A Wilmington College education faculty member presented a paper on “Cultural Variations in Understanding Teacher’s Role in Children’s Play” at the 2024 Childhood, Education & Society Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, this summer.
Dr. Ilfa Zhulamanova, assistant professor of education, said her paper is part of a broader, mixed-methods, cross-cultural, comparative study on perspectives about the teacher's role in play. She is a member of the Early Childhood Education and Education International Special Interest Forum. This group comprises six researchers from Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Estonia, Spain and the United States.
“We are a teacher education faculty interested in children's play around the globe,” Zhulamanova said, noting that 365 students participated in the study, which examined how future early childhood educators from Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Estonia, Spain and the United States perceive their role in children’s play.
“The main hypothesis of this research is that, given the focus on academization, preservice teachers are not adequately prepared to use play interactions as a tool to maximize the development of children’s cognition,” she added. “The results highlight the need to examine teacher training curricula concerning the incorporation of play as a teaching and learning tool in early childhood classrooms.
“Finding the right balance between ‘stepping in ‘and ‘stepping out’ to transform play into learning remains unresolved.”