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Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 43, no. 1,
January–February 2005, pp. 22–48.
© 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 1061–0405/2005 $9.50 + 0.00.
D.B. ELKONIN
Chapter 1
The Subject of Our Research:
The Developed Form of Play
The word “play.” Play and primitive forms of art
The words “play” [igra] and “to play” [igrat’] in Russian have
many meanings. The noun “play” is used metaphorically to mean
any kind of diversion, for example, “play with fire,” and to mean
something unusual, for example, “trick [lit. play] of nature,” or
randomly, “twist [play] of fate.” The verb “to play” is used to mean
a diversion, the performance of a musical work or role in a play,
and, metaphorically, to indicate pretense, “to play the fool,” “to
irritate”(play on one’s nerves); to occupy some position—“to play
the leading role”; to take a risk—“to play with life”; to fail to treat
something seriously enough—“to play with fire” or “to play with
(to fool) people”; or to appear with particular liveliness or brightness—“the sun plays on the water,” “the waves play.” Although
dictionaries do distinguish the direct (basic) and metaphorical
English translation © 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text, “Predmet
issledovaniia—razvernutaia forma igrovoi deiatel’nosti detei,” in Psikhologiia
igry, 2d ed. (Moscow: Gumanit. izd. tsent VLADOS, 1999), pp. 13–36. Translated and published with permission of Boris Daniilovich Elkonin.
Translated by Lydia Razran Stone.
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meanings of these words, the differences between them are not
explained very clearly. Why, for example, in the expression “to
play the market” (meaning to speculate in the market) is the verb
“to play” used in its metaphorical sense, but in the phrase “to play
cards” in its direct sense?
It is difficult to discern what sorts of activity and features were
part of the original meaning of these words, and how, along what
path, they accumulated more and more new senses.
The earliest systematic description of children’s play in Russia
was provided by E.A. Pokrovskii. He begins his book on the subject of children’s play as follows:
The concept of “play” generally is somewhat differently understood by
different peoples. Thus, to the ancient Greeks the word “play” referred
to children’s actions, expressing what we now call “behaving childishly.”
To the Jews, the word “play” corresponded to the concept of joking and
laughter. To the Romans, “ludo” meant happiness or gaiety. In Sanskrit
“kliada” means play or happiness. The ancient German word “spilän”
referred to a light, smooth motion, such as the swing of a pendulum,
which produces a sensation of pleasure. Later, in all European languages,
the word “play” began to refer to a broad range of human activities that,
on the one hand, made no claim to involve hard work, and, on the other,
gave people pleasure and satisfaction. Thus, in modern times the range
of concepts covered by this word began to include everything starting
with children’s playing soldiers to the performance of tragedy on the
stage, to children’s playing games to win nuts from each other, to playing the market for cash, from riding “horseback” on a stick to the highest mastery of the violin, and so forth. (1887, p. 1)
Fifty years later the eminent Dutch biologist and psychologist
F. Buytendijk (1933) also provided an etymological analysis of
the word “play” and attempted to induce the characteristic features of the processes signified by this word. Among these features he identified “back and forth” motion (hin und her Bewegung),
spontaneity and freedom, joy and amusement. Not satisfied with
this, Buytendijk proposed that those researching the phenomenon
of play should look at the use of this word by children themselves,
believing that the child is especially adept at distinguishing play
from activities that do not merit this description.
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Of course, no etymological research could lead to an understanding of the features of play for the simple reason that the history of
changes in word use follows special laws, among which transfer
of meaning occupies an important place. Nor could analysis of the
use of this word by children lead to an understanding of play because they have simply borrowed this word from adults.
The word “play” is not a scientific concept in the strict sense
of this term. Perhaps, precisely because a whole series of researchers has tried to find something in common among actions
of an extremely diverse nature and quality all described by the
word “play,” even today we have not derived a satisfactory set of
constraints on these actions nor a satisfactory explanation of various forms of play.
