ABSTRACT
Pretend play has offered much grist for the mills of developmental theories. George Herbert Mead offers a structural analysis of the role-playing child who steps outside himself to view the self from another perspective. Pretense has provided so rich an arena for theorists interested in diverse issues that often it has seemed deprived of a theoretical framework uniquely its own. Two processes contribute to the self building potential of play. One is overt role playing. The other process is the covert role taking that accompanies the overt behavior. Because the content of role play is drawn from the real world of people, role playing-role taking is inherently social, even though the child might be playing alone. Play, by allowing the child to imagine himself as other, clarifies or consolidates a vision of aspects of the self that are either similar or different from others in the child's social world.
