Children’s social play sequence: Parten’s classic theory revisited

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to revisit Parten’s study on social play from cultural, environmental, social and economic aspects. Young children’s social play is viewed as a critical means to foster and enhance language, cognitive, social and emotional development. Social play theory has been predominately viewed from developmental perspectives. The classic study of Parten’s social play has been considered as a guideline for early childhood education programmes for decades. However, some recent research indicates that many young children may not necessarily follow the hierarchical sequence of social play as defined by Parten. Cultural, environmental and social changes since Parten’s time may have an impact on children’s social play behaviour and on the interpretations of play behaviour in addition to developmental factors. Because of the diversity and complexity of American children and their families, there is a pressing need to re‐examine Parten’s developmental sequence of young children’s social play that was conducted over 70 years ago in order to prepare developmentally and culturally appropriate practice for today’s children.

Keywords:

• social play sequence
• cultural diversity
• developmental appropriateness