Designing toys for contemporary childhood in Russia and Belarus: manufacturers, educators and psychologists (based on the proceedings of the international round table "An interdisciplinary analysis of contemporary early childhood in Russia and Belarus: the toy — from theory to practice")

Context and relevance. In the preschool years, the toy serves as one of the primary means of a child’s development and lies at the intersection of developmental psychology, pedagogy, culture, design, and manufacturing. In the preschool years, the toy serves as one of the primary means of a child’s development and lies at the intersection of developmental psychology, pedagogy, culture, design, and manufacturing. The quality of contemporary toys therefore takes on special importance. A toy must be safe, appealing, age-appropriate, and provide conditions that support the child’s development. At the same time, a gap persists between manufacturers and the psycho-pedagogical community, which primarily affects the developmental potential of children’s toys. Objective. To summarise the first meeting of an international round table devoted to the interdisciplinary analysis of preschool childhood and toy design, and to present the main lines of the discussion: international experience of involving psychologists and educators in toy development, the place of psychological-pedagogical content in the training of specialists, the experience of cooperation between a university and manufacturers in Belarus, and the results of an exploratory survey of manufacturers. Methods and materials. The paper is written as an analytical review of the event. Its empirical part is an exploratory survey of representatives of toy-manufacturing organisations from Russia and Belarus (N = 5) using open-ended questions; the answers were processed by qualitative content analysis. Results. A steady interest among manufacturers was identified in issues of safety, quality, and the developmental potential of toys, while interaction with the psycho-pedagogical community remains mainly episodic. Conclusions. The meeting documented a shared demand in Russia and Belarus for an interdisciplinary approach to toy creation, alongside an ongoing gap between industry and the psycho-pedagogical community. Promising directions for closing this gap include integrating knowledge of child development into the toy design stages and building sustained collaboration between manufacturers, researchers, educators, and psychologists.

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