ABSTRACT
From certain perspectives, the first decade of the twenty-first century seems to be a time when play, as an early childhood pedagogy, has finally come of age. Across the English-speaking world at least, the pedagogy of play is now enthroned in early childhood curricula; increasingly it has the stamp of approval of national governments and international agencies, policymakers as well as providers, parents as well as practitioners. A key battle of recent decades – establishing young children’s ‘right’ and ‘need’ to play in a world which gave more value to traditional didactic instruction – appears to have been won. Children, a cynic might argue, are now required to play, in the cause of learning, whether they want to or not, though the suggestion that children may not always want to play is hardly voiced. In this climate then, a chapter proposing that we should take play seriously may seem itself to be seriously out of touch with its times. But I wish here to raise some persisting questions about the relationship of play to pedagogy, and about both the playfulness and the seriousness of young children’s engagement in learning.
