Sociodramatic Play Research Articles

Teacher participation in young children’s dramatic play

Socio-dramatic play is an everyday occurrence in early childhood education as children create narratives together in shared imagined worlds. The teacher’s role in this type of play is less clear and this paper draws on a study using Lindqvist’s “playworlds” approach to gain insight into how teachers participate in children’s play. In applying Kravtsov and Kravtsova’s concept of children’s “double subjectivity” in dramatic play, the paper argues that teachers can also maintain dual affect roles—those of teacher outside the play, and co-player within the play—to co-create with children in their dramatic play narratives. In this study, four teachers in Melbourne, Australia participated in weekly playworlds with the researcher in their kindergarten rooms, resulting in identification of a third affect role for teachers—that of “public performer.” This third affect was found to hinder teachers’ capacity to maintain simultaneous subject positions of themselves as teacher and a co-player, thereby minimizing the improvised narrative trajectory and potential of the dramatic play. We argue this third affect should be acknowledged to support teacher participation in children’s play.

Children's Sociodramatic Play: The Imaginative Level and its Narrative Quality

The study examined children's sociodramatic play, hypothesizing that higher imaginal play object-use leads to higher level of play narratives' structure and communication. Two steps were performed to examine this hypothesis: (a) an intervention method in situations other than play; and (b) correlating the level of imaginative objects use in sociodramatic play, and the level of its narrative, measuring two aspects: (1) The quality of the play’s narrative: Its structure, its complexity, and the level of its sophistication; and (2) the level of interactive communication used to construct the narrative. The research examined natural sociodramatic play situations in 16 kindergartens with children of different SES (socio-economic status) backgrounds. Four experimental and 4 control groups of each of two SES levels were sampled. The results indicated that the level of the imaginative object use performance over time, impressively improved in all experimental groups in comparison with the control groups, indicating that the imaginative level of object use was highly correlated with the level of the play narrative and communication. This was found in plays with more complex components and higher structure of the narratives, and more effective communication, in the experimental as compared to control groups, in both low- and medium-SES background. The latter's standard of play was superior as compared to the former, and the gap between groups expanded over time. The results of the study point to the important role of imagination in pretense play narratives and strengthens the potency of narrative theory approach in explaining children’s fantasy in play.

Do we listen to what makes children happy? A systematic literature review of voices of children aged 3–7 years in educational research

Research shows that children’s views and experiences are usually overlooked in discussions related to their own happiness and wellbeing. In fact, the largest international study to date on children’s wellbeing only included children aged 8-12. A review of reviews further reveals that no previous studies have focused on exploring factors that make children aged 3-7 happy. This research addresses this gap in the literature by conducting the first systematic review of international studies exploring young children's perspectives on happiness. The EPPI-Centre framework guided this systematic review of international research published covering almost a decade of research (2015-2024). This comprehensive approach aimed to provide an overview of the current research landscape to inform future research and policy decisions. Out of 2594 papers arguing to listen to children, only five focused on exploring children’s happiness and wellbeing from an interpretivist perspective. Results showed that there are studies listening to children’s voices, however, very limited studies genuinely explore what makes children happy. Factors contributing to children’s happiness and wellbeing include spending time with loved ones, receiving praise, achieving goals and engaging in sociodramatic play. Negative factors include feeling ignored, limited interaction with peers/friends and forced activities. Methodological limitations identified include unclear sample selection, regional bias, subjective data interpretation, and pre-determined prompts influencing children's responses. The findings can inform future research directions and policy decisions aimed at promoting children's happiness and well-being in schools. As such, this paper provides a unique insight and makes an original and significant contribution to the field.

