Examining Children’s Peer Play-in-Action: Micro Dramas and Collaborative Play Performances

Abstract

In this study, particular focus is on micro-ethnographic studies of children’s peer play-in-action and how children create shared peer cultures through their collaborative performances in situated game activities. It will be shown how children create micro dramas in play that serve as cultural frameworks to i) dramatize and transform experiences from the outside world; ii) playfully subvert hierarchies and gendered orders; and iii) comment upon and unravel controversial issues in their social life. The data are drawn from three sets of video-recorded data of children’s everyday play activities collected during fieldwork in separate school and after-school settings located in middle-class and low-income multiethnic suburban areas in Sweden.