Analysis of Children’s Play in Multicultural German Kindergartens

Abstract

Play is the leading activity of childhood. In this study, the interactions of children during play and the contents of play in multicultural educational environments has been investigated in light of the Activity theory. The research has been conducted with 47 children of age groups 36-60 months in 2 official kindergartens of Municipality of Munich in Germany. The research is a qualitative study conducted in phenomenological design. It has been found in the study that children turned artistic activities into play and frequently created scenarios reflecting daily life in pretending play. The children were observed to use singing and dancing as initiation rituals for play and the teachers were observed to be supporting of these rituals. The problems encountered during play were found to be mostly based on unwillingness to share and the children were observed to reach a solution by reaching out to the teachers for help or relenting.