Exploring Children’s Play Culture and Game Construction: Role of Sociodramatic Play in Supporting Agency

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to explore the sociodramatic play taking place in an early childhood classroom, with a specific focus on the characteristics of play, the game construction process that takes place during play, children’s agency in their play culture, and finally, the role of teachers as adults and as participants serving as guides and facilitators in the play. The study utilized an ethnographic case study approach to uncover play culture within the Little Daisies classroom. The data for the study came from lengthy observations throughout one school year in the classroom of 5-year-old children and semi-structured interviews with children regarding their sociodramatic play. Findings suggest that children constructing “games with rules” is a significant component of the classroom play culture, and non-distracted sociodramatic play provides children with many opportunities to practice their agency and function as social actors in their close environment. The concept of agency, teachers’ beliefs, and executive function skills were used to contextualize sociodramatic play for further discussion.

Relationship between Socio-Dramatic Play and Self-Regulation Skills in Early Childhood

Purpose: Socio-dramatic play is important for supporting self-regulation skills in early childhood, and the complexity level of socio-dramatic play may increase the need for self-regulation skills. This study examined the relationship between the self-regulation skills of 60- to 86-month-old preschoolers and the complexity of socio-dramatic play better to understand the link between socio-dramatic play and self-regulation skills.
 Methodology: This study was designed as associational research to examine whether self-regulation skills based on teachers' and mothers' views relate to socio-dramatic play's aspects and complexity levels. The participants consisted of 51 preschool children attending two public schools in Turkey. Children's self-regulation skills (attention, working memory, and inhibitory control) were measured using self-regulation scales with teacher and mother forms. The socio-dramatic play was assessed using an observational tool consisting of three aspects (symbolic agent, symbolic substitution, and symbolic complexity). 
 Findings: Findings revealed that self-regulation skills (inhibitory control and attention) showed a statistically significant difference in favor of children who engaged in sociodramatic play with high symbolic complexity. The working memory did not differ significantly regarding symbolic complexity. The teacher and mother reports revealed that self-regulation skills' attention, working memory, and inhibitory control dimensions did not relate to the aspects of symbolic agent and symbolic substitution. 
 Highlights: These findings indicate that only the symbolic complexity aspect of socio-dramatic play is positively associated with preschoolers' self-regulation skills (inhibitory control and attention). Results were discussed concerning the literature on socio-dramatic play and self-regulation.

Changing the dynamics of preschool children's social play with technology: evaluation of technology-based supports for tools of the mind style play

ABSTRACT In the context of a pandemic that has had wide-ranging negative impacts on preschool children's socioemotional development it is important to consider uses of technology to support children re-engaging socially with peers. In this article, we review the landscape of systems to support children's face-to-face collaboration and identify an underexplored approach that could be well suited for the current context: using technology in a peripheral role to support activities where the focus is on other children and non-electronic objects and where children are free to engage with the physical space around them with the support of adults. We then present a pre-pandemic evaluation of StoryCarnival, a system with these underexplored characteristics, designed to support preschool children's sociodramatic play, for which there is evidence of numerous benefits that can positively impact children's socioemotional development. The results of the evaluation comparing sociodramatic play with and without StoryCarnival's support suggest that while not being the focus of the activity, StoryCarnival's components changed the dynamics of play for the children in the study during our observations, such that children displayed more mature play characteristics. Our discussion includes implications for child-computer interaction and considerations for the pandemic context.

Cell phones as ‘super props’: children’s language development in sociodramatic play

ABSTRACT In children’s early years, they frequently pretend, create and take on roles while engaging in the dramatic play area where symbols, language and culture are spontaneously developed and applied. Although abundant research has been conducted on sociodramatic play incorporating digital tools and using props, previous research has given less attention to children using non-functional communication devices as play props. This paper aims to explore children’s language development using non-functional communication devices, such as cell phones, through sociodramatic play, and the study was conducted in two preschool classrooms with 4–5-year-old children. We find that children who incorporate non-functional communication devices into their sociodramatic play expand their language use, extend storylines, develop new characters and practice new words and ways of speaking. Additionally, the inclusion of these devices affords children opportunities to explore imaginary storylines and cultural language usages, rules and norms in different relational ways.

