Using cross-cultural conversations to contextualize understandings of play: a multinational study

ABSTRACT

The following study examines two researchers’ perspectives on play in the lives of children from diverse cultural contexts. Two questions guided this study: (1) how do researchers conceptualize children’s play and (2) what shapes their understanding of play. In order to answer these questions, a critical discourse was established between two researchers who had each completed ethnographic studies of play in the UK and Jamaica. The initial research studies comprised of observations, semi-structured interviews, field notes and collection of artefacts relating to play. Through discourse, new understandings were unearthed by examining the different contexts of play. The aim of this study is to contextualize our understanding of play and to expand our notions of play beyond researcher positionalities. This discursive method allows concepts of play to be grounded, but not restricted by national contexts through juxtaposition with multinational policies, programmes and practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Play
• cross-cultural discourse
• conceptualization of children’s play
• Jamaica
• UK

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Zoyah Kinkead-Clark is an early childhood lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Mona. She is keenly interested in how children are shaped by their experiences in the home and how educators build on these in the classroom. She had been kindergarten teacher for several years, and her current research focus is aimed at exploring how early childhood children, particularly those from low-resources regions, can be provided with greater opportunities to successfully meander the crucial first five years of life, especially in light of the significant challenges many of them may face.

Charlotte Hardacre is a Lecturer in the Department of Health, Psychology and Social Science at the University of Cumbria, where she has been a faculty member since 2014. She teaches a range of undergraduate modules on the Working with Children and Families degree programme, with a focus on early childhood education and intergenerational learning. She is also a family learning practitioner, facilitating courses in primary schools, in which children and their parents learn together. Charlotte is conducting doctoral research in this field in order to understand how best to evidence evaluations of family learning.