Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Play from Birth and Beyond

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxxiii

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2. Playing with Theory

   • Cynthia à Beckett, Sandra Lynch, Deborah Pike

   Pages 1-22

3. The Value of Play

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23

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   2. Making Life Worth Living: Theories of Play Enlivened Through the Work of Donald Winnicott

      • Cynthia à Beckett

      Pages 25-37

   3. The First 2 Years of Life: A Developmental Psychology Orientation to Child Development and Play

      • Kathleen Tait

      Pages 39-59

   4. Looking Deeper: Play and the Spiritual Dimension

      • Cathie Harrison, Christine Robinson

      Pages 61-78

   5. ‘Muck-about’: Aboriginal Conceptions of Play and Early Childhood Learning

      • Denise Proud, Sandra Lynch, Cynthia à Beckett, Deborah Pike

      Pages 79-91

   6. Loving Learning: The Value of Play Within Contemporary Primary School Pedagogy

      • Dee O’Connor

      Pages 93-107

4. Play Beyond Early Childhood

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 109-109

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   2. Cultural Development of the Child in Role-Play: Drama Pedagogy and Its Potential Contribution to Early Childhood Education

      • Marilyn Fleer, Anna Kamaralli

      Pages 111-128

   3. The Playground of the Mind: Teaching Literature at University

      • Deborah Pike

      Pages 129-150

   4. Gamestorming the Academy: On Creative Play and Unconventional Learning for the Twenty-First Century

      • Bem Le Hunte

      Pages 151-161

   5. Designing for Serious Play

      • Fiona Young, Genevieve Murray

      Pages 163-179

   6. The Power of Play-Based Learning: A Pedagogy of Hope for Potentially At-Risk Children

      • Marguerite Maher, Stephanie Smith

      Pages 181-203

5. Sociocultural Context, Technology and Consumerism

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 205-205

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   2. Gendering the Subject in Playful Encounters

      • Bronwyn Davies

      Pages 207-216

   3. Toys and the Creation of Cultural Play Scripts

      • Anne Kultti, Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson

      Pages 217-230

   4. Pretend Play and Technology: Young Children Making Sense of Their Everyday Social Worlds

      • Susan Danby, Christina Davidson, Maryanne Theobald, Sandra Houen, Karen Thorpe

      Pages 231-245

   5. Play, Virtue, and Well-Being: Is Consumerist Play a Bad Habit?

      • Angus Brook

      Pages 247-264

   6. Lego, Creative Accumulation and the Future of Play

      • Camilla Nelson, Ari Mattes

      Pages 265-279

While firmly acknowledging the importance of play in early childhood, this book interrogates the assumption that play is a birthright. It pushes beyond traditional understandings of play to ask questions such as: what is the relationship between play and the arts – theatre, music and philosophy – and between play and wellbeing? How is play relevant to educational practice in the rapidly changing circumstances of today’s world? What do Australian Aboriginal conceptions of play have to offer understandings of play?


The book examines how ideas of play evolve as children increasingly interact with popular culture and technology, and how developing notions of play have changed our work spaces, teaching practices, curricula, and learning environments, as well as our understanding of relationships between children and adults. This multidisciplinary volume on the subject of play combines the work of some of the world’s leading researchers in the field of early childhood education with contributions from distinguished and emerging scholars in areas as diverse as education, theatre studies, architecture, literature, philosophy, cultural studies, theology and the creative arts. Reconsidering the common focus on play in early education, to investigate its broader impact, this collection offers a refreshing and valuable addition to studies on play, reconceptualizing it for the 21st century.

• Adult play
• Architectural space
• Childhood play
• Consumerist play
• Cultural development
• Cultural-historical activity theory
• Donald Winnicott
• Drama pedagogy
• Early childhood education
• Gaming culture
• Inclusive Education
• Indigenous play
• Multi-disciplinary framework
• Play and the sacred
• Play-based learning
• Professional practice
• Student engagement
• Teacher engagement
• Understandings of play
• Virtue and play

• The University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney, Australia

  Sandra Lynch, Deborah Pike, Cynthia à Beckett

Sandra Lynch (PhD) is Director of the Institute for Ethics and Society and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney campus. Her research interests lie in applied and professional ethics, values education, and friendship. She is author of Philosophy and Friendship (Edinburgh UP, 2005); Strategies for a Thinking Classroom (Primary English Teachers Association, Australia, 2008); “Friendship and Happiness from a Philosophical Perspective” in Friendship and Happiness (Springer, 2015) and “Philosophy, play and ethics in education” in Philosophical Perspectives on Play (Routledge, 2015).


Deborah Pike (PhD) is the Discipline Head and a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney Campus. Her research interests include cultural studies, postcolonial and modernist literary studies, and wellbeing and play studies. She is author of The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald (University of Missouri Press, 2016); and “The Russian Way of Happiness: Choice, Love and Community” in On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century (UWA Press, 2016), a book that she also co-edited.


Cynthia à Beckett (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney Campus and an experienced early childhood educator and advisor. Her research interests explore connections between the sociology of childhood, young children and families and the topic of play. Her publications include “Imaginative education explored through the concept of Playing in the In-between” in Imagination in Educational Theory and Practice, a Many-sided Vision (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012). She is a member of the Board of the prestigious SDN Children Services and chairs the Board’s Research Ethics subcommittee.

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