling (1997), “What is in a space, a room or a yard, and how it is arranged can affect the behaviour of people; it can make it easier to act in certain ways, harder to act in others . . .. particular settings invite children to involve themselves in particular activities and the extent of children’s constructive participation will depend to a large part on how well certain concrete, measurable aspects of the surrounding physical space meet their ‘hunger, attitudes and interests” (p.5).

A range of views has been expressed on specific relationships between the environment and children’s play. The size and arrangement of play spaces influences both the nature of children’s activities and the number of children who can be involved (King, 1991). Smith (1992) makes a case for physical environments that encourage dramatic play such as puppets and family play areas that can provide opportunities for playing out emotional stories and

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exploring meaning about emotion. If children are denied opportunities to move physically in their dramatic play then their education may be constrained (Bruce, 1991). Curtis and Carter (2003) see a need for flexibility in setting up and changing environments to provide restful places for emotional as well as physical replenishment. They believe children need getaway spaces for small groups to explore relationships and ideas without interruption. Shim, Herwig and Shelley (2001) examined the different effects of indoor and outdoor settings on peer play of younger and older preschool children, and the influence of each play environment on children’s behaviours with peers. Children who do not have a rich learning environment were more like to engage in less complex peer play. Children were more likely to engage in the most complex forms of interactive play on the outdoor playground, which they suggest may be due to less-structured equipment in that setting. Stephenson (2002) identified significant differences in children’s play and teacher-child interactions between outside “look at me’ and inside ‘look what I’ve made’ environments. The inside environment was more stable, more controlled and teachers were more reluctant to provide modeling or direct instruction for the children. Cullen (1993) found that children’s outdoor play had little teacher intervention or interaction and tended to produce physical rather than creative play. Children themselves appear to want teachers to play with them (Greenfield, 2007). In indoor situations Petrakos and Howe (1996) found that teacher intervention and follow up led to a higher frequency and greater complexity of socio-dramatic play.

THE PHYSICAL SETTING OF THE DAYLONG CENTRE AND THE KINDERGARTEN The daylong centre was situated in an old villa that had been adapted for use as an early childhood centre by the removal of two internal walls to make larger internal spaces. The infants and younger toddlers, the smallest group, occupied one normal sized bedroom. The middle group of children, who were aged from about two years to three years, three months, occupied one of the larger created spaces. This group also had a small outside area for their own use. The older children who were the participants in the research had another larger created space at the back of the house and a reasonably sized elevated

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deck for their use. Part of the space was also used as the dining area for the other two groups as the wall between their rooms and the kitchen had also been removed. When the other children were eating the space available for the older children became more restricted. There was a large outdoor area in the front of the house that had a big sandpit, climbing frames, and a playhouse within it. The children did not have free access to the outside area. They normally were able to play in this outside area for one and a half hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon and often had to share it with the middle group of younger children. In comparison the kindergarten was in a purpose built building that was about the same size as the complete house of the daylong centre. The outside area was also more than twice the size of that available to the children in the daylong centre, and it had more fixed equipment in it. This consisted of a larger sandpit, swings; two play houses, a large slide, a water trough, a permanently set up carpentry table, and a painting and collage area. As well as having more space and equipment outside the children in the kindergarten also had a greater variety of resources and play spaces available to them inside, including a large, well stocked ‘home’ space for domestically themed socio-dramatic play. There was free-flow from the inside space to the outside play area, and apart from formal group times the children were free to play wherever they wished.

PLAY VARIANCE IN THE TWO SETTINGS The differences in the type and nature of independent collaborative play between the two early childhood setting seem to be related both to the physical environment and the social and pedagogical culture. Although the kindergarten children had more space to play and a greater range of activities and resources to choose from, their collaborative play was less complex and less sustained than that of the daylong children. The lesser complexity could be seen both in the range and depth of the themes explored in the play and the sophistication of the language used in the play. While the daylong children tended to remain focused on the scenario they were involved in, the kindergarten children tended to move more quickly in and out of collaborative play episodes and to also move from place to place during the play. On average a play episode would be twice as long in the daylong setting compared to the kindergarten. Elaborate scenarios lasting more than an hour were common in the daylong centre, but rarely occurred in the kindergarten. There was also a greater

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incidence of mixed gender play in the daylong centre than in the kindergarten. Twenty-seven percent of the 85 episodes in the daylong centre involved mixed gender play compared with six percent of 64 episodes in the kindergarten. There was no discernable progression in the breadth or depth of the collaborative play scenarios during the year in both the daylong centre and kindergarten. The children in both centres tended to repeat scenarios without developing the roles or situations. Although the children’s vocabulary increased during the year this was not reflected in a deeper exploration of the social concepts that underpinned their socio-dramatic scenarios. There was also no development in the sophistication and complexity of the outcomes of block, construction set, or sand play. Differences in the amount of space to play in and the amount of resources available for play in the daylong centre and kindergarten led to different patterns of play emerging. A greater percentage of independent collaborative play (57%) took place in the indoor setting in the daylong centre than in the kindergarten (45%). The home corner was a key element in the kindergarten children’s collaborative play, 60% of the indoor episodes taking place in that space. Nearly all this play revolved around caring for babies and preparing and eating food using the playdough that was always set out on the table. As there was no similar facility in the daylong centre the children’s play was less focused on the use of props and the socio-dramatic play in that centre encompassed a wider range of themes. Doctors and ‘pretend I’m dead’ (Mawson, 2008) were significant topics of play in the daylong centre, yet were absent in the kindergarten. Although the incidence of block and construction set play was similar for both settings (30/32%) there were clear gender differences. In the daylong centre girls were as likely to play collaboratively with the blocks as were boys. On three occasions mixed gender block play occurred. In the kindergarten there was only one episode of girls playing in the block corner. On that occasion the girls’ play was disrupted by a group of three boys within ten minutes causing the girls to leave the area. The sandpit was the main arena of outside independent collaborative play in the kindergarten, 72% of the observed episodes taking place within it. On most occasions water was also involved in the sandpit play, as a hose was freely available to the children. Both boys and girls played in the sandpit, the girls play normally focused on pretend cooking scenarios and the boys on castle, volcano or road construction scenarios. Only one episode of collaborative water play took place outside the sandpit although a water trough was available everyday. The water trough was a place of solitary or parallel play in the kindergarten.