This fact caused J. Kollarits (1940) to come to the pessimistic
conclusion that an exact definition and delineation of play within
the sphere of activity of humans and animals was not possible and
that any search for such definitions would have to be described as
merely the “scientific play” (jeux scientifiques) of those providing them. This negative point of view regarding the possibility of
developing a general theory of play, and thus an understanding of
its general nature, was also applied to the more limited area of
children’s play. This idea was expressed, in particular, in the fact
that many American textbooks on child psychology simply fail to
discuss the issue of the psychology of play. Even the fundamental
Manual of Child Psychology edited by P. Mussen (1972), which
cites the results of Western research in all areas of child psychology, does not provide a review of research on children’s play, which
is only mentioned four times for a few lines each.
U.M. Gallusser compiled an overview of research on play during the first half of the twentieth century.1 Drawing a general conclusion from his review of biological and psychological theories
of children’s play, he suggests that, undoubtedly because of the
difficulties in attaining an appropriate and all-encompassing definition, or even a description, of play that would be applicable to
all phenomena recognized as play, as well as the shortcomings
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in the development of selected theories, the majority of psychology books and experimental investigations had been directed
toward empirical observations rather than theoretical analysis.
Some initial data that would be of help in understanding the
psychological essence of play can be found in the ethnographic
materials on the subject. It is well known that play, as an element
of culture, has interested ethnographers and philosophers working
on the problem of aesthetics.
The first attempt to develop a theory of play is usually associated with the names of such nineteenth-century thinkers as F.
Schiller, H. Spencer, and W. Wundt. In the process of developing
their philosophical, psychological and particularly aesthetic views,
they, incidentally, in only a few sentences, touched on play as one
of the most widespread phenomena of life, relating the origin of
play to the origin of art.
We will cite some of their ideas.
In his letters on aesthetic education, Schiller wrote:
Indeed nature endowed even unthinking creatures beyond their needs
and sowed the spark of freedom in the darkness of animal life. When
the lion is not tortured by hunger and a predator is not calling him to
battle, then his unused potential makes of itself its own object: the lion
fills the resonant desert with a mighty roar and this luxurious power
takes satisfaction in its own, albeit purposeless, exercise. Insects flit
around enjoying life in the sunshine, and, of course, we are not hearing the sounds of passion in the melodic songs of birds. Without a
doubt, freedom is manifested in these actions, but not freedom from
all needs, simply freedom from specific external needs. The animal
labors when the lack of something needed triggers its activity, and it
plays because of an excess of energy, when excess energy itself incites
action. (1935, p. 287)
Here, indeed, is the whole theory that is typically referred to as
the theory of excess energy. However, as the quotation cited shows,
this name does not completely correspond to Schiller’s view. For
him, play is the enjoyment associated with the manifestation of
excess life energy in the absence of external needs. “The object of
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the urge to play, in general, may be called by the living name, the
concept, that serves to designate all phenomena with esthetic
properties, in a word, everything that in the broadest sense is called
beauty” (1935, p. 242).
To Schiller play is aesthetic activity. An excess of energy, free
of external needs, is only the precondition for the aesthetic enjoyment that, according to Schiller, is provided by play.
Schiller’s introduction of enjoyment as the constituent feature
common to aesthetic activities and play influenced the further development of the theory of play.
H. Spencer does not give too much space to play either, nor does
he specially undertake to develop a theory of play. His interest in
play, like Schiller’s, is a function of his interest in the nature of
aesthetic enjoyment. However, he places the issue of excess energy
discussed by Schiller in a broader evolutionary biological context.
Spencer states his view on play in the following words: “The
activities known as play have one general trait in common with
aesthetic activities: the fact that neither one nor the other directly
serves the processes required for survival” (1897, p. 413).
Posing the question of the origin of the impulse to play, Spencer develops his theory, which is usually also called a theory of
excess energy. He writes:
The lower animals all have in common the fact that they spend all their
energy on tasks that have survival significance. They are constantly
occupied with searching for food, escaping from enemies, constructing shelter and providing food and a place of safety for their offspring.
But, as we consider higher and higher animals, those with capacities
that are more efficient or successful and more numerous, we begin to
find that time and energy are not fully consumed by direct needs. Better nutrition, resulting from superior organization, sometimes results
in excess energy. Thus, in more highly developed animals, the high
level of energy that might be required in some particular extreme instance, generally is more than is required to meet immediate direct
needs. (1897, pp. 13–14)
And further, “Play is precisely the exercise of power that, as a
result of lack of opportunity for natural exercise, is ready to be
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discharged and seeks whatever outlets it finds through contrived
activities in place of the real activities when they are lacking”
(1897, p. 415).
