| dc.description.abstract | Play is a frequent and relevant activity during childhood, and
developmental psychologists agree that it offers a unique
window on development. Play, however, remains a fuzzy
concept, and difficulties persist in its definition, often leading
to obstacles in building and comparing experimental studies.
This may be due to widespread tendencies to define play by
referring to non-observable inner states, to consider playing
something that occurs in the head rather than in-the-world
and to overreliance on developmental stages. Enactive
approaches to child play have instead recently stressed the
importance of play contexts, considering child play an activ ity in-the-world rather than a mental state, thereby de intellectualizing play and pretense. Along these lines, in this
paper the authors propose a novel approach to the definition
of play types by considering the roles of organism, environ ment, and task constraints, within the framework of Material
Engagement Theory. Focusing on the material world sur rounding the child and the interactions which characterize
play, we critically review the strategy of resorting to non observable categories in the study of play, and we propose
a new model (the Kaleidoscope Model) for play analysis. | vi |
