The structure of fantasy play and its implications for good and evil games

Abstract

In play, Vygotsky noted, the child seems to be a head taller than itself. The question is: What can it see from this position? In order to help answer this question, the interrelatedness between special characteristics of the format of common fantasy play and specific possibilities of action which this kind of play offers the playing children will be pointed out. Children will be explored from a perspective which highlights them as active producers of culture who can be co-constitutors of each other’s Zones of Proximal Development. Of course children are creative agents both when they take over traditional norms and when they do not. But in order to expose the relative autonomy of children’s groups, I will principally discuss children’s engagement in activities which are beyond or opposed to the prevailing moral codes of society.