Perezhivanie: An investigation into drama and emotions as children enter a conceptual Playworld

Abstract

A growing number of studies have investigated play in early childhood education, with some bringing forward the development of emotions in imaginary play situations. Of significance, is the creative pedagogy of play developed by Lindqvist (1995) who drew on a cultural-historical concept of play to bring forward emotions in Playworld. This paper investigates how children experience different perezhivanie within the Playworld settings in Indonesia. The cultural-historical concept of play, perezhivanie, and the social situation of development are used to understand how a 4-year-old boy experienced contradictions during collective imaginary play. Eight hours of digital-visual observation data selected from 98 h of group-play activities were used to show how nine teachers interacted with 38 children during the play (3.5 to 5 years old, mean age 4.4 years). The findings show how the cultural device used in the Playworld provides rich opportunities and conditions for children to experience different emotions in play, and where a dynamic perezhivanie emerges through the contributions of the play partners to the play that results in development of emotional regulation. By drawing attention to children's perezhivanie, Playworld can be seen as a promising play pedagogy that offers rich social interactions in play that support children's development.