Young Children Playing

The main subject of this book is young children's emotional-social learning and development within early childhood care and education settings. Its focus on emotional complexity fills an important gap in the field of early childhood care and education research literature, which frequently prioritises views of young children as 'learners,' downplaying the importance of the feelings with which children make sense of the world. This book draws on original data in the form of narrative-like framed 'events' to creatively illustrate the complexities in children's diverse ways of feeling, thinking, playing, being, and becoming. Events illuminate the feelings and meanings of observed experiences in holistic and contextualised gestalt-like ways. By analysing and discussing events, the book promotes an explicit awareness of unconscious processes, feelings, emotions, and the cultural dimensions of development and meaning-making through thinking about feelings. Lastly, it emphasises the emergent and psychodynamic nature of children's development and learning with strong links to the role of play and playfulness in the events, drawing on two ethnographically inspired research projects that present theory, experience and practice in real-life 'events'.