Imagination and sociodramatic play using Minecraft and FaceTime as a digitally-mediated environment

This research investigates how children located in separate homes use the psychological function of imagination to engage in sociodramatic play using networked digital technologies. Specifically, it examines how 7- to 8-year-old children create imaginary play situations in the same Minecraft: Education Edition digitally-mediated environment whilst synchronously using the FaceTime video-communication tool to discuss their play. Drawing on cultural-historical conceptualizations of play, findings identified in this study describe how children reworked and combined elements of reality via imagination to enable online sociodramatic play. This study provides theoretical insight into how adults may best foster children’s imagination in digitally-mediated environments to support online sociodramatic play, of especial benefit to children during periods of lockdown associated with the global pandemic.

All in a Day’s Play: How a Child Resists Linguistic Racism and Constructs Her Identity

Set in one of the least privileged neighborhoods of the US Southeast, this research project took a discourse analysis approach to construct a day-in-the-life case study. It illustrates how, during an after school storybook cooking class, a 7-year-old, multilingual, Mexican American girl navigated local linguistic microaggressions and extended microaffirmations to her peers. At the same time, she contested and critiqued societal power imbalances associated with whiteness. This study widens the corpus of scholarship that has primarily examined children’s sociodramatic play and literacy development in preschool settings. It also broadens the body of research that has predominantly focused on students’ linguistic dexterity and metalinguistic awareness in middle and high school contexts.

Play fighting (rough-and-tumble play) in children: developmental and evolutionary perspectives

ABSTRACT Play fighting and chasing in human children – often referred to as rough-and-tumble play, or RTP or R&T – is a common form of play, and one that has the most obvious correspondence to play in many (especially mammalian) non-human species. Unlike object, pretend and sociodramatic play, generally encouraged by teachers and parents, play fighting is viewed in a much more ambivalent way. The role it has in development, and whether this should be viewed in a positive or negative light, continues to be debated. Here we review what insights may be gained from research on play fighting in non-human species, main developmental trends in humans, definitional and measurement issues, cultural variations, and empirical data on the correlates found with behaviors of adaptive significance. We conclude with some reflections on theoretical issues and future research priorities. A consistent theme from work with non-human species, parent–child RTP, and peer-peer RTP, is that RTP experience is important for emotional control and the learning of restraint in what may be competitive or conflictual situations.

Nordic Erotic Larp: Designing for Sexual Playfulness

Erotic larp is an emerging trend in the Nordic countries. Sexuality and socio-dramatic play have been combined in numerous ways in the past; what is new about this concentration of erotic embodied adult pretend play is that it is emerging from a culture of reflexive, critical, and bespoke design, as a tradition of art games. By studying 25 design abstracts of Nordic art larps from the last decade, this article seeks not only to map, classify, organize, and understand the phenomena of erotic larp design, but to discuss how norms of sexuality are reflected in the Nordic larp community through looking at how sexuality is thematised, described, signalled, and designed. The analysis in this article is rooted in game studies and informed by sexuality studies. In the design abstracts, we uncover how sexuality is thematised by the designers and signalled to the players, as well as how larp rules, mechanics, and expectations are designed for erotic role-play interactions. The article shows that a Nordic tradition of larps with design for erotic and sexual play has emerged during the 201 Os, how new larp mechanics scaffold erotic role-play in ways that give room for sexual arousal through layered alibis, and that these form of larps are inclusive of people of marginalised genders and sexualities, as well as of sexual kinks. The discussion also addresses the tension between liberation and oppression of sexuality in erotic larp design, as well as tensions around player agency and compelling game mechanics.

