Guiding Preschool Play for Cultural Learning: Preschool Design as Cultural Niche Construction.

Robin Samuelsson

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.545846

Abstract

This paper explores how preschools can be purposefully designed to aid cultural learning through guided play practices. In recent literature, there has been a renowned interest in the role of the exogenous environment in psychological processes, including learning. The idea that the design of preschools can meaningfully be seen as cultural niche construction and that guided play practices in these environments can aid the preparation for cultural action is promoted, and a theoretical framework is presented. The empirical data draw from a synthesis from three ethnographic research sites in multilingual communities, and data are used to explore how cultural affordances are used in designed environments as part of guided play practices. The results indicate how niche construction of affordances aid cultural learning and is achieved through both direct guided play interaction between teachers and children and also in the way of the indirect design of environments that is incorporated in children’s peer play. It is discussed what this means for play research as well as for guided play practices that aim to promote cultural learning.

Highlights

There is an ongoing debate on the role of play in early childhood
After the operational definition of play stated above is established as the child-initiated activity where children can joyfully act with behavioral flexibility, the data could be more closely analyzed for how cultural affordances are used in the multimodal play interactions
In the interactional examples provided, it will be illustrated what may happen when children play in the designed preschool environments where cultural affordances are carefully provided as the teachers may indirectly guide children’s play through the cultural environment they arrange

Summary

Introduction

There is an ongoing debate on the role of play in early childhood. One area of concern is the decreasing time for children to engage in play during their childhood and in preschool settings (see Miller and Almon, 2009; Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018). In an attempt to avoid too entrenched positioning in these matters, recent literature concerning guided play seems to have found a middle ground in between playful learning and academically oriented instruction for the preschool years (Toub et al, 2016). These tensions have been experienced in the Swedish context, where recent addendums promoting instruction in preschools have spawned debate, as they seemed to put tensions to the Swedish preschools’ renowned dual focus on education and care (“educare”), where play and playful learning formerly have been integrated to the preschool values and been a pillar of the curricula. Recent literature in the behavioral sciences has suggested an increasing role of the cultural context and its environmental affordances on Preschool Niche Construction cognition and learning (e.g., Clark, 2011). Weisberg et al (2014) referred to this as the mise-en-place of learning, by promoting the particular role of the environment in playful learning encounters in the preschool age

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Discussion

Conclusion