Introduction: Children’s Play and Development

Abstract

Many excellent books have been written about play – so when you write yet another, you are certain to be in good company! At the same time, it must be made clear why one wants to add yet another book about the subject. Our wish is to contribute to play research by giving equal weight to play and cultural-historical theory and hopefully gain further insight by combining the two topics. Metaphorically speaking, our hope is to go further by walking on two legs. Certainly, most publications address both topics, but they are often treated in very unequal proportions. We will attempt to combine them as we go along and in the book seek to balance their relative importance. First step in this introduction will address the question “What is play?” At first the views of central theories of development are mentioned and thereupon we look at play through the cultural-historical lens. In the next part we discuss the application of theories, at first on a general level and afterwards with a focus on cultural-historical theory. Finally follows a brief presentation of all the chapters in the book.