Dear Ricardo-- I have now read your paper on play and am hoping to
download and read Keith's as well. I have a kind of "meta" question
about the presumed history of play a la elkonin.
This quesetion is motivated by data on cross-cultural differences in
children's play, in particular, the work of Susan Gaskins such as the
article in Artin Goncu's recent collection on play and activity. Gaskin
and others report what appears to be very limited pretend play, and
especially, little projected pretend play in rural, general non-literate
social groups.
When such play occurs, it occurs using everyday adult activities as the
model.
Such play has been reported in the ethnographic literature on hunter
gatherers as well as rural agriculturalists with relatively simple level
of material culture.
This play is very different from play which turns a stick into a rocket
and includes fantastic characters from fiction and film, such as reported
by Vivian Paley.
Would these differences, in your mind, lead to reduced complexity of
later thought processes in adults, or slower acquisition of that complexity?
By some measures, the Mayan peasant with whom Susan has worked (for example)
do not develop mentally past middle childhood or even early childhood
level UNLESS they attend school. I have been very critical of concluding
that the measures used to assess cognitive development in such work are
generally valid measure of cognitive development. Toomela, whom you quote,
has criticized my conclusion as un-Vygotskian.
How do you view this issue? Keith? Others?
mike
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