For Spencer the difference between play and aesthetic activity
lies only in the fact that play expresses lower capacities, while
aesthetic activity expresses higher capacities.
None of the passages quoted are systematic presentations of a
theory of play. They contain only a traditional consideration of the
nature of play in the context of the origin of aesthetic activity.
W. Wundt came closest to an understanding of the origin of
play. However, even he was prone to consider enjoyment to be the
source of play. The ideas Wundt expresses are also fragmentary.
He wrote:
Play is the child of labor, there is no play that does not have its prototype in one of the forms of serious labor, which always precedes it
both in time and in essence. The need to survive forces human beings
to labor. And the human gradually learns to value the exercise of his
energy as a source of pleasure. . . . Play dispenses with the useful
objective of labor and thus, instead, the objective becomes this pleasant result that accompanies labor. (1887, p. 181)
Wundt points to the possibility of separating the nature of actions
from the object of labor and the specific objective material conditions under which labor takes place. These ideas have important
theoretical significance. While Spencer, in his consideration of play,
classified human play as part of the biological aspect of human
behavior, Wundt considered it to be part of the social and historical aspect of this behavior.
The foundation for a materialist understanding of how art came
from labor set forth by Karl Marx was developed by G.V.
Plekhanov. Criticizing the theory in accordance with which art is
older than the production of useful objects, and play is older than
labor, Plekhanov in his “Letters Without an Address” [Pis’ma bez
adresa] wrote, “No, dear sir, I am firmly convinced that we will
not understand anything about the history of primitive art if we do
not adopt the idea that labor is older than art and that, in general,
human beings first look at objects and phenomena from a utilitar-
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ian standpoint and only later adopt an aesthetic attitude to them”
(1958, p. 354).
These statements are important to understanding the source not
only of art but also of play as two types of activity that have a
common genetic basis. In the history of human society, play could
not have arisen before labor and before the forms of even the most
primitive art. The history of culture shows us at what stage of its
development art appears. However, how the transition from forms
of actual work to forms of art occurred is not yet completely clear.
Under what conditions might the need to represent the hunt, war,
or other serious activity occur? Two hypotheses are possible here.
We will illustrate these through the example of representations of
the process of hunting.
Imagine, for example, that a group of hunters has returned after
an unsuccessful hunt and that their lack of success was the result
of lack of coordination among the members of the hunting group.
This would give rise to the need for a preliminary rehearsal or
orientation to the conditions and organization of the next hunt in
order to make it more successful. The potential of purely mental
and schematic rehearsal is limited and the participants in a future
hunt would likely represent the conditions and organization of this
impending hunt visually and through action. One of the hunters
would play the part of the clever and wily prey with all its tricks
and the others would act out the entire process of organizing the
hunt for it. This would serve as a kind of “maneuver,” in which
the major functions of individual participants and the organization of joint actions are simulated. Such simulations of future
action are lacking a number of the features characteristic of the
real hunt, especially the operational and technical aspects of the
actual process.
A different situation might also occur. The hunters return with
considerable prey. In this case, they are met joyfully by the other
members of their tribe and the hunters begin to recount the story
of their hunt, reproducing its whole course: who did what how,
and who behaved in what way. This dramatized story ends with
general rejoicing. This type of simulation involves a kind of
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abstraction from the purely operational and technical aspect of the
process and emphasizes the general pattern of actions, the general
organization, and the systems of relationships that led to success.
From the psychological point of view it is important that in
both these situations the part of the whole actual work (utilitarian) activity that might be called orientational, in contrast to the
performative part associated with obtaining a material result, is
isolated for attention. In both instances, this part, separated out
from the whole process of performing the actual work activity,
becomes the object of representation, and then becomes something sacred, taking on the nature of a magic ritual. Such “magical
rehearsals” are transformed into an autonomous form of activity.
When they are thus isolated, these special types of activity become linked to other forms of life and acquire their own developmental logic, and, often, new forms are generated that require
special analysis to establish their actual origin.
