ABSTRACT
Part of the role of early childhood education (ECE) practitioners is to support the development of social engagement among children in peer groups and to prevent antisocial behaviour. This chapter argues that practitioners and researchers need a deepened understanding of the way toddlers interact during playtime, as this is the arena where such skills can initially be observed and developed. To use the concept of play to describe small children's actions in kindergarten seems obvious, but it entails several challenges. To apply Arendt's concept of human action in order to understand the social aspects of play among toddlers is perhaps too bold. Human action might be far too complex as a concept. Huge and challenging concepts like this can become too trivialized or narrowed when they are applied too harshly to one specific empirical phenomenon, and the phenomenon may in turn become unfocused, like small feet in shoes that are far too large.