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Sandpit play accounted for only 31% of the outdoor collaborative play episodes in the daylong centre and water was involved in less than half of the episodes. Water was only available from a storage tank and had to be carried into the sandpit. As the storage tank depended on rain catchment to fill it, water needed to be husbanded and it was not always available to the children. Two small water troughs were available on the outside deck and a significant amount (28%) of collaborative play was centred on them. A greater amount of outdoor non-facility based collaborative play took place in the daylong centre (40%) compared to the kindergarten (26%). Again there was a much greater incidence of mixed-gender play and a wider range of scenarios evident in the daylong centre compared to the kindergarten. There were 11 episodes (17%) in the kindergarten where the play began inside, normally in the home corner, and moved outside as the scenario developed. This did not occur in the daylong centre where free access from indoor to outdoor was not available. There appear to be three factors that contributed to the different nature of independent collaborative play within the two settings. These factors are the physical setting and restrictions on free movement, the children’s relationships, and the pedagogical beliefs of the teachers. As the daylong children did not have the choice whether to play indoor or outdoor the gender division of play that occurred in the kindergarten with the boys tending to play outdoors and the girls indoors did not have an opportunity to develop. The preference for boys to play in outdoor environments and girls to play in indoor environments is one of a number of gender differences in the choice of play environments and activities (Frost, Shin, & Jacobs, 1998). This was strongly evident in the kindergarten setting. One affect of this was the lack of boys block play in the kindergarten. Block play is seen as a consistent element of boys play (Rubin, Maioni, & Hornung, 1976) yet was almost totally absent in the kindergarten, involving only one of the 64 collaborative play episodes observed. In comparison 16 (19%) episodes in the daylong centred involved block play, and the majority of these involved boys. These findings suggest that less may be more in terms of access to space and resources for rich collaborative play in early childhood settings. Although other factors such as the length of time the children had been together as a group, and the Reggio influenced pedagogy of the staff played a part, the more limited space, lower freedom of movement, restricted play sites and materials available to the children in the daylong centre does seem to be significant in accounting for the greater complexity and duration of their independent collaborative play compared to the kindergarten children.

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The different quality of the relationships among the children also seem to have a played a part, particularly with regard to the much greater incidence of mixed-gender play in the daylong centre. The smaller size of the daylong group, and the fact that they had been together as a group for a longer period of time than the kindergarten children seems relevant. Many of the daylong children had been together for over three years, whereas the children in the kindergarten entered the morning session at about age four and there was a constant change as children moved onto compulsory schooling when they turned five. The children in the daylong centre spent much of their time together as a group in the quite small inside space. They were constantly aware of what the other children were doing, and needed to negotiate and compromise on a regular basis to maintain harmony within the group. The greater length and complexity of independent collaborative play in the daylong centre would seem to be related to Matthews’ finding (1977, cited in Rubin, 1980) that fantasy play becomes more complex and ideational and less constrained by the physical environment with increasing participant familiarity Different pedagogical beliefs also seem to have been significant in the differences in collaborative play in the three settings. The strong Reggio influence on the pedagogy within the daylong centre may have had an impact on the greater incidence of mixed-gender independent collaborative play in that setting. During their time in the centre the children had been engaged in a number of long-term investigations. These projects involved a good deal of mixed-gender discussion and collaborative documentation that encouraged both language and social development. This familiarity with collective indepth inquiry and mixed-gender grouping appeared to be carried over into their play with each other. The larger number and richness of vocal interactions in the daylong centre seemed to mirror the types of interaction that were recorded in the pedagogical documentation of the long-term investigations they had been involved in. Effective adult mediation in make-believe play may be a vital element of developing mature play (Bardova, 2008). Research into effective early childhood pedagogy in Britain found that excellent settings tend to achieve a balance between adult-led and child-initiated interactions, platy and activities (Siraj-Blachford et al, 2002, cited in Wood, 2007). In both the daylong centre and the kindergarten the teacher practice was not to intervene in the independent collaborative play. Any intervention primarily had one of two purposes, and invariably had a negative affect on the play. One purpose was to direct the children to end the play to come to mat time or another routine such as a mealtime. The other was when the children were perceived as being to

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noisy or physical with each other, or transgressing other established behavioural rules. There was no discernable progression in the breadth or depth of the collaborative play scenarios during the year in both the daylong centre and kindergarten. The children in both centres tended to repeat scenarios without developing the roles or situations. Although the children’s vocabulary increased during the year this was not reflected in a deeper exploration of the social concepts that underpinned their socio-dramatic scenarios. There was also no development in the sophistication and complexity of the outcomes of block, construction set, or sand play. In view of this lack of progression of complexity in language, themes and construction techniques in the daylong centre and the kindergarten a case might be made for a greater teacher involvement in children’s collaborative play. Teachers are reluctant to become involved in children’s socio-dramatic play (Smilansky, 1990). Kemple, David, and Hysmith (1997) found that most teacher interventions in children’s peer play have a negative effect, and that was the case in the daylong centre and the kindergarten. Setting up a potential rich learning experience such as a post office is not a sufficient guarantee that rich play and learning will take place. Any teacher intervention needs to be based on intent observation of the play episode and a clear understanding of how the intervention will enhance the play episode and encourage children’s learning (Kitson, 1997). Further research is needed to see whether a link between involvement in Reggio-influenced investigations and rich independent collaborative play suggested above exists. The nature and impact of adult intervention in children’s collaborative play in a range of settings also is a field requiring much greater research.

Chapter 12

GENDER It has been suggested that beginning from about age three children begin to separate themselves along gender lines to such an extent that by age seven they can be seen as two distinct cultures (Maccoby, 1998). Although beginning within the girls this process becomes stronger within boys social interactions from about the age of four. As outlined in chapter one a fairly large number of differences in girls and boys play and relationships have been identified. Although it is possible for some children to find strategies that allow them to challenge these gender roles (Fernie, Davies, Kantor, & McMurray, 1993) the early childhood environment is seen as a positive force in establishing and validating traditional gender roles. The evidence from the two centres both supports and contradicts the “Two culture” view of children’s gendered interactions. In the kindergarten setting there were few examples of mixed gender play. Apart from the play instituted by Carol that has been described in the chapter on leadership the episodes of mixed gender play emerged from girls responses to boys efforts to disrupt their play. As has been discussed in detail earlier (Chapter 9) there were clear gender differences in leadership style within the two settings of the research project. The differences in the type of language used to influence other children’s behaviour mirrored those described by Neppi and Murray (1997). The predominant male manner of speaking, even when working harmoniously with friends was authoritarian and based on demands rather than requests. The girls consistently used a more conciliatory spoken relationship. There was a change however in the boys common spoken behaviour when working in mixed groups experiences where they more closely modeled the girls’ vocal interactions.

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There were very noticeable quantitative differences in the amount of spoken interaction within same gender play experiences. The evidence in this study contradicted the findings of Cook, Fritz, McCornack, and Visperas (1985) who found that males talked more to same sex peers than girls. When playing together the girls were normally maintaining a continual dialogue, some of which was related to the play episode and some of which was purely social in nature and related to consolidating their friendship ties. On the other hand, the most striking element of boys’ collaborative play was the lack of oral communication between them. The transparent nature of the props they were using, and the action that was the focus of the play seemed to provide sufficient shared understanding for the play to be maintained and for plot development to take place (Black & Hazen, 1990; Cook et al, 1985). A typical example of the lack of spoken communication in boys play occurred in the sandpit in the daylong centre. John started to dig a trench beside and parallel to the sandpit wall. Simon, Arthur, Alister and Bill soon joined him, and taking their cue from John’s action began to increase the length of the trench. As soon as the other boys had started digging John stood up, and after pointing where he wanted Simon to dig John went over to the water tank to fill a bucket up with water. John returned to the trench and poured the bucket of water into it. He then handed the bucket to Bill who went to refill it. Alister also stopped the digging and went to fetch some water. As Bill and Alister returned with the water John would point where he wanted it. Simon continued to dig the trench and Bill and Alister to pour water in it for another ten minutes at John’s direction without a word be spoken by any of the boys (D59). On another occasion John and Chris spent 40 minutes constructing a builders yard with minimal discussion between them. Their collaboration required them to find and fetch more than a dozen pieces of drainage pipe and guttering from the other side of the outside area, bring two large mats from another area, and use these and other props such as a ladder and road sign to construct the builder’s yard. Only when they had built the yard did they begin to talk to each other as they developed and expanded the ‘being builder’s’ scenario (D30). There was a much greater incidence of aggressive actions in the boys play. Much of this was related to hierarchical power struggles for leadership of the play episode rather than disagreement as to the nature of the play or the theme of the scenario being played out. Such aggressive actions tended to be quickly resolved and rarely resulted in the loser being excluded from or choosing to leave the play episode. Girls’ disputes were more likely to be played out in

