ABSTRACT
Young children are highly interested in peers. They love to meet the children of their mother’s best friend and to play with age-mates at the children’s centre. But they have few opportunities to decide for themselves where, when and with whom they can play. Their parents’ values and resources, and the availability of educational provisions determine their playmates. Early peer relationships are embedded within an amalgam of cultural values. The history of early childhood education shows that pedagogues like Froebel, Montessori, the McMillan sisters, Isaacs and Malaguzzi had high ambitions to foster community life and harmony in human relationships (see Chapters 3, 4, 5, 10, 31). Although these pedagogues started from diverse philosophical and religious traditions, they shared the appreciation of play, peer relationships and cooperation of parents and teachers. Their pedagogical ideas often found fertile ground in educated liberal families in Western countries. Governments that supported children’s centres in the twentieth century, however, had different concerns. The prime interests were the preparation for formal education and to free the parents, especially the mother, for work outside the home (Singer 1993).
