Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Play from Birth and Beyond

1. Playing with Theory
Cynthia à Beckett, Sandra Lynch, Deborah Pike

Part I. The Value of Play

2. Making Life Worth Living: Theories of Play Enlivened Through the Work of Donald Winnicott
Cynthia à Beckett

3. The First 2 Years of Life: A Developmental Psychology Orientation to Child Development and Play
Kathleen Tait

4. Looking Deeper: Play and the Spiritual Dimension
Cathie Harrison, Christine Robinson

5. ‘Muck-about’: Aboriginal Conceptions of Play and Early Childhood Learning
Denise Proud, Sandra Lynch, Cynthia à Beckett, Deborah Pike

6. Loving Learning: The Value of Play Within Contemporary Primary School Pedagogy
Dee O’Connor

Part II. Play Beyond Early Childhood

7. Cultural Development of the Child in Role-Play: Drama Pedagogy and Its Potential Contribution to Early Childhood Education
Marilyn Fleer, Anna Kamaralli

8. The Playground of the Mind: Teaching Literature at University
Deborah Pike

9. Gamestorming the Academy: On Creative Play and Unconventional Learning for the Twenty-First Century
Bem Hunte

10. Designing for Serious Play
Fiona Young, Genevieve Murray

11. The Power of Play-Based Learning: A Pedagogy of Hope for Potentially At-Risk Children
Marguerite Maher, Stephanie Smith

Part III. Sociocultural Context, Technology and Consumerism

12. Gendering the Subject in Playful Encounters
Bronwyn Davies

13. Toys and the Creation of Cultural Play Scripts
Anne Kultti, Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson

14. Pretend Play and Technology: Young Children Making Sense of Their Everyday Social Worlds
Susan Danby, Christina Davidson, Maryanne Theobald, Sandra Houen, Karen Thorpe

15. Play, Virtue, and Well-Being: Is Consumerist Play a Bad Habit?
Angus Brook

16. Lego, Creative Accumulation and the Future of Play
Camilla Nelson, Ari Mattes

Keywords: Education, Early Childhood Education, Learning & Instruction, Educational Psychology