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spoken interactions with very little physically aggressive episodes. The focus of the aggressive action was generally focused on relationships rather than the action of the play episode and was exclusionist in nature, with the phrases “you’re not my friend” or “you can’t come to my birthday party” featuring prominently. Often the target of the aggression would choose to leave the play episode and look to move into another play group. The themes of the girls and boys play were as gender stereotyped as those found in previous research (e.g. Neppi & Murray, 1997; Pellegrini & Smith, 1998; Rogers & Evans 2006). There was a very strong element of domestic related themes in the girls play. There was a fascination with playing out family relationships and rituals, with a strong focus on food related scenarios. This was consistent whether playing inside at home corner or block corner, or outside playing in the sandpit. Literacy related themes were another clear element in the girls play. Often this was a reworking of stories and characters from popular media. The role of the teacher taking mat time or giving the other children ‘schoolwork” to do was a favourite activity for two girls within both settings. They were always able to find other children, normally girls, willing to act as their students. Episodes of emergent writing were often built into the girls play. The girls were more likely to build being chased by and escaping monsters into their play. The boy’s play was more often focused on scenarios involving vehicles or construction-related activities. The sandpit rather than the block corner was the preferred location for these construction scenarios and the play often incorporated water. ‘Goodies and baddies’ was also a very common theme in both settings, although it was only in the kindergarten that this was accompanied by a strong element of gun play. One notable absence in both settings was superhero play. In the private daylong centre there were two boys who often wore Spiderman or Superman costumes to the centre but rarely did they develop a play episode based on those characters. A typical example of this is seen in the photograph on the next page as Simon and Chris earnestly discuss the next stage in building the police station that was to be the base for the police and baddies game they were playing (D 34) In both the early childhood settings there were occasions when one gender tried to exclude the other from their game or from the area they were playing in. In the daylong centre this more often was girls excluding boys and was focused on what was appropriate play for boys and girls. Alister had picked Katy Claire’s pink, fluffy fairy horse that also had necklaces around its neck and started playing with it. Katy came up to him and said, “That’s girls stuff, that’s girls stuff, Alister”. When Alister ignored her

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statement continued to play with the horse and the necklaces Katy said, “I’ll go and ask Claire.” Katy came back and said to Alister, “Alister, Claire says you can’t use her pony.” Claire also arrived and reinforced the point, “Alister, you can’t use that.” Alister put down the pony and left the area (D36). On another occasion Lilli, Susan and Sasha were playing a chasing game. George asked if he could play but Sally answered. “Only girls can play” and George left. Later John tried to enter the play but again was rebuffed with Sasha saying, “You’re not playing John” and Sally backing her up, “Yea, he’s not playing.” Although he persevered John also was not able to enter the game (D56).

“Where do the baddies go?”

The boys would often use exclusionist talk when no girls were around to establish their right to play with toys or to play in a certain area. A group of boys in the daylong centre were playing a police and baddies game with the toys cars and John said, “Boys only can play with these cars. We’re officers, eh guys, we’re officers Bill” (D54). This type of talk was more likely to take place in the kindergarten. During a boys-only play episode in the sandpit the boys start chanting, “No adults, no teenagers, boys are in the sandpit, no

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babies, no girls allowed in the sandpit only boys.” This led to the following exchange, Barry, “No girls allowed on here.” Clive, “No girls allowed in the sandpit.” Henry, “Only boys, boys, boys, boys, boys, no girls allowed.” Barry, “Yes and when the girls come in I will get the axe.” Henry, “Yes and we will slice their heads off, yes and then we’ll slice the feet off” (K8). Peter and Clive had a similar exchange a week later as they played together in the sand pit. Peter said, “We’re both dads and no mums allowed.” Clive replied, “No mums or sisters allowed” (K10). Within the kindergarten the boys consistently attempted to discourage girls from playing in two areas they saw as being their preserve, the sand pit and the block corner. Wendy and Pat were quietly digging a big hole in the far corner of the sand pit and getting water from the trough and pouring it into the hole. A group of five boys were playing on the other side of the sand pit. Henry looked over to where Wendy & Pat were working and said to Barry, “Pour the poison in the girls thing. They want juice. We’re going to poison their juice.” He took a bucket of water over to Wendy & Pat’s hole. Wendy tried to tip it out of the bucket, but Henry evaded her and poured it in the girls’ hole saying, “I’m going to put poison juice in. There’s animal poison in this.” Barry and Henry repeated the process with Wendy again unsuccessful in her efforts to stop them filling in the girl’s hole. Pat also tried to stop the boys saying, “don’t do it any more.” Pat and Wendy went to a teacher for help. They came back to the sand pit and Pat said to the boys “Stop it, we don’t like it.” Wendy repeated, “I don’t like it, we’ve had enough eh!” This did not prevent the boys from continuing to disrupt the girls’ play (K32). On another occasion Liesha and Elizabeth had begun to play in a hole that the boys had dug earlier in the day before going inside to watch a DVD. Carlos came out from the DVD and saw the girls digging in the hole. Carlos said, “Stop that, that’s Fred’s hole. ” Elizabeth replied, “We’re making it deeper so the baddies will fall in.” Carlos said, “That will make Fred angry” and he went back inside to tell Fred what is happening to the hole. The girls were still prepared to dispute ownership of the hole, Elizabeth saying, “We’re going to keep digging, we’re going to.” Alf comes out with Carlos and said, “Stop digging the hole, Fred will be really angry.”

