Grounded in Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, this paper examines how often teachers are involved in children's imaginative play and discusses their beliefs about their role in supporting children's imaginative play. To investigate this problem, video (65 hours of digital observations) and interview data (two hours and 30 minutes) of 60…

Although there is a long tradition of play pedagogy in early childhood education, teachers have mostly taken a passive role in children's play. There are relatively few studies of the pedagogical roles adults take from inside of children's imaginary play. This paper seeks to fill this gap through presenting the findings of a study where the play…

Traditionally, play has been viewed as the guiding pedagogical practice for kindergartens in most industrialised countries. Central to this approach has been a strong belief in free play. As governments are spending more money on early childhood education, many Western countries are demanding greater learning outcomes for preschool aged children.…