Play to learn, learn to play: Boundary crossing within zones of proximal development

Abstract

During recent years a handful of educational-pedagogical research programmes within the traditions of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and cultural psychology have explored alternative paths to teaching, knowledge transfer and peer-to-peer learning by creating and exploring socially constituted contexts for learning which emphasizes cultural plurality, critical reflection and expansive, non-linear forms of learning (Cole 1996,2007; Lindqvist 1995, 2001; Rossen 2006). Learning, in other words, that takes place within carefully constructed zones of proximal development instantiated in select institutions, offering the attendees a space for crucial knowledge acquisition and personal growth. Examples of these interventions are Michael Cole’s 5th Dimension Project (Cole; Cole and The Distributed Literacy Consortium), the studies of Play Pedagogy (Lindqvist, 1996), narrative learning (Hakkarainen 1999, 2004; Hakkarainen and Bredikyte 2004) and Hedegaard’s cultural-historical classroom studies (2002). These combined research sites and spaces for learning have been providing the immersed researchers primarily with qualitative data which oftentimes point to the evaluated organizations as excelling in academic accomplishment as well as bettering the subjective experiences of the learning practice among the participating children (Brown and Campione 1994, 1996; Cole 1996, 2007; Hakkarainen 1999, 2004; Hedegaard 2002, 2005; Palinscar and Brown 1984). Within the cultural-historical tradition, scholars have worked with both children and adults by actively creating and participating in the functional systems they study, ultimately aiming towards inducing actual change. When constituting the system that is analyzed, the researchers place themselves in a privileged relationship to the object of analysis, making it possible to adopt an ecologically situated view within the actual developing contexts and accomplishing an institutional perspective that integrates traditions and practice in the institutions where children live their everyday life (Cole 1996; Hedegaard 2002 Rossen 2005, 2006). What separates the Play World project from other related interventions, however, is an initially non-complete and open-ended structure that allows for the participants to engage in designing the content of the intervention with guidance from and in collaboration with the researchers.