Children's Play in Diverse Cultures

Edited by Jaipaul L. Roopnarine, James E. Johnson, and Frank H. Hooper

Subjects: Comparative Education
Series: SUNY series, Children's Play in Society
Paperback : 9780791417546, 240 pages, January 1994
Hardcover : 9780791417539, 240 pages, January 1994

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Table of contents

1. The Need to Look at Play in Diverse Cultural Settings
Jaipaul L. Roopnarine and James E. Johnson

2. Play in the East Indian Context
Jaipaul L. Roopnarine, Ziarat Hossain, Preeti Gill, and Holly Brophy

3. Children's Play in Taiwan
Hui-Ling Wendy Pan

4. Children's Play in Japan
Michio Takeuchi

5. Peer Interactions in Polynesia: A View from Marquesas
Mary Martini

6. Mainland Puerto Rican Children
Lourdes Diaz Soto and Lillian Negron

7. Child's Play--una cosa naturale: An Italian Perspective
Rebecca S. New

8. African Children's Play and the Emergence of the Sexual Division of Labor
Marianne N. Bloch and Susan M. Adler

9. Meaning in Mud: Yup'ik Eskimo Girls at Play
Kathleen Bennett deMarrais, Patricia A. Nelson, and Jill H. Baker

10. Culture, Play, and Early Childhood Education
Celeste Lasater and James E. Johnson

Index

Description

This book illuminates play as a universal and culture-specific activity. It provides needed information about the behavior of children in diverse cultural contexts as well as about the play of children in unassimilated cultural or subcultural contexts. It offers readers the opportunity to develop greater sensitivity to and better understanding of the important cultural differences that confront early childhood teachers and teacher educators.

Jaipaul L. Roopnarine is Associate Profesor of Child Studies and Early Childhood Education at Syracuse University. James E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Education at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Frank H. Hooper is Professor of Child and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Reviews

"This is an exciting book. I couldn't wait to read it, and I was not disappointed. Among its many excellent features is the way in which it illuminates the cultural-ecological model of play in early childhood. I doubt if anyone who reads the book will forget the vivid images it evokes of children's play in these diverse and fascinating cultures and the many evidences of the 'overlapping layers of environmental influence' that shape its forms and functions.

"I believe that Children's Play in Diverse Cultures will prove a major stimulus for across- and within-culture studies employing cultural-ecological concepts. I became aware that some of the things I regarded as well-established 'truths' about child development do not apply in all cultures, and assuming they do can limit our educational practice. I feel stronger as an advocate for children as a result of reading this work. " — Penelope Griffing