Creating Collective Scientific Consciousness: A Cultural-Historical Study of Early Learning about Earth and Space in the Context of Family Imaginary Play
Creating Collective Scientific Consciousness: A Cultural-Historical Study of Early Learning about Earth and Space in the Context of Family Imaginary Play
- The Pacific Early Childhood Education Research Association(환태평양유아교육연구학회)
- Asia-Pacific journal of research in early childhood education
- Vol.10 No.2
- : SCOPUS, KCI등재
- 2016.05
- 93 - 124 (32 pages)
Based on a cultural-historical perspective, where play is conceptualized as the creation of an imaginary situation, this study seeks to examine how scientific learning is fostered through collectively created imaginary situations during everyday family practices. This study forms part of a broader study, and in this paper the focus is on a three-year-old child and his family from Mainland China. A theoretical discussion of data collected reveals that a collectively created imaginary situation provides the conditions for a child’s exploration of scientific phenomenon not directly observable (e.g. Earth rotation and revolution). A form of collectively supported scientific consciousness was realized through discussions, imagining and re-imagining of everyday objects as scientific phenomenon. Scientific laws, as the rules of the scientific play being enacted by the family, enabled the child to be both imagining and viscerally experiencing which cannot be seen. The findings contribute to understanding how families create playful conditions that support scientific learning in the early childhood period.
A Cultural-Historical Understanding of the Dialectic between Collective Imagining and Individual Imagining
A Cultural-Historical Understanding of the Dialectic between Imagination and Reality Existing in Play
Research Design
Findings
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
References