Beyond uniform reproduction: Exploring children’s imaginative play through the lenses of their teacher

The study investigates how children’s imaginative play can contribute knowledge to valuable activities in kindergarten. The research question is: How can children’s imaginative play tell us what can be valuable activities in kindergarten?

The results show that through play, the children get to explore different topics on several levels. On a personal level, the children get to experiment with friendship, group affiliation, problem solving, danger, and evil. On an institutional level, the educators get to explore space, place and ‘good’ play.

The researcher collaborated with a kindergarten where five educators were asked to film activities and interactions between the children that they thought might be interesting. The data material consists of a video recording of four children pretending that they are dragons, as well as interviews with the children’s kindergarten teacher and the children themselves where they comment on the video clip. Along with the interviews, the researcher also uses the kindergarten curriculum and the Christian-Western understanding of dragons in the analysis.

Grindheim, L. T. (2020). “Beyond uniform reproduction: Exploring children’s imaginative play through the lenses of their teacher”. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 21(1):58-69.