Teacher participation in young children’s dramatic play

This paper engages with the complexities of the teacher’s role in young children’s dramatic play. Dramatic play provides a context for the learning and development of young children’s language, social, imaginative, and self-regulation skills (Yogman et al., 2018). During socio-dramatic play, children engage with peers as they take on roles and symbolically transform objects for alternative meanings creating shared narratives (Gmitrova, 2013). This is particularly evident in play as pedagogically deployed in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings with young children aged 3–5 years. However, the role of the early childhood teacher in children’s dramatic play remains contested with respect to the limitations and/or affordances adults contribute to play (Fleer, 2015; Grieshaber, 2016; Loizou, 2017). In this paper we contribute to this debate by first examining the roles of teachers in dramatic play—teacher outside the play and co-player within the play. We then propose a third role—that of “public performer”—and consider its implications for teachers’ participation in children’s dramatic play.

From a cultural-historical perspective play encompass an imaginary situation positioning players in dual roles of self and other (Kravtsov and Kravtsova, 2010; Vygotsky, 1976; Vygotsky, 1930/2004). Play requires players to become someone else, whereby children express and embody ideas and actions beyond their own experience (Bateson, 1976; Kravtsov and Kravtsova, 2010; Vygotsky, 1976). Children move between self and a character role creating a double subjectivity involving the known and pretend (Kravtsov and Kravtsova, 2010). Kravtsov and Kravtsova (2010: 29) argue that to understand play you need to “research play through the simultaneous stance of taking two positions.”

During dramatic play children experiment with time, space, and role as they enact and communicate their ideas with others through verbal and physical expressions (Vygotsky, 1930/2004). Children take elements from their day-to-day experiences and combine these experiences into new invented realities in the play (van Oers, 2013; Vygotsky, 1930/2004). Yet, despite the adoption of dramatic play as an important element in play-based pedagogies, the role of the ECEC teacher in dramatic play remains contested, and generally teachers do not participate as co-players with children (Edmiston, 2017; Grieshaber, 2016). Instead, the literature concerning teachers’ role in children’s play canvasses activity on a spectrum from freely-chosen and child-centered play to adult-directed and guided play for learning (Weisberg et al., 2013) Teachers’ non-participation is historically understood in the context of adult involvement in children’s free play (Grieshaber, 2016; Trawick-Smith, 2012; Wood, 2013).

Researchers have conceptualized adult participation in play through notions such as intentional teaching (Epstein, 2007) and sustained sharing thinking (Siraj-Blatchford, 2009) but these concepts do not explicitly explain how teachers might participate in children’s dramatic play. Devi et al. (2018) examined teacher’s involvement in children’s imaginative play using Kravtsov and Kravtsova’s (2010) ideas about subject positioning. Subject positioning describes the child and adult as subjects in play, while positioning identifies how the child and adult relate to the play and each other. An adult can be in an “up” position relative to the child, meaning the adult actively contributes ideas and information, or they can be in an “under” position, whereby they feign incompetence so that the child has to lead the play. Devi et al.’s (2018) study used cameras to capture the teacher’s involvement in children’s play in everyday settings as well as interviews with the teachers. Findings suggested teachers valued children’s play and were involved as “observer, inquirer, instructor, and material provider,” thus preferring to be on the periphery in their subjective positioning (Devi et al., 2018: 308). In other research, Pyle and Danniels (2016) interviewed 15 teachers from kindergartens in Ontario, Canada and undertook observations of children and teachers during play. They found teachers had diverse views about their roles in play, with some teachers believing that adults should not intervene in play, while others guided and extended children’s play based on children’s interests. All teachers reported challenges focusing on academic outcomes during play-based learning with children (Pyle and Danniels, 2016).

