In 1950, classic play theorist Johan Huzinga expressed the position of play as a cultural phenomenon. Children’s play varies from culture to culture and is one of the major factors that influence young children’s development and learning. Children learn and incorporate social norms, values and roles through play. It is essential to understand the dynamics of culture and its influence on child development especially in the contexts of family ethnic culture. Through play, children reflect and portray their own family practices, roles and values. For example, when Asian children played in pretend play, they portrayed more family role activities and less fantasy or fiction based play. The socio-cultural experiences mould children’s play in a unique way which is meaningful and personal in the long run.
The theory that children’s social and physical environment set the stage for comprehending developmental outcomes and processes was proposed by Super and Harkness (1999). This theory explains that customs and cultural beliefs give information that form the basis for constructing …show more content…
Mothers may teach the child to play a different way from her childhood learning. The way we interpret child’s play varies from culture to culture. For example, In Asia, play and academic activities is seen sepereate form each other. Whereas, in Italy there is very little distinction between other activities and play and they strongly place emphasis on social interaction in child’s play. Also, Western parent focus on separateness and self assertion whereas Asian parents place emphasis on peaceful interdependence. Therefore in the West the self is defined solely to the individual and in the East, self is defined in relation to the social groups (Chen,
The theory that children’s social and physical environment set the stage for comprehending developmental outcomes and processes was proposed by Super and Harkness (1999). This theory explains that customs and cultural beliefs give information that form the basis for constructing …show more content…
Mothers may teach the child to play a different way from her childhood learning. The way we interpret child’s play varies from culture to culture. For example, In Asia, play and academic activities is seen sepereate form each other. Whereas, in Italy there is very little distinction between other activities and play and they strongly place emphasis on social interaction in child’s play. Also, Western parent focus on separateness and self assertion whereas Asian parents place emphasis on peaceful interdependence. Therefore in the West the self is defined solely to the individual and in the East, self is defined in relation to the social groups (Chen,