Toys and Communication

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

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2. Toys and Communication. Preliminary Issues

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Toys and Communication: An Introduction

      • Jeffrey Goldstein

      Pages 3-13

   3. The End of Play and the Fate of Digital Play Media: A Historical Perspective on the Marketing of Play Culture

      • Stephen Kline

      Pages 15-32

   4. Toys: Between Rhetoric of Education and Rhetoric of Fun

      • Gilles Brougère

      Pages 33-46

   5. A Toy Semiotics, Revisited

      • David Myers

      Pages 47-60

3. Language Development

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 61-61

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   2. Age Differences in the Use of Toys as Communication Tools

      • Amanda Gummer

      Pages 63-73

   3. LMNOBeasts™: Using Typographically Inspired Toys to Aid Development of Language and Communication Skills in Early Childhood

      • Todd Maggio, Kerri Phillips, Christina Madix

      Pages 75-88

4. Toys, Culture and Communication

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 89-89

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   2. Images of Toys in Spanish Art (15th–19th Centuries): Iconographic Languages

      • Oriol Vaz-Romero Trueba, Michel Manson

      Pages 91-115

   3. Communication in Moroccan Children’s Toys and Play

      • Jean-Pierre Rossie

      Pages 117-136

   4. Dincs as Worldviews: Things that Communicate a Mind

      • Koumudi Patil

      Pages 137-152

   5. Holocaust War Games: Playing with Genocide

      • Suzanne Seriff

      Pages 153-170

   6. Working Class Children’s Toys in Times of War and Famine. Play, Work and the Agency of Children in Piraeus Neighborhoods During the German Occupation of Greece

      • Cleo Gougoulis

      Pages 171-195

   7. Can Toy Premiums Induce Healthy Eating?

      • Carla Ferreira, Luísa Agante

      Pages 197-213

   8. You Are What You Eat: Toying with the Process of Becoming

      • Mariah Wade

      Pages 215-231

5. Toy Design and Play Spaces

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 233-233

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   2. Work and Play in a Theme Park

      • Luísa Magalhães

      Pages 235-253

   3. Design for Rebellious Play

      • Lieselotte van Leeuwen, Mathieu Gielen

      Pages 255-274

There are few scholarly books about toys, and even fewer that consider toys within the context of culture and communication. Toys and Communication is an innovative collection that effectively showcases work by specialists who have sought to examine toys throughout history and in many cultures, including 1930’s Europe, Morocco, India, Spanish art of the 16th-19th centuries. Psychologists stress the importance of the role of toys and play in children’s language development and intellectual skills, and this book demonstrates the recurrent theme of the transmission of cultural norms through the portrayal, presentation and use of toys. The text establishes the role of toy and play park design in eliciting particular forms of play, as well as stressing the child’s use of toys to ‘become’ more adult. It will be beneficial for courses in education, developmental psychology, communications, media studies, and toy design.

• Communication
• Toys
• Children
• Toy Design
• Language
• Play
• Culture
• Development
• Developmental Psychology
• Education
• Media Studies

“A diverse read for anyone interested in contemporary toy research from the perspectives of children’s object play and toys as a historical communicative platform. The book also provides insightful chapters on the relationships between toys and art and designing for play – emerging areas of study which prove that the power of the toy medium ranges beyond playthings.” (Katriina Heljakka, toy and play researcher at University of Turku, Finland)

• Faculty of Philosophy and Social Scienes, Catholic University of Portugal, Braga, Portugal

  Luísa Magalhães

• Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

  Jeffrey Goldstein

Luísa Magalhães is Researcher in Communication Sciences at the Catholic University of Portugal, and is especially interested in the relationship between children, toys and play activities. 



Jeffrey Goldstein is Affiliated Researcher at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He is the author or editor of 16 books and is a fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. 

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