Form and Material of Role Play in Preschool Children

The article addresses the problem of how cultural forms in role play become the means of behaviour change, of overcoming its natural forms. First, the article analyses a cultural means (in this case, a fairy tale) that specifies the general way of testing the meaning of action (the relations between people) in play. Second, it is shown that this general way involves constructing a duple play plot that includes a symbolic call for action and a role response to it. Putting play into the ideal duple form is actually the act of mental development. The unity of motivational and operational aspects of action exists only in the making of duple play. Overcoming its material (natural affects, emotional experiences) through the duple form - that's the mechanism of duple play. The article also describes child play materials and shows the resistance of material to play form.

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