Children's Play in Diverse Cultures (Suny Series, Children's Play in Society)

Rating:
Summary: Varied collection of papers
Review: This book is a collection of papers describing various aspects of children's play around the world. The rationale for the book is stated clearly in the introduction to chapter 2: "It can safely be said that most of the studies on young children's play are based on observations and assessment conducted on North American and European children," but most of the world's children live elsewhere, in other cultures, so "in order to develop more valid general theories of play, we need data from children in other cultures as well." Countries covered include India, Taiwan, Japan, Polynesia, children of Puerto Rican heritage brought up in the US, Italy, Africa, and Eskimo Alaska, while ages of the children range from infants through middle school-aged. Some of the papers discuss research projects or questions, while others describe what is happening at daycare centers in other countries to bring them into line with suggestions from Western research on the educational value of play.

One of the more interesting papers in the volume is the one by Mary Martini, in which Martini describes how Polynesian children are pretty much left to their own devices around the age of toddlerhood, and how they spend most of their time playing in groups with other preschoolers with no adult supervision. The children learn to survive in hazardous environments, they must withstand hazing, teasing, and abuse from older children, and most importantly, they learn their place in the social hierarchy of their peers. Martini's results are quite compelling, but at the end of her paper, she makes some rather odd comparisons of Polynesian children and American children, pointing out where Polynesian children seem to be ahead of American children: "American children's concern with the sanctity of self makes them vulnerable to the vagaries of social life. The everyday social hazing that Marquesan four-year-olds learn to handle with poise and humor would devastate most American preschoolers and would be considered emotional abuse by our courts." While many of the points Martini makes in this comparison may be valid, she neglects to consider the balance- -certainly there are some aspects of American upbringing that make American children stronger or healthier in some ways than Polynesian children. If a comparison is made, it should not be as one-sided as is done here. But perhaps it's not valid to attempt such comparisons at all.

The last chapter of the book seems to suggest that the book was intended as training material for preschool educators on multicultural aspects of play. While the book has some material of interest to researchers and students, there aren't really any ideas to implement here. In the best of its chapters, it is more a description of some of the ways play is organized in other cultures, and how play serves to prepare children for their roles in society. The chapters describing how certain preschools in other countries are striving to adopt Western play practices don't have much at all that could be applicable for Western preschool educators.

Rating:
Summary: Varied collection of papers
Review: This book is a collection of papers describing various aspects of children's play around the world. The rationale for the book is stated clearly in the introduction to chapter 2: "It can safely be said that most of the studies on young children's play are based on observations and assessment conducted on North American and European children," but most of the world's children live elsewhere, in other cultures, so "in order to develop more valid general theories of play, we need data from children in other cultures as well." Countries covered include India, Taiwan, Japan, Polynesia, children of Puerto Rican heritage brought up in the US, Italy, Africa, and Eskimo Alaska, while ages of the children range from infants through middle school-aged. Some of the papers discuss research projects or questions, while others describe what is happening at daycare centers in other countries to bring them into line with suggestions from Western research on the educational value of play.

One of the more interesting papers in the volume is the one by Mary Martini, in which Martini describes how Polynesian children are pretty much left to their own devices around the age of toddlerhood, and how they spend most of their time playing in groups with other preschoolers with no adult supervision. The children learn to survive in hazardous environments, they must withstand hazing, teasing, and abuse from older children, and most importantly, they learn their place in the social hierarchy of their peers. Martini's results are quite compelling, but at the end of her paper, she makes some rather odd comparisons of Polynesian children and American children, pointing out where Polynesian children seem to be ahead of American children: "American children's concern with the sanctity of self makes them vulnerable to the vagaries of social life. The everyday social hazing that Marquesan four-year-olds learn to handle with poise and humor would devastate most American preschoolers and would be considered emotional abuse by our courts." While many of the points Martini makes in this comparison may be valid, she neglects to consider the balance- -certainly there are some aspects of American upbringing that make American children stronger or healthier in some ways than Polynesian children. If a comparison is made, it should not be as one-sided as is done here. But perhaps it's not valid to attempt such comparisons at all.

The last chapter of the book seems to suggest that the book was intended as training material for preschool educators on multicultural aspects of play. While the book has some material of interest to researchers and students, there aren't really any ideas to implement here. In the best of its chapters, it is more a description of some of the ways play is organized in other cultures, and how play serves to prepare children for their roles in society. The chapters describing how certain preschools in other countries are striving to adopt Western play practices don't have much at all that could be applicable for Western preschool educators.