ABSTRACT
This chapter will consider some issues and challenges associated with play in the early years and will explore why it is important for practitioners to reflect upon the social and cultural contexts for play within their classrooms and settings. It will draw upon examples from a recent study to propose that listening to children’s perspectives can facilitate a deeper understanding of the motivations and meanings that young children bring to their play. The children’s perspectives will be used to illustrate four key themes that emerged from the research: identity, reciprocity, possibility and resilience. These themes resonate with sociocultural approaches to understanding young children’s learning and development (see for example, Carr et al., 2010) that focus upon the dispositions associated with play as opposed to emphasising predetermined developmental outcomes.
