Educational Relationships in Play

This book focuses on child-child and child-teacher relationships in play activities carried out in a preschool class and a first grade elementary school class. The subjects were seventeen children in a preschool class approximately five years old and twenty-five children in the first grade of elementary school six years old on average in addition to their teachers. Data collection was based on participant observation of the children's routines with written records in field diaries and photographs. Data analysis reveals that in child-child relationships during play children interpret roles and share knowledge about female and male genders as they construct their identities. It also points out that in child-child relationships they organize themselves create rules choose games toys and partners and govern their own games; in child-teacher relationships teachers share with children the protagonism of choices routine and activities contributing to the construction of children's autonomy.