CULTURE AND GENDER IN PLAY

1. CULTURE AND GENDER IN PLAY

2. FINDINGS ABOUT PLAY • Play serves as common features of children’s lives, it can be found in all themes of culture. Consequently, through play, we experience our unique culture of socialization. • Conditions of children’s play vary a great deal, depending in the • Value/Beliefs. Respective to culture, we internalize gender and role distinctions. Consequently, girls may play less in certain cultures. • Practices. Within certain cultures, children experience ritualistic play that serves to prepare them for particular roles in society. • Kids in Spain practice being a Matador while another practices the role of the bull. • African and Hawaiian cultures, children practice ritualistic dances initially through play. 3. Institutions. Organized sports in America; Rites of passage in other cultures. 4. Tools that surround them. Rural children skip rocks on lakes and ponds.

3. THE ROOTS OF CULTURAL PLAY RESEARCH HELEN SCHWARTZMAN • First to integrate research on children’s play from an anthropological perspective. • “Transformation: The Anthropology of children’s play”- serves as cornerstone for research culture and children’s play. • Situates play in context of culture. Through play, children are internalizing and expressing cultural values. Play and cultural expression may be the glue to role identification. • Distinguishes between the study of play in generals from the study of children’s play in particular. • Explored ideologies and metaphor that have shaped cultural perspectives on play. • Identifies predominant theoretical views that give researcher the question that they attempt to answer with their research. • Presents an argument and data for considering children's play as a significant text that related to its cultural context.

4. SCHWARTZMAN’S METAPHORS OF PLAY • Copycat, Monkey. Allows children to practice things they see adults doing themselves when they grow up. 2. Personality trainee. Children are acquiring a sense of how to act and who they are as actors in their culture. • Critics. Through play, children are commenting on their own lives and what they see around. They are forming bonds with playmates that allows children to cope with the perceives injustice of society.

5. GAME DIFFUSION • Can we see a progression of play like behaviors between cultures? • Do superior cultures transfer (play) experiences to less advanced cultures? • Are there any totally indigenous and culturally based play customs?

6. Play and Universality • Certain forms of play. (e.g., chase, ball and imitative games) b) How they appear within their culture. (e.g., among boys or girls, when chores are done, with or without adults)

7. PLAY FUNCTIONS • Play has a developmental influence on children. • Play is associated with socialization into their societies, including the acquisition of gender roles, values and understanding about social institution. • Play is a functional set of activities that take the children from childhood and prepare them for what they will do later. • Allow children to acquire skills and values. • Give children an opportunity to practice adult roles and for adults to teach children about those roles. • Through games children learn how to play (rules) as well as showing sense which is necessary for survival.

8. PROJECTING PERSONALITY • Children’s play is credited as the setting where nature and nurture creates a resulting socialized community member and where psychological imperatives meet each culture’s socializing influences. • Play not only functions to shape the child within culture, but also, play functions to express who a child is as an individual. • Play is an expression of child’s way of dealing with their experiences growing up in their family and society as well as how play allows them to grow.

9. COMMUNICATION • A necessary and unique feature of pretend play is the communication. Many theorist purport that symbolic rationale (play frame) is essential towards promoting more advanced play. • The integration of symbolic rationale and play function is an integral step towards greater social and cognitive functioning. • The skill of Decontextualizing experiences are needed, so one can better take roles, think about experiences while not in that experience, and correctly interpret other’s signals (i.e., Various Role Play, Animalistic Play, Space Monsters).

10. DEFINATIONS OF PLAY • Play can be seen as “text in context” and “context in text.” The individual child responds to culture and culture responds to the individual child. Symbiosis. • Play not only reflects experiences but also shapes experiences.

11. SLAUGHTER & DOMBROWSKI—Diversity and Play • The cultural exchange of play can be seen from two standpoints: • Continuous (Cultural influence has remained in place for generations) • Discontinuous (Migration influences people through encountering multiple cultures. • Families carry belief and traditions with them when they move, but in a new setting they may have different meaning. • Children’s social and pretend play appears to be biologically based, sustained as an evolutionary contribution to human psychological growth and development but cultural transmission regulates the expression of this play.

12. CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON PLAY • FAMILY INFLUENCE ON PLAY • Play is often described in terms of it’s socialization functions. • By means of play, society shapes children to become participants in the larger groups. • Play in certain forms, contributes to meaningful social interactions that become adaptive for individual in their social groups. • Parental influence on play varies from culture to culture. • According to Haight, parents have indirect influence on children’s play by means of the setting that they arrange for play.

13. DIFFERENCES IN GROUP PLAY • Role of peers can vary a great deal, depending on culture. • Peer interactions within families, neighborhood, or classroom have distinctive outcomes as a function of culture. • Culturally unique customs appears in children’s dramatic play as do desired social roles. • Culture may contribute to play by providing a set of roles (particularly gender-linked roles) that can be played during pretend play. • In some culture play is not a matter of personal expression; players must recognize the interest of everyone in the community. • Culture adapts to their physical settings and play activities reflects those cultures and settings.

14. GENDER AND PLAY • Gender segregation during play early in life is a common Western observation, as are different styles of play for boys and girls. • Culture vary in the degree to which traditional gender roles are allowed expression by means of play.