Introduction

Since the mid-1970s, the phenomenon of play has been a topic of great research interest. Researchers from a number of disciplines have conducted studies of play and based their work on diverse theories and a range of definitional categories. When researchers have looked at play as primarily an individual phenomenon they have structured their study very differently from when their interest has been in play as a cultural phenomenon (Sutton-Smith, 1981; 2008). Psychologists and educators, for example, have usually focused on individual aspects, such as the relationship between cognition and play or the adult–child or child–child interaction aspects of play. Anthropologists, sociologists, folklorists, and sociolinguists have been interested in sociocultural aspects, such as the communicative meaning of play within various cultural contexts.