Arising out of a concern for the perceived devaluing of social pretend play in both formal early-... more Arising out of a concern for the perceived devaluing of social pretend play in both formal early-years educational environments in particular and in wider western society as a whole, this research seeks to identify and categorise some of the potential developmental benefits of this kind of play activity. It locates and describes five areas of development in particular within which sociodramatic play is seen as having an especially positive effect; these are – cognition, linguistic development, social understanding, identity construction/emotional and moral development, and humour/pleasure. Some of the interconnections and overlaps between these various areas of development are also explored. The research adopts an essentially "naturalistic" approach – collecting, collating and analysing fundamentally qualitative data. It seeks to describe the sociodramatic play of four and five year olds within formal educational settings using both video and audio recordings, as well as s...
An attempt is made in this review to sketch a possible integration of Vygotsky’s ideas about play... more An attempt is made in this review to sketch a possible integration of Vygotsky’s ideas about play and imagination on the one hand and his ontogenetic framework on the other. He was not able to realize the goal of developing a theory of play together with D. B. El’konin, but his lecture plan and lecture notes include several hints about the potential of play and imagination in human ontogenesis. Among these are play’s role in the development of self-regulation and consciousness. The concept of the zone of proximal development in play has a special value. Vygotsky aimed to develop a comprehensive concept and elaborated it in two contexts. The play context has more potential in attaining this goal. Elaborating a comprehensive theory of play based on Vygotsky’s methodological principles still represents great challenges for researchers. Play is an important activity type in which essential qualitative changes (metamorphoses) in ontogenesis take place. Some of these are explained in the ...
This study fills an urgent need for qualitative analyses of relationships resulting in human chan... more This study fills an urgent need for qualitative analyses of relationships resulting in human change. It is a result of sixteen years of independent study by the author. It combines postgraduate study of nonlinear methodology, applied research of children's pretend play, experience in educational psychology and Gestalt-counselling, as well as the practical training of graduate students at the Karelian State Pedagogical University (Petrozavodsk, Russia), and the Kajaani Department of Teacher Education (Kajaani, Finland). In this thesis, an attempt is made to reveal the fundamental reality of relationships between human beings. Using theories of helping relationships and data from developmental psychology, a qualitative nonlinear dynamical model of human relationships is elaborated. The scientific findings of Kurt Lewin and the Gestalt-therapy theory are widely used. To illustrate the explanatory potential of the proposed relationship model and the possibility of qualitative analyses, children's pretend play is analyzed. In the first chapter, the basic connectedness between humans is studied. The author is focused on theories of relationships and their application to the organizing of relationships' flow. The second chapter is devoted to detailed analyses of dynamic features of these theories and Kurt Lewin's conception of tension system. The ontological philosophy of relationships is briefly reviewed. This helps to formulate the main problem of the research-how is a nonlinear phenomenological model of human relationships possible? In the third chapter, a new nonlinear dynamic model of human relationships is elaborated. Several conceptions from Lewin's dynamic psychology and Gestalt-therapy are further developed in the model. A number of examples are analyzed. Video-data on children's pretend play is analyzed in the fourth chapter. In the subsequent discussions some advantages and shortcomings of the suggested dynamic nonlinear model are examined.
Arising out of a concern for the perceived devaluing of social pretend play in both formal early-... more Arising out of a concern for the perceived devaluing of social pretend play in both formal early-years educational environments in particular and in wider western society as a whole, this research seeks to identify and categorise some of the potential developmental benefits of this kind of play activity. It locates and describes five areas of development in particular within which sociodramatic play is seen as having an especially positive effect; these are – cognition, linguistic development, social understanding, identity construction/emotional and moral development, and humour/pleasure. Some of the interconnections and overlaps between these various areas of development are also explored. The research adopts an essentially "naturalistic" approach – collecting, collating and analysing fundamentally qualitative data. It seeks to describe the sociodramatic play of four and five year olds within formal educational settings using both video and audio recordings, as well as s...
An attempt is made in this review to sketch a possible integration of Vygotsky’s ideas about play... more An attempt is made in this review to sketch a possible integration of Vygotsky’s ideas about play and imagination on the one hand and his ontogenetic framework on the other. He was not able to realize the goal of developing a theory of play together with D. B. El’konin, but his lecture plan and lecture notes include several hints about the potential of play and imagination in human ontogenesis. Among these are play’s role in the development of self-regulation and consciousness. The concept of the zone of proximal development in play has a special value. Vygotsky aimed to develop a comprehensive concept and elaborated it in two contexts. The play context has more potential in attaining this goal. Elaborating a comprehensive theory of play based on Vygotsky’s methodological principles still represents great challenges for researchers. Play is an important activity type in which essential qualitative changes (metamorphoses) in ontogenesis take place. Some of these are explained in the ...
This study fills an urgent need for qualitative analyses of relationships resulting in human chan... more This study fills an urgent need for qualitative analyses of relationships resulting in human change. It is a result of sixteen years of independent study by the author. It combines postgraduate study of nonlinear methodology, applied research of children's pretend play, experience in educational psychology and Gestalt-counselling, as well as the practical training of graduate students at the Karelian State Pedagogical University (Petrozavodsk, Russia), and the Kajaani Department of Teacher Education (Kajaani, Finland). In this thesis, an attempt is made to reveal the fundamental reality of relationships between human beings. Using theories of helping relationships and data from developmental psychology, a qualitative nonlinear dynamical model of human relationships is elaborated. The scientific findings of Kurt Lewin and the Gestalt-therapy theory are widely used. To illustrate the explanatory potential of the proposed relationship model and the possibility of qualitative analyses, children's pretend play is analyzed. In the first chapter, the basic connectedness between humans is studied. The author is focused on theories of relationships and their application to the organizing of relationships' flow. The second chapter is devoted to detailed analyses of dynamic features of these theories and Kurt Lewin's conception of tension system. The ontological philosophy of relationships is briefly reviewed. This helps to formulate the main problem of the research-how is a nonlinear phenomenological model of human relationships possible? In the third chapter, a new nonlinear dynamic model of human relationships is elaborated. Several conceptions from Lewin's dynamic psychology and Gestalt-therapy are further developed in the model. A number of examples are analyzed. Video-data on children's pretend play is analyzed in the fourth chapter. In the subsequent discussions some advantages and shortcomings of the suggested dynamic nonlinear model are examined.
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