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Carlos, “Yeah, we told him.” Alf, “He will be very angry and he will push you in the hole.” Carlos, “You must stop digging this in one minute or I’ll get my gun.” The two boys again went back inside. The girls were now having second thoughts about maintaining possession of the hole and they involved me in the situation, Elizabeth saying to me, “Do you think we should stop digging? We’re going to keep digging until the boys come out.” Liesha, “You tell us when the boys are coming eh.” Carlos and Alf come out with the guns they had made using the construction set. Carlos, “I told you to stop digging.” Alf, “We’re going to push you in the hole.” The confrontation now took a more aggressive turn as Carlos threw a sandal that hit Liesha on the peak of her cap. I intervened to stop the physical action of the boys, but they still saw themselves as the aggrieved party with Carlos saying, “They’re doing something wrong, that’s our hole” K54c) Boys’ claims of possession of the block corner normally involved physical action against the girls’ constructions. Ellen, Elizabeth and Liesha had been playing in the block corner for 23 minutes building houses for their toy animals. Barry and Fred came into the block corner. Fred began to drop pieces of a construction set into Elizabeth’s house and then he started taking Elizabeth’s animals from within her house. The boys soon had taken all of Elizabeth’s animals effectively stopping her play. Fred then looked at Elizabeth’s house and said,” That can be my army base” and proceeded to smash it to pieces. The three girls left the block area four minutes after the boys’ arrival (K47). On another occasion Andrew came into the block corner and knocked over the tower that Wendy and Pat had worked on for over fifteen minutes and Wendy and Pat immediately left the block area (K43). The boys would sometimes stake a claim to areas that were normally seen as girls’ places. Gretchen and Rose were playing in the home corner when Peter, Clive and Fred moved into the home corner and sat down at the play dough table in the middle of the space. Peter’s first action was to attempt to prevent Gretchen and Rose playing in the area and a teacher had to intervene to intervene to allow the girls to stay. Peter again later on tried to stop them moving from the bed to the oven area. He shoved a pushchair they were using out of the home corner and saying, “nobody is allowed in the house, no girls” (K14).

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Although there were clear gender differences in the nature of the collaborative play in that boys and girls had clearly defined favourite playing spaces, there was relatively little overt exclusion of one gender by the other during free play times. Much of the boys talk was among themselves and not specifically targeted at girls. It seemed more part of the establishment of male identity than a real attempt to exclude the girls from the sandpit or the block area, and it was much more common for both boys and girls to be sharing the space, particularly the sandpit. Girls in the kindergarten where most of the boy exclusion talk and activities occurred seemed to be relatively unconcerned by the boys aggression, and if they wanted to stay within the disputed space usually were able to find strategies that incorporated the boys into their play. The lesser complexity of the boys collaborative play, and lack of oral communication compared to the girls’ talk should concern early childhood educators as this seems to be reflected in the boys lower academic achievement in their first year of compulsory schooling. Five areas are identified and teaching and learning strategies for enhancing boys learning are discussed in the next chapter which looks at how early childhood educators can encourage the amount and complexity of collaborative play in their centres.

Chapter 13

ENCOURAGING COLLABORATIVE PLAY STRATEGIES TO ENCOURAGE AND FACILITATE SPONTANEOUS COLLABORATIVE PLAY Both my research and the literature on collaborative play suggest that there are a number of approaches that early childhood educators can take that will lead to an increase in the amount and complexity of collaborative play in their setting.

RESOURCING PLAY A greater range of realistic props would serve to encourage boy’s sociodramatic collaborative play. It is preferable to have more than one item of uniform clothing (e.g. Fireman’s hat, construction workers jacket) than a number of different items as this allows group scenarios to develop in which conflicts over possession of the prized clothing item do not play a part, and group scenarios are easier to plot. Many of the resources that are provided for children’s play have stereotyped usages associated with them, and tend to result in same-gender collaborative play. There are clear benefits of mixed-gender play episodes, particularly for boys in terms of language development and social skills. When planning to resource play areas then a focus on props that will allow mixed gender play with roles acceptable and comfortable for all is important. Similarly, attention should be given to providing flexible materials rather than fixed or directive resources. Children should be able to rearrange outdoor

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structures to provide settings for their collaborative play but cannot do this if they are either fixed or too heavy. A collection of cardboard boxes, empty food packets, cardboard tubes etc is a richer resource for collaborative play than a commercial construction set such as Duplo™. Early childhood settings tend to be highly structured spatially around traditional areas of play such as the block corner, the home corner, the art area, and the library corner. If these rigid divisions can be broken down and some integration of resources achieved then the range of potential play scenarios for children are significantly increased. Quite simple juxtapositions such as putting blocks in the home corner or sandpit, providing drawing materials in the block corner or beside the carpentry table, and providing sources of running water in the sandpit can have quite dramatic impacts on the nature of collaborative play in the early childhood setting.

TEACHING STRATEGIES The positive affects of teacher involvement in children’s fantasy and socio-dramatic play on the complexity of the play have been described by Kitson (1997). However research suggests that teachers only become involved in children’s spontaneous collaborative play in 1-2% of the time that it occurs, and that less than 20% of these interventions have positive impact on the play episode (Kemple, David & Hysmith, 1997). They believe that free play produces statistically significant more verbal interactions than does teacher directed activities, and the cognitive level of the discourse, particularly in cooperative play, is also significantly higher. Teacher’s need to take time to closely observe the play episode, and to be clear that any intervention they make will have a positive impact on the play. One morning in the kindergarten a group of five boys had been playing together in the sandpit for just over 15 minutes. In that time they had built a volcano and had developed an increasingly more complicated storyline using dinosaur and gorilla (King Kong) plastic animals. As the story processed they plot turned to escaping from King Kong and the volcano that was about to erupt. At this point Barry leapt on top of the volcano and shouted out in a very loud voice “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.” Immediately the teacher on outside duty demanded to know why Barry was making that noise, which he should have known was not acceptable behaviour. Although Barry and the other boys attempted to explain that they were calling out for rescue their explanations

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were ignored and the result was that by the time the teacher had re-emphasised the appropriate noise rule the rich play episode ground to a halt (K37). Appropriate intervention does result in greater complexity of the play. Careful observation of play can also provide the opportunity to enhance the play by the subtle addition of resources rather than direct intervention in the play. In the kindergarten a teacher had been watching a group of children playing out a collaborative construction activity in the sandpit involving building roads and houses. The play was starting to lose direction and focus. The teacher moved over to the storage shed and took out a couple of traffic cones. She then went inside to the dress-up corner and collected three construction worker jackets. Without saying anything to the group in the sandpit she placed the cones and the jackets on the sandpit wall some distance from the play, but within the children’s eyesight. Within two minutes the children had incorporated the cones and jackets into their play, which now had serious road works built into it and two of the children had gone inside to make ‘stop’ and ‘road works” signs to use in the play (K24). Teachers can also use stories at group times to provide provocations for children’s own narratives within socio-dramatic play. Discussion about narratives and stories enables children to start to see the structure that underlies story-telling and dramatic representation that they can start to build into their own play. Group time can be used to provide positive superhero scenarios which can be incorporated and adapted by the children into their play in a way which allows them to explore the sense of power and control inherent in this play in ways which adults feel comfortable with. The powerful impact of children’s own story-telling has been vividly demonstrated by Vivian Gussin Paley in books such as The boy who would be a helicopter (Paley, 1990) and the techniques she uses have been adapted very successfully by many other early childhood educators. There are a range of other teacher interventions that appear to have a positive impact on children’s collaborative play. The ability to move into the play in a subordinate role rather than a directing role allows teacher’s to offer suggestions which the children feel able to accept or reject. This type of involvement enables the teacher to instigate discussion about different perspectives of the various roles within the scenario and to move the play away from a focus on the props and situation and conversation to a focus on narrative and dramatic dialogue. Allied to the role of participant is role of provocative passer-by, where an insightful comment or question based on prior careful observation of the play offers the children a new direction for the episode to move in.