While play is contested in terms of the adult role for pedagogical purposes, an alternative approach used in drama pedagogy includes the teacher as an active participant. Drama pedagogy is based on practices of teacher-in-role with students. The teacher acts as a guide in the drama, “leading the way while walking backwards,” so as to include the children in all aspects of the story (O’Neill, 1995: 67). Loizou et al. (2017) researched drama pedagogy with a teacher (who had drama expertise and experience) and a cohort of 17 pre-service student teachers (who had some drama pedagogy training). The research found the main behaviors of all participants were aligned with guidance in adult-supported, child-centred play, and they used the drama technique of teacher-in-role, whereby they became a character in the play narrative. Loizou et al. (2017) identified how teachers mainly used and preferred indirect guidance strategies to support children’s participation in dramatic play, where more direct guidance to enhance the play was used less. This study demonstrated the direct strategies used by teachers in children’s dramatic play extended the play into “collective action and a form of dialogic interaction” (Loizou et al., 2017: 609).

Hadley (2010) examined the practice of teacher-in-role to highlight the dual roles teachers take outside and inside the flow of children’s play. Outside the play involves observation and prompting, and inside the play involves narrative participation. In early childhood education playworlds have attracted attention as a pedagogical option for teachers outside and inside play. Playworlds have a long history in ECEC; originally developed by Lindqvist (1995), based on Vygotsky’s (1930/2004) writings on play and imagination. Researchers have used playworlds to examine how adults engage with children in the construction of play narratives (Hakkarainen, 2010; Hakkarainen et al., 2013). Hakkarainen et al. (2013) used playworlds with 110 children aged between birth-5-years old over a 7-year period. The children, their families and student teachers were the research participants. The role of the adult revealed a contrast between, “successful or less successful joint play in the narrative play-world intervention” (Hakkarainen et al., 2013: 217). Findings revealed that successful interactions had qualities of spontaneity and creativity, in which adults were able to keep the play narrative interesting and engaging for the children. Less successful interactions saw the adults as observers of play, seemingly unable to connect or understand children’s play, with children losing interest and the story dispersing (Hakkarainen et al., 2013).

Ferholt (2009) researched playworlds in a multiage school setting using the novel The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (Lewis, 1950). The classroom teacher, four researchers, and 20 children from 5.2 years to 7.2 years participated to “foster development in both the adult and the child” (Ferholt and Lecusay, 2009: 59). Playworlds were identified as a powerful means of supporting development, especially when the teacher became a “fellow actor” in the play (Ferholt and Lecusay, 2009: 61). More recently, Fleer (2017) has proposed “conceptual playworlds” in which ECEC teachers invite children into thematic based playworlds to solve problems aimed at enabling children’s understanding about STEM learning.

The research reported here uses Vygotsky’s (1976) theorization of dramatic play whereby children take on roles in the form of a character that can express and embody ideas and actions beyond their own experience. Imagination is central to this play and from a cultural-historical perspective has four interrelated phases (Vygotsky, 1930/2004). First, children’s imagination begins with reality informing their play and creating “a new active force” (Vygotsky, 1930/2004: 20). Second, a combinational phase amalgamates memories with the new active force. Third, combined memories and the active force enable the experience of emotions by children as their memories have feelings attached to them and they ascribed these memories to their new experiences. The fourth phase is embodiment where reality, memory and emotions become crystallized creating something new, typically in the form of a play narrative, that did not exist before (Vygotsky, 1930/2004).

In play children move between their character role and self which creates what is known as double subjectivity (Kravtsov and Kravtsova, 2010). Socio-dramatic play allows children to “express their imagination in action” with others in a social activity, noting that other players are also experiencing dual affect (Lindqvist, 1995: 40). Lindqvist’s (2003) playworlds developed as an aesthetic drama pedagogy in which teachers and children improvise in an embodied narrative. The teacher brings an idea to the children and together they take on roles and develop a shared narrative.

The research was informed by previous studies that used playworlds to specifically examine how teachers and children engage in dramatic play (Ferholt, 2009; Hakkarainen et al., 2013; Lindqvist, 2001).

The teachers were found to be both outside and inside the play simultaneously with children. Outside of the play was indicated by taking the teacher role, and inside the play by the teacher being in a co-player role. These roles required the teachers to organize the play from the teacher perspective and contribute from their character role perspective, with a focus on commitment to the imaginative contributions made by the children. The following playworld example (Method 3) highlights how Peggy was in role as Spiderwoman and the children where in role as the Ministers of Superheroes. In the developing play narrative the Ministers had been called to help Spiderwoman retain her lost powers.

