Teachers’ And Children’s Perspectives About Play In The Educational Context Of Kindergarten

I-Introduction - The study herein presented was moved by the following goals: to enrich discussion around the concept of quality of play; to understand how teachers and children value play, identifying shared and/or disagreeing meanings; to find clues for the improvement of teachers’ educative practices.

II-Material and methods -The study adopted an interpretive approach. It was basedon the analysis and interpretation of the teachers’ and children’s discourse about provided and experienced play in their kindergartens; structured interviews were chosen as data retrieving technique, and categorial content analysis as data handling technique.

III-Results - The main results we put in relief are: the discourse of play devaluationon the part of teachers, held up on diverse reasons which point to the non-existence of an unanimous and uniform discourse; the precise ideas children demonstrate on play and its value to learning; the distance between teachers’ and children’s conceptions on play, it’s importance and how to experience it.

IV-Discussion - Teacher’s formation must: set up opportunities for personal deep meditation on beliefs about play and adequate educational practices; develop capabilities that enable the understanding of children’s perspective.

Key words: quality of play; kindergarten