Collective interpretations of early science learning about Earth and Space: a cultural-historical study of family settings for scientific imagination

Depending upon a cultural-historical perspective, where play is defined as the creation of an imaginary situation, this study seeks to examine whether and how family joint creation of imaginary situations can provide the conditions for a child’s science learning in early childhood. The paper reported here forms part of a broader study, and the focus of this paper is about a three-year-old child and his family from Mainland China. The parents were invited to take part in the digital video observations of the child’s everyday family play and learning, as well as the analysis of the visual data together with the researchers. A total of 35.66 h of video data were collected including 11.6 h of videos (51 clips) videoed by the parents and 4.24 h of parents’ participated data analysis in the form of family interview. The finding reveals that parents’ joint creation of imaginary situations was the child’s preferred social form when exploring the science concepts. Guided by the cultural-historical approach, the researchers entered into the family activity settings and the parents were also invited into the researchers’ activity settings. As such, the parents’ perspective was revealed in their roles as the research participants and co-researchers. This resulted in the collective interpretation of a child’s science learning which the family had offered.