Here Peggy stimulates the children’s ideas by using her role to gain assistance from the children’s expertise in their role. The contributions of the children, who know how spiderwebs are created via the hands and finger gesture, teach the Spiderwoman skills so the playworld narrative may progress. When the teacher operates from the simultaneous perspective of teacher and role, this affords them the opportunities to be in a shared imagined world with children. Using dual positioning allows for group problem solving and collaboration skills to be supported, capabilities that are just emerging in young children (Yogman et al., 2018).

Another example of the teacher’s dual roles occurred in a playworld (Method 3) that combined the popular culture motifs of superheroes and the movie Frozen™. The co-playing teacher, Louise, was Queen Elsa, and the researcher was in-role as Queen Elsa’s sister, Anna. The children were detectives, and their expertise was essential to solving the dilemma at hand, centred on how Queen Elsa had frozen all the superheroes in the land. The children, as detectives, wanted to convince Elsa to stop using her powers to freeze people.

The extract above shows Louise both in teacher role and as a co-player, that is, as Queen Elsa posing questions to elicit the children’s ideas to build and guide the shared narrative (Sawyer, 1997, 2015). Here Louise took two points of view, as teacher and as character role, throughout the playworld. These interactions between the teacher and children were fluid and unpredictable, creating a “dialogic improvisation” (Sinclair, 2012: 50) with the creative process in constant flux (Engel, 2013; Vygotsky, 1930/2004). Louise’s subsequent written reflection (Method 3) expressed her flexibility in moving inside and outside of the play flow (Hadley, 2010) accommodating the children’s contributions.

These examples demonstrate how the teachers in this study used dual roles while improvising the unfolding narrative with children. Louise was able to construct “emotional responses to both actual and dramatic worlds” (Dunn et al., 2015: 1) balancing the dual roles typically associated with children in play, whereby her teacher-role outside of the play likewise contributed to her role as co-player within the play (Kravtsov and Kravtsova, 2010: 35). When teachers such as Peggy and Louise were flexible in their dual roles, a “spontaneous improvisation” could emerge (Brėdikytė, 2011: 153) to keep the play narrative moving.

However, in addition to these situations involving the documented roles of teachers being inside and/or outside the play, some situations were observed where teachers’ participation did not have the resultant double subjectivity that children are known to use in their play (Kravtsov and Kravtsova, 2010; Vygotsky, 1976). To dramatically improvise requires people to experiment in a creative process (Sawyer, 2011a; Zaporozhets, 2002) which makes demands on their feelings and emotions (Greene, 1980; Vygotsky, 1926/1992). When teachers take on roles in children’s play it “wakes up the adult’s own imagination, [and ] helps emotional involvement” (Hakkarainen et al., 2013: 223).

Nonetheless teachers in this current study found that sustaining their dual roles during children’s play were influenced by others in the room. For example, in the ECEC context it is assumed there is no audience, although the presence of other adults who were not participating in the activity created a feeling amongst these teachers of being observed. This sense of audience was found to be a hindrance to teachers’ involvement and impacted their capacity to be a co-player. For example, in one particular playworld (Method 3) Henrietta (teacher) was in role as Elsa from Frozen™ and the children were in role as detectives. Everyone was traveling to a snowing landscape to find Olaf, the snowman. In this vignette the teacher had asked the children how they could travel, and one child suggested a sleigh, so she continued to elicit their ideas.

Here, Henrietta was trying to scaffold the children’s ideas, however the children did not have time to contribute to advance the conversational turn taking (Kidwell, 2022). This was because the 2^nd teacher, perhaps invested in supporting the children’s learning, was also answering the posed questions. Working in groups in a creative manner is multi-leveled with a process including both “creative mental processes (at the level of the individual) and creative collaborative processes (at the level of the group)” (Sawyer, 2011b: 62). In this example, Henrietta, who is responsible for the collaborative process, is fragmented from her dual roles and her ability to improvise with the children was restricted.

The researcher noted in the journal after a playworlds session.

In the group interview (Method 4) the teacher’s perceptiveness shed light on her experience.

Henrietta’s notion of “blocking the play” illustrates how other adults, forming a type of audience, or perhaps trying to facilitate the play, could cause the teacher as co-player to withdraw from the shared imaginative endeavors of the dramatic play. Lindqvist (1995: 132) argues that, when the interest of other adults wanes, “this fact would influence the course of events” and in this example the effect hindered the teacher and children’s improvised dialogue.

