Browsing by Subject "Play--Social aspects"
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Item Francelia Butler's contribution to peace education: peace games a curriculum for teaching peace through play(2005) LaSeur, Michelle; Reifel, Robert StuartThe purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of Francelia Butler, professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and her Peace Games Program to the field of peace education. Butler's Peace Games program not only uses play as a means for teaching children to think about peaceful resolution of conflict, it also starts at the early childhood level and continues from kindergarten through the eighth grade. My data sources were two major collections of documents relating to Peace Games from Butler’s collection of papers at the University of Connecticut and the Peace Games offices. I interviewed participants who worked with Dr. Butler in developing and implementing her idea for peace education. I analyzed the data according to issues in conflict resolution common to both the rhetorics of play theory (Sutton-Smith, 1997) and the micromacro theory (Turpin & Kurtz, 1997) of the causes of violence.Item Tapestries of nurturance in children's role play: a case study of children's expressions of nurturing in a preschool classroom(2004) Hoke, Priscilla Ann; Reifel, Robert StuartThe purpose of my study was to examine children’s expressions of nurturance in pretend play and how they appear to understand nurturing in peers’ role-play. The study explored the relationship between preschool children’s nurturing expressions and the classroom environment. By observing in a University laboratory a core group of five children, and using field notes, video and audio tapes, interviews of the lead teacher and interns, the children, and selected parents, the data suggest the following. Children play through emotion arousing topics that can include danger and even life threatening events, in order to find ways to express nurturing; nurturance is embedded within an emotional content that includes children’s relationships with one another, their families, and with their fascination with popular culture; and a teacher’s trust in children’s capacity to pretend play, along with a teacher’s hands-off approach, can allow for children to begin to understand nurturing through role play about nurturing as well as about intense topics and subsequent nurturance. The study builds on the view of children as playing about their microcosmic understandings (Erikson, 1985) of the world that can include intense and often graphic topics in their pretend play (Katch, 2001). I propose that children’s capability to express and understand nurturing can be manifested in the context of pretend play that often includes intense and even violent topics. The classroom environment combined with a teacher’s hands-off approach are crucial in fostering nurturing in pretend play.Item A teacher's use of play to promote literacy learning in a prekindergarten classroom serving children from diverse language backgrounds(2005) Moon, Kyunghee; Reifel, Robert StuartThis study looked at both a teacher’s beliefs about the role of play and that teacher’s use of play in literacy learning serving children from diverse language backgrounds. Although several researchers have explored children’s literacy development in a play context, there is little research on this topic for children from diverse language backgrounds. In order to explore the role of play in literacy learning for children from diverse language backgrounds, I used a qualitative research approach to collect data from interviews, informal conversations, observations, and self-reflexive notes. In this study, the teacher believed play could be an ideal medium for ESL children who did not speak English fluently. Play gave them a relaxed and comfortable environment to practice a new language, English, without worrying about making mistakes. She understood play as a “concrete,” “hands-on,” “fun,” and “manipulative” activity that provides a relaxed and comfortable environment, becomes a good medium for integrated lessons, and gives a natural connection between the home language and English. She used play for a warm-up, games or tricks, integrated lessons, assessment, acting out characters, dramatic play, and block play in literacy learning for children from diverse language backgrounds. This study revealed that when a teacher believes that play takes an important role in children’s learning and development, she uses playful activities as potential teaching and learning mediums for ESL children’s literacy learning and development. In addition, the result supported that each teacher may have a unique understanding or practical notion of play in literacy learning, and it may strongly affect his/her classroom practices.