Emancipation from situational constraints: Piaget and Vygotsky on play and drama

There are two specifi c studies of play, however, which I want to consider at this point because they provide a particularly helpful context not only for exploring the theories about drama and education prevalent at the time but also for raising some abiding issues of drama pedagogy. One text is the Swiss psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget’s (1896-1980) essay on mastery and symbolic play, fi rst published in 1951. The other is a lecture presented in 1933 but not published until 1966: Play and its Role in the Mental Development of the Child by the Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). I want to include, with these two studies of play, a second work by Vygotsky, fi rst published – again, posthumously – in 1967: Imagination and Creativity in Childhood because this work makes explicit reference to the links between drama, education and creativity.