Young Children Playing

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Introduction and Methods: Relating and Feelings at the Heart of Play

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Framing: Young Children Relating and Playing

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 3-21

   3. Research Methods: Observing Experience in Two Projects (Parts II and III)

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 23-43

3. Young Children Being Playful in Three Early Childhood Care and Education Settings: Connecting and Communicating

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 45-45

      PDF

   2. The Intersubjective in-between-ness in Young Children’s Playfulness

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 47-60

   3. Words Connecting Children Playfully Together

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 61-77

   4. Becoming Selves Relationally

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 79-96

   5. Imagining While Playing

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 97-113

   6. Feelings Felt in Bodies

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 115-135

4. Infants and Toddlers Relating and Playing: Layers of Holding

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 137-137

      PDF

   2. A Holding Environment

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 139-157

   3. Relational Fields and Context

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 159-176

5. Implications for Teachers: Observing Subjectively, Reflectively, Relationally and with Feeling

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 177-177

      PDF

   2. Implications: Teachers Being Relationally Aware

      • Sophie Jane Alcock

      Pages 179-194

The subject of this book is young children’s emotional-social learning and development within early childhood care and education settings in Aotearoa-New Zealand. The focus on emotional complexity fills a gap in early childhood care and education research where young children are frequently framed narrowly as ‘learners,’ ignoring the importance of emotional functioning and the feelings with which children make sense of themselves and the world. This book draws on original data in the form of narrative-like framed events to creatively illustrate the complexities in children’s diverse ways of feeling, thinking, playing, being, and becoming. Events illuminate the feelings and meanings of observed experiences in holistic and contextualised gestalts. Awareness of unconscious processes, the feeling of feelings, and cultural dimensions of development and meaning-making are addressed. The book emphasises the emergent and psychodynamic nature of children’s development and learning with strong links to the role of play and playfulness in the events, drawing on two ethnographically inspired research projects that present theory, experience and practice in real-life events.

• Attachment as belonging
• Childhood development and psychology
• Cognitive learning-experience
• ECCE services
• Early childhood care and education services
• Emotional complexity
• Emotional learning-experience
• Emotional-social learning
• Micro-macro activity systems
• Narrative events
• Nature of playfulness
• New Zealand Early Childhood Education
• Perezhivanie
• Post-Freudian
• Post-Kleinian
• Relational and sociocultural psychoanalytic perspectives
• Sophie Alcock
• Tangata whenua
• Vygotsky
• Zone of proximal development

• Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

  Sophie Jane Alcock

Dr Sophie Alcock has been involved in early childhood care and education for many years as a practitioner, university lecturer, professional development facilitator, and researcher. Her research focuses on the relational nature and social-emotional-spiritual-cultural dimensions of children’s learning and development in play. Sophie’s interest in children’s play is reflected in her creative approach to understanding the complexities in play. She is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Te Puna Akopai, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

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