In the following exchange in the group interview (Method 4) the teachers expressed how the “performance” aspect of being in children’s play as co-players impacts on their involvement. Although being a co-player was viewed as essential to their practice (Hakkarainen et al., 2013), it also carries the risk of judgement.

Hakkarainen et al. (2013) found that when the adult becomes an observer outside of the play they lack sufficient coordination of their own emotional and physical contributions to the play. This leads to the play narrative being broken. Further evidence of the impact of the audience on teacher dual roles was found in the teachers’ comments in the group interview (Method 4) about other educators being in the classroom.

Peggy’s concerns about what others may be thinking as they watch shifts her own focus to the audience, prompting a third affect role, which we have called “public performer.” The experience of public performer existed for the teachers when adults not directly involved in teaching or participating in the playworld were in the classroom.

The results from this study suggest that teacher’s participation in children’s play in not an individual pursuit but one that is collaborative with children and influenced by the environment, including children’s interests in popular culture and digital media. Teacher skills in eliciting children’s ideas meant that multiple voices added to the shared improvised narrative. In this study, the adults did not dominate (Pyle and Danniels, 2016); instead, the children and teacher were able to guide and be guided in the collaboration (Sawyer, 1997, 2015). Being a teacher outside of the play and co-player inside the play are particularly connected when listening to and incorporating children’s contributions. This requires teachers to improvise alongside the children and be comfortable in the unpredictable nature of children’s play. Improvisors are “open to ideas, accept other people’s suggestions and support each other as players” (Loizou and Michaelides, 2020: 97).

Brėdikytė and Hakkarainen (2011: 64) argue it is challenging for teachers “to be spontaneous; to improvise, to have the courage to make mistakes.” Sawyer’s (2015) work with actors suggests even skilled improvisors can feel a terror-like state when things are not going well. An unpredictable environment experienced as public performer means “group creativity can be frightening because failure is public” (Sawyer, 2015: 253). Thus, teachers can be pulled away from the dual affect that supports dramatic play by a third affect, that of being a public performer. The teachers in this study described how the kindergarten environment in which other adults can be present contributed to an uneasy audience-induced state, traveling “from the flow zone into an anxiety zone” (Sawyer, 2015: 253). Being in such anxiety zone, alongside the demands of trying to maintain the dual affect in the face of the third affect typically resulted in teachers being unable to support children’s unfolding narratives.

This research makes a novel contribution to existing understandings about ECEC teacher participation in children’s socio-dramatic play via the limiting impact of a third affect, which we have labeled “public performer.” Our findings suggest that, when teachers are simultaneously outside the play as teacher, and inside the play as co-player, they maintain double subjectivity as both a teacher and within a role (i.e., teacher Louise as Queen Elsa). Teacher maintenance of dual affect during dramatic play can sustain the play narrative with a group of children, although this is a challenging proposition even for experienced teachers (Hadley, 2010). However, the introduction of a third affect—that of public performer—may be too much to sustain, meaning that double subjectivity becomes impossible. Our data offer no explanation for why some teachers find the presence of an audience difficult to bear. We simply note that simultaneously being a teacher, co-player, and public performer is a significant challenge for anyone other than experienced drama educators.

Findings from this study suggest the use of double subjectivity as enacted within a playworld is important for players of all ages as it ensures the presence of the self and the capacity of the imagined character to do what otherwise is impossible. However, our findings also suggest that in ECEC settings, a third affect—that of public performer—can arise for teachers when other adults are in the classroom, compromising the achievement of double subjectivity through the anxiety associated with a potentially judgemental audience. When this occurs the capacity of playworlds to support adult-child interactions during play is jeopardised. Given the historical traction playworlds have in the ECEC literature as mode of supporting adult-child interaction via play-based learning (Fleer, 2020) the problem of the public-performer requires attention. If teachers are uneasy with their contributions to a playworld the pedagogical intention of the world itself may not be well sustained. Further research could investigate the extent to which the third affect is most effectively addressed for educators within their own kindergarten settings.