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The teacher also plays a vital role in creating and maintaining an environment and culture that encourages collaborative play. Greenman (1988) clearly set out the dimensions of this, writing An environment is a living, changing system. More than a physical space, it includes the way time is structured and the roles we are expected to play. It conditions how we feel, think, and behave; and it dramatically affects the quality of our lives. The environment either works for us or against us as we conduct our lives (p.5).

Teachers impose a number of physical and intellectual constraints on children’s play. Some of these constraints can be justified in terms of safety and protection, but often rules governing children’s play appear to be based more on the convenience of the teachers rather than the interests of the children. These rules include such things as not taking blocks or play dough outside, not allowing superhero play, and noise limits. It is important that we examine rules and routines we have set in our early childhood settings and ask for whose benefit are they made, what is valued and what is devalued/denied in the policy. When planning to provide resources for children on a daily level it appears that a lesser choice of activities may encourage greater collaborative play. This was the case with regard to the private day care centre and the kindergarten in the research project reported in this chapter. The lesser range of resources led to a greater interaction between the children and the focus on the more limited range of resources and activities led to a sharing of ideas and suggestions for group play.

STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE BOYS LEARNING One of the challenges that face educators in many education systems including New Zealand is the difference in achievement between boys and girls that is already evident by the end of their first year of compulsory schooling. Collaborative play in early childhood settings provides some clear opportunities to provide experiences relevant to boys that will better equip them as they transition to compulsory schooling. There are five areas in particular that can be addressed. These are rough and tumble play, mixed gender play, literacy activities, technological activities and war/super hero play.

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Rough and tumble play serves three potential functions for boys– affiliation (form and maintain friendships), dominance (establish social hierarchy and therefore minimise conflict) and social skill facilitation (popularity). It encourages the pretence play of boys, which tends to be more fantastic and physically vigorous, often co-occurring with play fighting and superhero themes. Boys use rough and tumble play to express care for one another and to develop friendships (Reed and Brown, 2000). It is believed to aid self-esteem. The prescription of aggressive play impacts on the self-esteem of boys, and also affects the self-confidence of girls to engage in active and boisterous play scenarios (Holland, 2003). Rough and tumble is one of the three areas that allow children to experience risky play. Rough-and-tumble play is a fine balance between play fighting and real fighting. Keeping the play situation on the borderline between play fighting (pure exhilaration) and real fighting (pure fear) is one of the central points of this kind of play. There are a number of strategies teachers can use to encourage safe rough and tumble play. It is important to clearly define the play protocols with children. These will include such items as no involvement with children that don’t want to play, no punching or hitting with an object and stopping the moment someone says they don’t want to play. It may be useful to clearly define an area in which rough and tumble play is allowed. This makes supervision of the play easier and allows children who do not want to get involved to avoid the rough and tumble play. Often attempts by teachers to intervene to control rough and tumble play either are ignored or lead to confrontational debates with the children. A strategy that has been used with success in New Zealand early childhood settings is the use of yellow and red cards similar to those used by referees in sports matches. In New Zealand most four-year-old boys are very aware of these cards and what they mean. Holding up a yellow card (you are being too rough) or a red card (time out from the play for one minute) gives the appropriate message to the child without disrupting the game or involving debate with the child. Other ways in which rough and tumble type play can be appropriately incorporated in early childhood setting include putting greater risk and challenge into the obstacle courses set up for the children and introducing games with rules. In New Zealand these include touch rugby and touch bulrush, which is a game that involves mass movement from one side of an open area to another. It starts with one or two children in the middle but any child who is touched as they cross the area becomes a ‘toucher’ in the middle. The game continues until there is only one child left untouched.

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It is important to encourage boys’ involvement in mixed gender play. Participation in joint play with girls allows boys to experience and assume leadership roles and observe leadership styles not available in boy’s play. Involvement in mixed gender play encourages a greater complexity and use of oral language, which is a key element in learning to read. Mixed gender play also introduces a wider range of narratives and contexts than are normally present in boys’ only play, and may serve to reduce power of gender stereotypes. There are a number of teaching strategies that serve to encourage the development of mixed gender play in early childhood setting. Boys need realistic props in their play, and provision should be made of items that will allow mixed gender play with roles acceptable and comfortable for all. For instance, a business suit jacket and briefcase in the dress ups creates new opportunities for boys to participate in girls’ family scenarios. Because of the hierarchical nature of boys play it is better to have more of same uniform items (police and fireman hats and jackets, road workers reflective jackets) than a number of different single items. Ensuring your centre has a range of flexible materials (large cardboard boxes, blocks rather than fixed or directive resources (fixed playground equipment, construction sets) will also allow mixed gender play to emerge, particularly if some areas such as the block and home corners are integrated. Enhancing literacy levels is another key area to be addressed. A targeted literacy programme may help overcome boys’ lower levels of reading achievement in the early years of schooling. This is a particularly serious problem as the affects carry on right through the rest of the school years. An effective literacy programme will seek to increase levels and complexity of oral communication, which is a key indicator of how easily and well a child entering school will learn to read. Stories can also provide examples of negotiation and collaboration for boys to use as models in their own lives. There is a wide range of experiences that serve to develop boys’ literacy levels. It is important to encourage children’s story telling. This can be encouraged by choosing books to read to children and visits to places of interest that provide provocation for children’s own narratives. These stories can include positive superhero scenarios, an important element in boys fantasy play. The selection of books in the library corner and those read to the children at group times should reflect boys preference for information texts. Teachers can actively seek opportunities to suggest ways of incorporating literacy activities into boy’s dramatic play or construction play. Examples of these activities include treasure maps, road signs, supply lists for rockets or pirate

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ships. Facilitating the acting out of stories that have strong characters and action within them such as The three billy-goats gruff (Bishop, 2003) and Jack and the beanstalk (Garner, 1992). Other experiences that encourage boys’ literacy development include using popular culture characters and plots as basis for dramatic play, reading and providing books that reflect boys’ home life and culture and inviting male parents in to read stories to the children to provide models of men enjoying reading as a worthwhile experience. Making drawing and writing materials readily available in the block corner, sandpit, and carpentry table and encouraging children to draw their ideas before making the object also provides relevant literacy activities for boys. Many centres manage carpentry and other outdoor areas by having a License system. Boys can be involved in producing their own saw, drill, trolley and bike riding License. The provision of large movable items in the outdoor space so that children can build own sets such as rocket ships, fire engines, pirate ships, superhero headquarters will encourage greater fantasy play with increased oral conversation and storyline development The provision of technological activities within the early childhood setting also provides rich opportunities for boys’ learning. The experiences can cater for boys’ interests in designing and making things, and facilitate collaboration with adults and other children. Technological play provides children with authentic opportunities to plan and evaluate an outcome. They provides context for development of a range of tool usage and representation skills. Technological activity also focuses children’s attention on made-world and allows educators to enter into discussions about the value-laden nature of technological products and the way in which they affect our lives for better and for worse (Mawson, 2006). There are a number of things that educators can do in their early childhood setting that will encourage technological activity to develop. It is important to ensure that you have a wide range of appropriate tools, such as range of sharp saws and wood of appropriate thickness and hardness, and a wide range of materials and fixing/joining methods. Educators can place paper and drawing materials in the block corner, next to the carpentry table, by the sandpit and actively encourage children to draw their ideas before and after making them. The educator’s role is to work alongside of the children and to encourage them to reflect on, modify and rework their solutions to technological problems. Part of this process is to encourage the children not only to question not only their own designs, but also the designed world they live in. As much as possible educators should play and experiment with the materials, tools and

