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Children's Violently Themed Play and Adult Imaginaries of Childhood: A Bakhtinian Analysis

Rosen, R; (2015) Children's Violently Themed Play and Adult Imaginaries of Childhood: A Bakhtinian Analysis. International Journal of Early Childhood , 47 (2) pp. 235-250. 10.1007/s13158-015-0135-z. Green open access

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Abstract

© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Children’s violently themed play has long been contentious within educational policy, parenting literature, and the academe, with conflicting views as to its immediate and long-term consequences. Yet, little attention has been given to the way in which the meanings and values attributed to childhood influence these debates. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a Nursery in London, England, this article explores the different ideas about childhood contained within policies of the setting and educators’ responses to children’s violently themed play. The article draws on the work of the Bakhtinian circle to suggest educators’ complex and ambiguous responses to violently themed play need to be understood in relation to broader social contradictions connected to childhood, adult–child social relations, and early childhood education. Bakhtinian theorising is offered as an important resource for opening up meaningful dialogue about contentious issues in early childhood practice, including to taken-for-granted assumptions about childhood and violently themed play.

Type: Article
Title: Children's Violently Themed Play and Adult Imaginaries of Childhood: A Bakhtinian Analysis
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1007/s13158-015-0135-z
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13158-015-0135-z
Language: English
Additional information: The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13158-015-0135-z
Keywords: Childhood, Violently themed play, Adult–child social relations, Bakhtin, Early childhood education
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1473459
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