Playful perceptions: the role of and barriers to play for parents of young children in diverse global contexts
Kim Foulds
Abstract
ABSTRACTWhile the importance of play for young children’s healthy brain development is widely recognized, the literature on the role and perceptions of play among parents of young children is largely grounded in industrialized and well-resourced contexts. As such, there remains an important need to understand the role, perception, and value of play among families in more fragile contexts and geographies, including humanitarian settings. In an effort to address this knowledge gap, this study presents findings on the role and perception of play from 825 parents and caregivers of children ages 3–8 years old from a diverse range of low-resource and humanitarian contexts. The findings here demonstrate that play has a central role in families’ lives and parents under the link between play and children’s holistic development, but that there are both individual and structural issues that limit opportunities for play and that present significant challenges to play.KEYWORDS: Playearly childhood developmentchildrennurturing careeducation in emergencies AcknowledgementsI would like to acknowledge my Sesame Workshop colleagues who provided feedback on research design and instruments for these studies; implementation and research partners, including New York University’s Global TIES for Children, International Rescue Committee, BRAC, IPA Bangladesh, Purple Audacity Research & Innovation, Jordan Pioneers, Q Solutions, HSRC, and D3 Systems.; and the LEGO Foundation and Oak Foundation, who provided funding for these studies.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Select findings from these studies have previously been published in Foulds & Bucuvalas (Citation2019).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported the Amplifying Early Childhood in Emergency Settings grant from the LEGO Foundation. This work was also supported by Oak Foundation under Grant number OFIL-19-034.Notes on contributorsKim FouldsKim Foulds is the Vice President, Content Research & Evaluation at Sesame Workshop, the media and education nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street. She oversees research and evaluation on Sesame Workshop's co-productions and community engagement interventions across the globe. Kim holds a Ph.D. in Education and a M.A. in African Studies from University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College.