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joining, fixing, shaping, combining methods as their own confidence and competence is really important to supporting the children’s learning. Another effective strategy is to put blocks and other construction materials in the book corner and encourage children to build structures they see in the books. Educators monitor their questions and concentrate on asking questions which allow children to focus on and talk about their technological practice. Boys’ prefer information-type books and opportunity should be taken to read non-fiction ‘technical’ books at mat time and too provide a wide range of this genre of book in any library collection available for the children to read. Another valuable teaching strategy is to model different types of drawing, discuss and display them. A controversial and problematic area of play that is of particular interest to boys is war, gun and superhero play. “War, weapon and superhero play is a controversial, under-researched and under-theorized aspect of children’s play, which is rarely discussed in an open-minded way” (Holland, 2003, p. xii). Although the evidence is quite clear that children are very aware of the line between pretence and reality much of the intolerance of this type of play would seem to be the result of adults conceptions of the consequences of such play on children’s behaviour in later life rather than an understanding of the meaning of such play from a child’s point of view. Mouritsen (1998) makes the point that, “Where the adults see “war”, a problem, noise or chaos, the children see “play”, i.e. almost the opposite. They see through different lenses. The adult gaze - the pedagogical lens - reads one thing. The child’s gaze the lens of play - gives it another sense. They are not only talking at cross purposes, they have crossed sights and crossed courses of action” (p.23).

There does seem to be some benefits for boys if they are allowed to play war, gun or superhero games. It allows them to explore certain narratives of masculinity that are not available in other types of play. It may play an important role in boys’ development of gender identity, and the search for male role models. Superhero play may give children needed sense of power in a world dominated by adults, and may enable them to work through anxiety and fear of own safety, and express anger and aggression in socially acceptable ways. From an educator’s point of view war and superhero play is especially well-suited for influencing the political and moral ideas children develop, including power and conflict, right and wrong, good and evil, safety and danger, friends and enemies. Other benefits of war and superhero play are that it may allow boys to learn to control their impulses and allow them

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opportunities to see other points of view. It may also encourage autonomy by giving children a sense of control and power. The literature does offer some suggestions for educators uncomfortable with a zero tolerance policy toward war and superhero play and looking for appropriate ways in which it might be incorporated within their own curriculum. The most relevant experience was that documented by Pat Holland (2003) in her book We don't play with guns here: War, weapon and superhero play in the early years. She was working in a centre that had a zero tolerance to those types of play. Increasingly she became uncomfortable with the messages that were given to the children as they found ways to subvert the policy. A process which involved fully informing parents of the change and the reasons for it and a gradual relaxation of the policy within the limits of the of general behaviour policy led in the longer term to a decrease in the amount of war, weapon and superhero play. Other benefits were more meaningful contexts with more complex, creative role-play, a greater involvement by girls and an increase in number of mixed-gender play groups. There were also changes in the teachers’ role as they intervened to extend children’s play, and gave children control over their own lives by sharpening their conflict resolution skills to come up with alternatives to violence and aggression. Levin and Carlsson-Paige (2006) offer a wide range of suggestions for both parents and early childhood educators who wish to resolve the war play dilemma. These suggestion cover the influence of mass media, the encouragement of children’s meaningful dramatic play, being involved in the play and taking opportunities to address developmental and socio-political issues, They advocate limiting the use of highly structured violent toys and encourage the use of open-ended toys and play materials, They believe that adults should work to counteract the highly stereotyped and limiting gender roles that characterise most war play and help children develop a broad range for themselves as boys and girls.

CONCLUDING REMARKS In this book I have explored the nature of independent collaborative play through the words and activities of children in two New Zealand early childhood centre. As much as possible I have let the children speak for themselves and tried to provide sufficient ethnographic evidence for early childhood educators to see the extent to which the material relates to their own experience and contexts. The early chapters laid out the background to the

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study and provided an overview of current knowledge in the field of collaborative play and of the New Zealand early childhood education system. The second section looked in depth at the themes of the children’s play and the way in which leadership and group dynamics were established and maintained. The final section was concerned with looking at the implications for educators of the findings of the two research case studies on which the book is based. The influence of the environment and gender were first addressed and then some practical strategies to encourage greater and more complex collaborative play in early childhood education. The literature is clear that collaborative play is the area of the richest cognitive and social learning for young children. It is still s very underresearched area that needs much more attention. This book has attempted to fill some of the gaps and provide a practical resource of early childhood educators around the world.

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INDEX A access, 31, 35, 98, 115, 117 accounting, 117 achievement, 18, 127, 132, 134, 147 adjustment, 14 administrators, 19 adolescents, 148 advertisements, 83, 84 Africa, 81 age, 1, 12, 13, 17, 22, 23, 25, 41, 75, 82, 118, 121 aggression, 14, 88, 96, 123, 127, 136, 137, 146 alternatives, 137 American Psychological Association, 148 anger, 136 anxiety, 136 assessment, 20, 77, 84 asthma, 52 attitudes, 29, 82, 113 authority, 31, 34, 35 automobiles, 84 autonomy, 137 availability, 17 avoidance, 24 awareness, 8, 52, 79, 81

B background, 1, 137 bail, 46 batteries, 72 behavior, 147 behaviors, 147 beliefs, 25, 117, 118, 142, 143 benign, 44, 92 binding, 88 birth, 139 bleeding, 50, 64, 79 blocks, 13, 23, 45, 77, 93, 94, 101, 104, 116, 130, 132, 134, 136 blood, 42, 43, 64 bone, 44, 53 breakfast, 38 Britain, 118, 146 burn, 104

C caregivers, 24 case study, 21 cell, 36 Census, 148 challenges, 24, 89, 101, 132, 141, 146 changing environment, 114 chaos, 136