Improving 3–5 Year Old Children’s Vocabulary, Listening, and Speaking Skills of English as a Second Language through Sociodramatic Play

<div><p class="1eAbstract-text"><em>The purposes of this study were to analyze 3–5 year old children’s vocabulary, listening and speaking skills as they engaged in sociodramatic play that was set around air transportation theme. The classroom action research design for this study was done in three cycles. It utilized an opportunity that the teacher provided for fourteen research subjects to use language for multiple functions within the context of sociodramatic play by encouraging the subjects to listen to other people, and to speak up their feelings and ideas by implementing the vocabulary they have learned. The data analysis in this research showed that the implementation of sociodramatic play improved the vocabulary, the listening and the speaking skills of 3–5 year old nursery children of ABC school.</em></p></div>

Building collaborative competencies through play with outdoor loose parts materials in primary school

ABSTRACT This paper reports on the findings from a study investigating the provision of outdoor loose parts materials for upper primary school aged children. Conducted in Queensland, Australia, the study focused on loose parts materials as cultural tools, following the sociocultural argument that tools mediate activity and outcomes. The findings suggest that loose parts materials are used by children in the formation of sociodramatic play, including episodes of trading, bartering and advertising that support their shared understandings. Shared understandings precede collaborative competencies, including engagements with others, working towards and achieving common goals. With collaboration recognised as an important learning disposition for children in twenty-first-century societies, the findings suggest loose parts materials may be pedagogically appropriate for supporting these competencies in primary school settings.

Do Children Need Adult Support During Sociodramatic Play to Develop Executive Functions? Experimental Evidence.

The cultural-historical approach provides the deep theoretical grounds for the analysis of children’s play. Vygotsky suggested three critical features of play: switching to an imaginary situation, taking on a play role, and acting according to a set of rules defined by the role. Collaboration, finding ideas and materials for creating an imaginary situation, defining play roles, and planning the plot are complex tasks for children. However, the question is, do children need educator’s support during the play to develop their executive functions, and to what extent? This experimental study was aimed at answering this inquiry. The four modes of sociodramatic play were created which differed in the adult intervention, from non-involvement in the play to its entire organization. The play could be child-led (with adult help), adult-led, or free (without any adult intervention); and there was also a control group where the children heard the same stimulus stories as the other groups but then followed them up with a drawing activity instead of a play activity. The study revealed that, firstly, the ways of educator’s involvement in the play differed in their potential in respect to the development of executive functions, and, secondly, this influence was not equal for different components of executive functions. Free play in the experiment was not a beneficial condition for the development of any of the studied components of executive functions, compared to the conditions involving the participation of an adult in the play. Furthermore, the type of adult intervention stimulated the development of various executive functions. The entire organization of the play by the adult had a positive impact of their general development. In contrast, the adult’s assistance in the organization of the children’s play had a positive effect on the development of inhibitory control. The study results can be helpful when considering educational practices within a cultural-historical approach to engaging the potential of play in children’s learning and development around the world.

Leaders and Followers during Sociodramatic Play: A Study of Racial/Ethnic Minority Preschool Children from Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Backgrounds

ABSTRACT Sociodramatic play is considered a critical context within which child leaders and followers may naturally emerge, while their cognitive abilities (e.g., theory of mind) and social competence are developed and applied. This study investigated child leadership and followership during sociodramatic play among 20 racial/ethnic minority 3- and 4-year-olds (70% of whom Spanish-speaking), all from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, in two mixed-age and mixed-gender preschool classrooms. Ten videotaped observations of these children during sociodramatic play were transcribed and analyzed. The findings revealed that the four most prominent leaders were all girls in the older group of 4-year-olds. They were also more cognitively, socially, and linguistically advanced than their peers. Except for one leader who could be characterized as a dominator, the other three as directors, sharing similar leadership characteristics. The four most prominent followers (two boys and two girls) could be characterized as complaisant conformists. Contrary to findings of previous studies, when playing with peers from similar backgrounds, socioeconomically disadvantaged children were capable of participating in sociodramatic play and exhibiting various effectiveness in leadership and followership, reflecting potentially their developmental characteristics, physical ecology, language abilities, social experiences, and theory of mind.

