Re: play

Keith Sawyer (sawyer who-is-at cats.ucsc.edu)
Fri, 9 Feb 1996 14:52:29 -0800 (PST)

Debra,
Yes, Vygotsky's writings on play have been pretty influential recently in
sociocultural analyses of play, particularly in response to Piagetian
perspectives. Vygotsky's views resonated with my own experience in the
preschool, and my own research choice, to focus on social play and how
social play affects individual development.

Vivian Paley is not an academic, but a preschool teacher for many years,
who began to write these wonderful books based on her own experience. I
don't know if she reads the more academic stuff at all. I just re-read
"Bad guys don't have birthdays" and Paley's observations are wonderful,
central to the child's "emic" experience and right on target.

Keith Sawyer
Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064