150 character, 2, 10, 13, 37, 39, 41, 42, 44, 48, 57, 65, 66 cheese, 144 child development, 59 City, 22 classroom, 139, 144, 146, 147 classrooms, 143 coffee, 49, 52, 53 cognitive activity, 8 cognitive development, 139 cognitive level, 130 coherence, 9 collaboration, 1, 9, 11, 12, 86, 122, 134, 135, 142, 148 collage, 115 communication, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 21, 23, 72, 76, 81, 83, 86, 122, 127, 134, 140, 146 communication strategies, 12, 23 communication technologies, 81, 83 community, 19, 29, 49, 68, 81, 84 community relations, 49 community-based services, 19 competence, 12, 136, 142 competency, 75, 105 competition, 91 complexity, 7, 32, 68, 74, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 127, 129, 130, 131, 134, 147 composition, 22, 23, 53 comprehension, 9, 147 compulsory education, 53 computer use, 53 conception, 49, 140 concrete, 8, 56, 113 confidence, 136, 142 confidentiality, 24 conflict, 9, 10, 15, 24, 30, 32, 35, 62, 85, 89, 91, 92, 94, 97, 104, 108, 109, 133, 136, 137, 143 conflict of interest, 24 conflict resolution, 10, 15, 85, 137 confrontation, 33, 126 Congress, iv consensus, 7, 14, 98, 148

Index consent, 24, 25, 31 construction, 42, 45, 55, 56, 93, 116, 119, 123, 126, 129, 130, 131, 134, 136 consumers, 48 control, 29, 30, 32, 38, 43, 87, 88, 89, 90, 94, 97, 102, 105, 113, 131, 133, 136, 137 cooking, 94, 96, 116 cooling, 71 coordination, 8, 9, 12, 86 Copyright, iv creativity, 92 credit, 20, 24 crying, 33, 34, 36, 37, 47 culture, 10, 11, 14, 19, 29, 81, 82, 98, 115, 121, 132, 135, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145 curriculum, 1, 7, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 82, 83, 137, 141, 143, 144, 145, 148

D damages, iv dance, 93, 102 danger, 13, 43, 136 data collection, 2, 25, 87 data gathering, 25 death, ix, 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, 109, 145 decision making, 9 decisions, 13 definition, 7, 11, 86 dentist, 95 developmental psychology, 67 directors, 2 discourse, 74, 130 disposition, 140 division, 117 doctors, 50, 51, 52, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 79, 80, 96, 97, 106, 109 dogs, 32 dominance, 49, 133, 146 dough, 126, 132 drainage, 122 drawing, 130, 135, 136 dream, 102 duration, 117

Index dynamics, 37, 89, 90, 138, 140

E eating, 32, 115, 116 economic status, 18 Education, i, ii, iii, v, vii, ix, 17, 19, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148 elaboration, 9, 12, 86 elbows, 74 electricity, 68 elephants, 93 emotion, 114 emotional well-being, 85 encouragement, 106, 137 enemies, 136 energy, 72 England, 59 enthusiasm, ix environment, 82, 99, 113, 114, 121, 132, 138 environmental factors, 99 equipment, 49, 57, 81, 114, 115, 134 equity, 146 ethical issues, 24 ethics, 24 ethnic groups, 22 ethnicity, 22 evil, 136, 147 exclusion, 25, 88, 89, 127, 143 excuse, 34 exercise, 24, 33 expertise, 94

F failure, 78 family, 1, 2, 10, 29, 30, 32, 37, 38, 42, 50, 57, 60, 64, 65, 69, 79, 80, 81, 92, 94, 96, 97, 102, 104, 105, 106, 109, 113, 123, 134 family relationships, 123

151

fantasy, 2, 9, 11, 13, 14, 59, 92, 109, 118, 130, 134, 135, 139, 141, 144 fear, 48, 67, 133, 136 feedback, 22 feet, 34, 35, 61, 64, 125 films, 48, 81 first aid, 51, 80 fitness, 77, 78, 79 flexibility, 114 floating, 68 flood, 106 focusing, 13 food, 36, 44, 46, 74, 105, 116, 123, 130 foundations, 142 freedom, 88, 98, 117 friendship, ix, 3, 13, 23, 60, 87, 88, 90, 95, 96, 98, 122, 141 frustration, 89 funding, 19 funds, vii, 2, 29, 68

G gender, vii, 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, 23, 29, 30, 32, 39, 50, 66, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 107, 109, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 127, 129, 132, 134, 136, 137, 138, 140, 142, 148 gender differences, 12, 13, 86, 97, 107, 116, 117, 121, 127, 140 gender identity, 136 gender role, 121, 137 gender segregation, 12 gender stereotyping, 109 genre, 136 Georgia, 148 gestures, 42, 43 goals, 10, 18, 79 government, 1, 17, 18, 19 government policy, 1 gravity, 69 group identity, 98 grouping, 118 groups, 11, 12, 13, 21, 23, 24, 86, 87, 92, 93, 114, 115, 121, 137

Index

152 growth, 12, 147 gymnastics, 102

H hands, 37, 42, 57, 74, 76, 93, 95 hardness, 135 harm, 24, 118 harmony, 118 health, 17, 81, 82, 83 hegemony, 83 hip, 60 hospitals, 79, 92, 96, 97, 109 households, 143 hygiene, 18

I identification, 14, 76 identity, 127 image, 24 images, ix, 58 imagination, 141 imitation, 8 impulses, 136 incidence, 29, 87, 116, 117, 118, 122 indicators, 21 infants, 20, 114 informed consent, 24, 25 initial state, 51 initiation, 8 injections, 104 injury, iv innovation, 18, 76 insight, 49, 68, 83, 85 instruction, 114 integration, 130 intentions, 9, 10, 77 interaction, 13, 35, 71, 78, 86, 93, 98, 105, 106, 113, 114, 118, 122, 132, 147, 148 interactions, 3, 9, 13, 14, 22, 29, 37, 68, 74, 79, 85, 86, 98, 113, 114, 118, 121, 123, 130, 142, 144, 146

intervention, vii, 1, 2, 9, 30, 76, 95, 101, 103, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 114, 118, 119, 130, 131, 144, 148 intervention strategies, vii, 2, 101, 103, 107, 109, 110 intimidation, 88 Italy, 11

J Jordan, 14, 144 justice, 24

K killing, 43, 47 kindergarten children, 98, 115, 116, 117, 118, 144 kindergartens, 18

L lack of confidence, 67 language, 12, 19, 24, 29, 66, 74, 98, 115, 118, 119, 121, 129, 134, 140, 148 language development, 129 laptop, 31 later life, 136 laughing, 43, 68, 69 leadership, vii, viii, 2, 12, 15, 23, 32, 36, 62, 65, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 109, 110, 121, 122, 134, 138, 146 leadership style, vii, viii, 2, 15, 32, 85, 86, 87, 94, 97, 121, 134 learners, 24 learning, 2, 7, 11, 12, 20, 25, 67, 68, 83, 84, 114, 119, 127, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, 143, 145, 147, 148 learning environment, 25, 114 learning outcomes, 83 learning task, 11 lens, 84, 136 likelihood, 32

Index line, 98, 104, 136 links, 12, 84 listening, 35 literacy, 82, 85, 92, 132, 134, 135, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144 lying, 33, 51, 57, 61, 93, 108

