We might say that children's play is the foundation of all learning. Often play is recognized as integral to childhood, but children's abilities to engage in play are complex and these complexities can be easily overlooked. This paper elevates children's play as critical for their learning, particularly in support of their sense of belonging. The paper argues for an openness to the complexities of children's play as a crucial practice of their cultural identity, through a critical conceptualization of some of the nuances and uncertainties of children's subject formation.
Drawing on concerns of cultural difference in early childhood education, Julia Kristeva's foreigner lens and her theory on the subject in process are used to theorise children's play as an ongoing process of belonging. Through the notions of the semiotic, abjection, love and revolt, the notion of the subject in process is elaborated to reconceptualize play as also in-process and ongoing. Rethinking play as a vital process within the sometimes difficult, often unpre-dictable experiences of becoming part of a centre community is elevated as crucial for a sense of belonging in early childhood education.
ArndtS. (2017). (Un)Becoming Data through Philosophical Thought Processes of Pasts, Presents and Futures. In M. Koro-LjungbergT. Löytönen, & M. Tesar (Eds.). Disrupting Data in Qualitative Inquiry: Entanglements with the Post-Critical and Post-Anthropocentric. (pp. 91–102). Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/b11070.
2.
ArndtS. (2018). Early Childhood Teacher Cultural Otherness and Belonging. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood Special Issue: Interrogating belonging in diverse early years settings.19(4), 392–403. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949118783382.
3.
ArndtS, GibbonsA and FitzsimonsP (2015). Thriving and Surviving, and the Incredible Problem of Constructions of Normality and Difference in Early Childhood Settings. Global Studies of Childhood Special Issue: Regulating Childhoods: Disrupting Discourses of Control, 5(3), 279–290. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043610615597144.
4.
BaldockP. (2010). Understanding Cultural Diversity in the Early Years. Sage.
5.
BiestaG. (2010). Why ‘what works’ still Won't Work: From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29(5), 491–503.
6.
CedermanK. (2008). Not Weaving but Drowning? The Child. Com in New Zealand Early Childhood Pedagogies. International Journal of Early Childhood, 40(2), 119–130.
7.
ChanA. (2009). Critical Multiculturalism: The challenge of multiculturalism within a New Zealand bicultural context - a Chinese perspective. International Journal of Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood, 7(1), 29–40.
DervinF. (2016). Interculturality in Education: A theoretical and methodological toolbox. Palgrave Macmillan.
12.
DuhnI. (2006). The Making of Global Citizens: Traces of cosmopolitanism in the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, Te Wh?riki. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 7(3), 191–202.
13.
DuhnI. (2010). ‘The Centre is My Business’: Neo-liberal politics, privatisation and discourses of professionalism in New Zealand. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 11(1), 49–60.
14.
GuoK. (2015). Teacher Knowledge, Child Interest and Parent Expectation: Factors Influencing Multicultural Programs in an Early Childhood Setting. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 40(1), 63–70.
15.
HoE., HolmesP. and CooperJ. (2004). Review and Evaluation of International Literature on Managing Cultural Diversity in the Classroom. Ministry of Education.
LeeS. and DallmanM.E. (2008). Engaging in a Reflective Examination about Diversity: Interviews with Three Preservice Teachers. Multicultural Education, Summer, 15(4), 36–44.
26.
LoveridgeJ., RosewarneS., M. J., ShukerM.J., BarkerA. and NagerJ. (2012). Responding to Diversity: Statements and Practices in Two Early Childhood Education Contexts. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 20(1), 99–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2011.634998.
MitchellL. (2013). Markets and Childcare Provision in New Zealand: Towards a fairer alternative. In E Lloyd & PennH. (Eds.). Childcare Markets: Can they deliver an equitable service? (pp. 97–113). The Policy Press.
33.
MitchellL., BatemanA., OukoA., with GerrityR., LeesJ., MatataK., XiaoW. (2015). Teaching and Learning in Culturally Diverse Early Childhood Settings. Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research (WMIER).
34.
MossP. (2006). Structures, Understandings and Discourses: Possibilities for re-envisioning the early childhood worker. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 7(1), 30–41. https://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2006.7.1.30.
MossP. (2010). We Cannot Continue as We are: The educator in an education for survival. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 11(1), 8–19.
37.
MossP. (2013). Early childhood and compulsory education: Reconceptualising the relationship. Routledge.
38.
OrangeC. (1989). The Treaty of Waitangi. Bridget Williams Books.
39.
PetersM.A., and TesarM. (2017). Philosophy and Performance of Neoliberal Ideologies: History, politics and human subjects. In PetersM.A. & TesarM. (Eds.), Contesting Governing Ideologies: An epat reader on neoliberalism. Routledge.
40.
Rhedding-JonesJ. (2000). Shifting Ethnicities: Foreign whites and others working on anti-racist pedagogies in early childhood education. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), Sydney, Australia. www.aare.edu.au.
41.
Rhedding-JonesJ. (2001). Shifting Ethnicities: ‘Native informants’ and other theories from/for early childhood education. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2(1), 135–156.
42.
RivallandC.M.P., and NuttalJ. (2010). Sameness-as-Fairness: Early childhood professionals negotiating multiculturalism in childcare. Early Childhood Folio, 14(1), 28–32.
43.
RobinsonK. and Jones-DiazC. (2016). Diversity and Difference in Early Childhood Education: Issues for theory and practice (2nd Revised edition Ed.). Open University Press.
44.
SöderbäckF. (2012). Revolutionary Time: Revolt as temporal return. Signs, 37(2), Special issue on Unfinished revolutions), 301–324.
45.
StoneL. (2004). Julia Kristeva's ‘Mystery’ of the Subject in Process. In MarshallJ.D. (Ed.), Poststructuralism, philosophy, pedagogy (pp. 119–139). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
46.
TesarM., & ArndtS. (2017). Cross Cultural Complexities of Educational Policies. Policy Futures in Education, 15(6), 665–669. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210317736181.
47.
ToddS. (2004). Teaching with Ignorance: Questions of Social Justice, Empathy, and Responsible Community. Interchange, 35(3), 337–352.
UrbanM. (2014). Learning from the Margins: Early childhood imaginaries, “normal science”, and the case for a radical reconceptualization of research and practice. In In BlochM., B. Swadener & CannellaG.S. (Eds.), Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Care and Education, a Reader: Critical questions, new imaginaries & social activism (pp. 235–252). Peter Lang.
50.
WalshD.J. (2007). Who are “We”? The Many Dimensions of Culture. Paper presented at the Early Childhood Convention, Rotorua, New Zealand.