‘Stranger-danger’ – Israeli children playing with the concept of ‘Corona’ and its’ impact during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This study examines reports of 118 parents about the play activities of Israeli children aged 3-9 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents responded to online questionnaires describing children's play, creative activities and the family's situation. Qualitative analyses revealed changes in both the nature of the children's play activities and in the expressed themes. Findings highlight positive gains in children's development and family relationships. The varied and expansive nature of play seemed to support the children's coping with lockdown and social distancing restrictions. Themes emerging from socio-dramatic play show attempts to deal with fear of coronavirus by seeking imaginary protection and refuge from it, and by attempts to defeat it. Of note are the use of humor and cynicism alongside acts of concern and altruism towards grandparents. Our study contributes evidence as to the adaptive abilities of children and the self-healing functions of play, and denote the need to promote them.

Writing Play‐Books With Linguistically Diverse Young Learners

AbstractThe article presents a classroom‐based study that engaged linguistically diverse preschool and early school‐age children in illustrating books, jointly composing written narratives to accompany their illustrations, and enacting these child‐authored books through shared sociodramatic play. Findings from story retell tasks show significant improvement in children's narrative language: vocabulary, syntax, accuracy, and text structure. Analysis of collaborative dialogue during book‐making highlights the role of peer and teacher scaffolding in supporting children's literate language and identity development. The article presents an engaging play‐based approach for ECE educators to (1) significantly and equitably increase child‐led literate language interactions; (2) improve early writing instruction, by increasing meaningful composing experience; (3) strengthen culturally sustaining home/community–school partnerships, through authentic dialogue with caregivers about children's writing; and (4) harness the social and multimodal power of play to promote a range of important early learning goals.

In defense of play: children’s play preferences and thoughts about play prohibition

ABSTRACT In this qualitative study, a story-based interview method was applied to examine children's play-related preferences and their thoughts about the reasons for and feelings about play prohibition and ways of defending play as a phenomenon. The study group comprised 197 children, who were enrolled in preschools in a city in the southwestern part of Turkey. A story game was designed to use during the interviews. The thematic content analyzing method was used. The results showed that most of the children chose physical play and socio-dramatic play types. Their playmate choices were friends, family members, and toys. They preferred to play outside and at home. Their views about reasons for play prohibition mostly arose from themselves like ‘making a noise' and ‘making a mess’. Sadness and badness were the most common feelings about the prohibition of play. The majority of children chose persuasion as a way of defending play.

Reading Aloud as a Leading Activity With Preschool Students

We examine a teacher’s read-aloud activity with her preschool students in India. Three vignettes show how this leading activity helps young children take part in socio-dramatic play, fostering their cultural-historical development. Collaborating as teacher and researcher, we consider students’ use of words, instances of object substitution, and exploration of social roles in the story being read aloud, to demonstrate the development of their higher psychological activity. Moreover, we contend that read-aloud activities in preschool are crucial for developing student learning during middle childhood.

Sociodramatic play enhances preschoolers’ private speech and motivation across activities

Vygotskian theory suggests that sociodramatic play, private speech, and motivation are deeply intertwined in development. This study used fishing and puzzle tasks to explore how preschoolers (N = 47) used private speech to verbally mediate their engagement and motivation in activities with differing demands. We experimentally manipulated pedagogical contexts by framing activities as sociodramatic play or task completion to examine the impact on private speech and motivation. Children’s private speech and motivation were both greater in the sociodramatic play condition. Children demonstrated stable individual differences across activities in frequencies of private speech and level of speech internalization, while also appearing to tailor private speech functions to the demands of each activity. Children’s performance and persistence were uncorrelated across activities and were related to different private speech categories within each activity. The results extend research on activity-specificity in language use to private speech, while underscoring how sociocultural contexts influence motivational development.