M magnetism, 68 maintenance, 21, 80 majority, 19, 32, 65, 75, 117 males, 12, 86, 122 management, 9 manipulation, 13 Mars, 45 masculinity, 136 mass media, 137 mathematics, 2, 67, 68, 84, 146 meals, 29 measurement, 73 media, 41, 48, 58, 81, 82, 123 mediation, 118 membership, 87, 88, 98 men, 88, 135 mental state, 10 messages, 82, 83, 137 middle-class families, 22 milk, 93 Ministry of Education, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 67, 75, 76, 79, 82, 83, 84, 140, 142, 145 minorities, 18 mixing, 71 model, 68, 72, 136, 140 modeling, 114 models, 7, 134, 135, 136 money, 39 mood, 140 morning, 18, 21, 23, 41, 52, 77, 88, 90, 95, 96, 104, 106, 115, 118, 130 mothers, 30, 39 motion, 74 motor skills, 92 movement, 8, 11, 67, 88, 117, 133 music, 101

153

N narratives, 12, 131, 134, 136, 140, 144 negative experiences, 67 negativity, 105, 108 negotiating, 34 negotiation, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 25, 30, 32, 85, 97, 134 network, 19 New Zealand, v, ix, 1, 2, 7, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 41, 49, 53, 67, 75, 132, 133, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 148 noise, 44, 51, 64, 130, 132, 136 Norway, 59 nursery school, 147 nurses, 50, 51, 79, 93

O observations, 65 oil, 80 open spaces, 14 opportunities, 76, 84, 113, 132, 134, 135, 137 order, 9, 19, 49, 61, 74, 78, 81, 83 ownership, 125

P paradigm, 144 parallel, 8, 52, 87, 116, 122 parameters, 30 parental consent, 25 parents, ix, 1, 14, 17, 19, 24, 61, 135, 137 pedagogy, vii, 18, 20, 67, 98, 117, 118, 143 peer group, 11 peer relationship, 14 peers, 12, 14, 86, 114, 122, 147 perceptions, 141 permission, iv, ix, 110 personality, 104 persuasion, 12, 86 photographs, 22, 25 physical environment, 2, 17, 113, 115, 118

Index

154 planning, 19, 68, 77, 78, 79, 83, 129, 132, 142 plants, 46 play activity, 8, 9, 13, 147 poison, 50, 62, 80, 90, 125 police, 13, 49, 50, 54, 57, 80, 88, 90, 123, 124, 134 population, 22 portfolio, 110 posture, 97 power, 14, 24, 30, 32, 33, 34, 43, 44, 45, 75, 85, 86, 90, 93, 97, 122, 131, 134, 136, 144 power relations, 24, 30 preference, 12, 13, 117, 134 preschool, 12, 114, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146 preschool children, 114, 140 preschoolers, 139, 146, 147 primacy, 88 primary school, 18 privacy, 24, 142 problem solving, 10, 68 problem-solving, 142 profit, 19 project, 1, 23, 87, 121, 132 properties, 68

Q qualifications, 17, 18, 19, 22

R racism, 83 rain, 117 range, 7, 10, 11, 41, 42, 49, 73, 81, 82, 99, 113, 115, 116, 117, 119, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137 rating scale, 8 reactions, 24, 79 reading, 134, 135 reality, 10, 25, 50, 58, 136, 148 reason, 35, 42, 61, 85

recall, 12 reciprocal relationships, 11 recommendations, iv referees, 133 reflection, 49, 53, 82, 142 regulation, 8 regulations, 17, 18, 19 rejection, 14 relationship, 1, 14, 25, 75, 85, 93, 96, 121, 148 relaxation, 137 relevance, 147 reproduction, 29, 141 resolution, 94 resources, 2, 10, 19, 55, 68, 76, 77, 99, 113, 115, 116, 117, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134 respect, 24 rights, iv, 105, 107 risk, 48, 133 role playing, 9, 41, 55 role-playing, 92 routines, 37, 132 rugby, 133

S safety, 17, 64, 82, 132, 136 satisfaction, 78 school, 23, 53, 65, 75, 81, 87, 88, 90, 93, 95, 97, 134, 142, 144, 145, 147 school culture, 142 schooling, 75, 118, 127, 132, 134 scientific knowledge, 68 search, 7, 136 secondary school students, 11 secondary schools, 18, 83 self-awareness, 10 self-confidence, 13, 133 self-definition, 143 self-esteem, 13, 133 self-monitoring, 9 sensitivity, 24, 25 sex, 12, 13, 122 shape, 68 shaping, 136

Index sharing, ix, 9, 85, 127, 132 shoot, 47, 50, 62, 66 sibling, 143 siblings, 1, 53 signs, 55, 108, 131, 134 skills, 8, 10, 34, 76, 82, 85, 105, 135, 137, 140, 142 smoothing, 110 social behaviour, 8, 141 social cognition, 147 social context, 113 social contract, 144 social development, 118 social group, 87 social hierarchy, 133 social learning, 138 social skills, 129, 140, 147 social standing, 105 soil, 46 South Africa, 22 space, 3, 13, 18, 43, 45, 62, 69, 70, 74, 94, 98, 99, 105, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 126, 127, 132, 135, 144 speech, 12, 86, 89 sports, 133 Spring, 145, 148 standards, 85 statistics, 73, 145 stereotypes, 134 stimulus, 55, 65 storage, 117, 131 strategies, vii, 2, 9, 10, 15, 23, 53, 66, 71, 101, 107, 110, 121, 127, 133, 138 strategy, 45, 89, 104, 106, 108, 133, 136 strategy use, 89, 106 strength, 75, 94 student teacher, 142 students, 123 subsidy, 17 substitution, 10 supervision, 133 supply, 134 surveillance, 1 synthesis, 18, 21, 142

155

T taxonomy, 9, 10 teacher training, 19 teachers, ix, 14, 17, 18, 19, 21, 67, 69, 70, 78, 79, 84, 85, 114, 117, 130, 132, 133, 137, 139, 140, 146, 147, 148 teaching, 2, 7, 12, 18, 19, 22, 25, 53, 67, 86, 127, 134, 136, 140, 142, 143, 147 teaching experience, 22 teaching strategies, 2, 134 teenagers, 24, 124 teeth, 37 telephone, 36, 50, 79 television, 48, 49, 55, 81, 83, 84 testing, 74, 78 textbooks, 11 therapy, 144, 148 thinking, 76, 139, 142 thoughts, 126 threats, 12, 86 toddlers, 20, 23, 114 toys, 13, 124, 137, 146 traditional gender role, 121 traditions, 141 traffic, 55, 131 transition, 132, 145 transport, 80, 81, 83, 84 transportation, 13 turnover, 98 turtle, 41, 42 twist, 89

U uniform, 129, 134 United States, 11, 59

V vehicles, 80, 123 videotape, 22 violence, 72, 137 vocabulary, 8, 116, 119

Index

156 vocalizations, 9, 10 voice, 3, 33, 88, 97, 110, 130, 139 Vygotsky, 12, 141, 145

W waking, 51, 60 walking, 48, 97 war, 13, 132, 136, 137, 144 weakness, 1 wealth, 12, 84

wear, 41 winning, 45 withdrawal, 94 wood, 56, 62, 135 workers, 49, 96, 129, 134 writing, 11, 74, 123, 132, 135

Y yes/no, 35