The dialectic between ideal and real forms of ‘sharing’: a cultural-historical study of story acting through imaginary play at home

ABSTRACT

In a time when story-acting practices have gained increasing focus, little is known about the relations between family story acting and a child's interactions with the ideal models represented in stories. Drawing upon a cultural-historical perspective of play and development, this study is aimed at discovering how a child is able to interact with the conceptual models usually formed in stories such as ‘sharing’ during family dramatic play. The case study reported in this paper related to a three-year-old child and the parents from Mainland China. A total 25.15 hours of video observations and interviews was collected over 16 family visits during 2 research periods. Findings suggested that a shared imaginary situation created during the co-construction of a play-world between a child and his/her parents had its importance in fostering the child's active explorations of the ideal descriptions of certain conceptual rules. A new interpretation of the play-world can be made considering the pretend form made in a play-world, which acts as a bridge between a child's real state of conceptual understanding and the ideal form of the concept described in a story-world.

KEYWORDS:

• Play-world
• story acting
• cultural-historical
• family
• concept

Acknowledgements

The author sincerely acknowledges the child Xin and her family. Special thanks are also extended to the Cultural-Historical Research Community.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Yijun Hao is a PhD Researcher and is working as a Research Assistant in Early Childhood Education at Monash University. She is a reviewer of the special issue International Research in Early Childhood Education (2015). Her current research focuses on young children's development of concepts associated with their engagement in imaginary play at home. Her research interests include: Concepts formation, play, family play, scientific thinking, and child's development of concepts using cultural-historical theory.