Degrees of freedom in collective play: how different institutions create diverse conditions for young children's interactions

Young children create, shape, and transform their unique personal pathways and individual trajectories as they move through diverse social settings such as family, early childhood centers, and community settings. As the child makes transitions within diverse settings she/he experiences different social and cultural realities. The different realities create unique conditions for interactions with peers, children from different cultural age periods, and adults. Following a cultural-historical framing of development, this study explored how different institutions create diverse conditions for children's interactions. The focus of this paper is on the institutional practices of early childhood centers as well as practices of family home settings. A cohort of one hundred and thirty (130) children in early childhood settings and a cohort of one hundred families (100) in Australia participated in the study. Indicative case examples are presented. Research design drew on the Conceptual PlayWorld model, as a collective form of play practice for the development of imagination and play. Visual methods were used for digital data collection and analysis. The findings illustrate the degrees of interactional freedom available for children in play in different institutional settings. We illustrate the diverse motives and intentions of children within the group activity settings, the way the adults recognize and respond to these motives and intentions through creating unique motivating conditions that lead to mature forms of interactions. The findings inform everyday practice by making visible what has been taken for granted, and inform policy by opening up a new area of understanding about quality interactions in the early years.