SOCIAL PRETEND PLAY BETWEEN CHILDREN IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE CENTERS

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers are social contexts of daily life where young children meet their peers and educators within an organized setting over a long period. These centers provide an ecological environment for observing how children share play activities and the role of educators and contextual features in supporting them. From the 2nd year onwards, as children develop their representational competencies, social play is often carried out through pretend activities involving pretend actions and verbal and nonverbal language. The analysis of play activities carried out by children in educational contexts highlights how pretense promotes their participation in long episodes of shared play. This study presents a qualitative analysis of two spontaneous social pretend play episodes shared by 24-36-month-old children during their everyday lives in two Italian ECECs. For each episode, we examined how the pretend play activity started and was developed by children over time; how they participated in it; how they interacted and communicated to share meaning; how they used space and play materials; how the educators participated in children's play and supported it. The implications for improving educational practices in ECECs are discussed.