Ethnographers devote a great deal of attention to the description
and analysis of these forms of activity, which have the character of
play. Thus, the book Games of the People of the USSR [Igry narodov
SSSR] collects and describes a large number of games traditional
among Russians and other peoples of tsarist Russia. The authors
divide all the games into three groups: dramatic games, ornamental
games, and athletic games. Ornamental games represent a transitional group and we will not discuss them here. Dramatic games are
divided into productive games (relating to hunting, fishing, animal and bird husbandry, and agriculture) and games of daily life
(community and family), while athletic games are divided into
simple competition and competition involving objects.
V. Vsevolodskii-Gerngross, in his introduction to this book,
concludes, on the basis of the material it contains, that there is a
family relationship between play phenomena of different types.
He writes:
Take the first example that comes to mind: let us say chasing (or capture) games. Let us start with the simplest games in which one person
simply tries to catch the other. Slightly more complicated than this are
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games where the person chased has a “base” where he can go to be
safe from being caught, or a game in which the catcher must hop on
one foot, or has his hands tied behind his back. Next come games
similar except for the fact that those who are caught become assistant
catchers. Next are games with two teams each possessing home territories involving the taking and freeing of prisoners, and so on. And
finally come war games, which very frequently center around this same
chasing and capturing. What we have here, of course, is a series of
related games, with simple chases at one pole and playing at war at the
other, and in the middle gradually increasing complexity, or if we go
in the other direction, simplification. (1933, p. XVI)
Drawing a conclusion from what has been said, as if it were possible
to draw a conclusion, that either athletic and ornamental games are the
product of original, dramatic games, or that dramatic games are the
products of the development of athletic and ornamental games. And
here the following conclusion must be drawn: all three types of phenomena, despite all their specific differences, must and should be classified as phenomena forming parts of a single social practice, although
without a doubt showing a tendency to transform themselves into the
phenomena belonging to another social practice: into drama, sport, or
dance, which arise from play phenomena, and, at higher levels of culture, replace them. (1933, p. XVII)
It seems to us that the most likely course of development
progresses from dramatic play to athletic play, rather than vice
versa. The rules of human interaction leading to real world success, reinforced an infinite number of times through real group
activities, are gradually isolated. Their representations outside actual utilitarian situations become the content of athletic games.
But, the content of role playing is just the same. This is how the
two types of play are related. The difference lies only in the fact
that in role playing, these rules, the norms of interpersonal interactions, are presented in a more developed and specific form.
We have thus come to the conclusion that human play is an
activity in which the conscious relationships among people are recreated outside the conditions of direct utilitarian activity. Our preliminary and general definition is close, although not identical, to
that given by Vsevolodskii-Gerngross in the work cited above.
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We use the term play to refer to a type of social practice consisting of
action-based reproduction of any real-life phenomenon, in whole or
in part, outside its actual practical setting. The social significance of
play is that it provides training at various stages of human development as well as serving a team-building function. (1933, p. XXIII)
We would add some clarifications to this definition. First, instead of the term “reproduction,” we prefer to use “re-creation”;
second, not every re-creation, or the re-creation of every real-life
phenomenon, is play. Human play is the re-creation of human activity, which isolates its social and purely human essence, that is,
the tasks and standards of relationships among people.
Given this view of the developed forms of play it becomes possible to understand play’s family resemblance to art, which also
takes its content from the standards of human life and activity, but,
in addition, their meaning and motifs. Art, it seems to us, involves
the use of the special techniques of art to interpret these aspects of
human life and activity and to tell people about them, cause them
to relive these problems, and to accept or reject the proposed artistic understanding of the meaning of life.
It is precisely this similarity between play and art that explains
the gradual replacement of the developed forms of play taken
from the life of adult members of a society by various forms of
art. Vsevolodskii-Gerngross writes, “The training and educational
significance of dramatic play is clear only at the infant stages of
human development. Dramatic play cannot compete with the
ideologically saturated drama, and, in the presence of theater,
inevitably dies out” (1933, p. XXVII). The fate of athletic games,
in this author’s opinion, is analogous, “At a certain cultural level,
the educational significance of athletic play is enormous, and
only with the transition to higher levels of culture these games
degenerate and become more schematic and efficient and are transformed into sport” (1933, p. XLIX).
On the basis of these ethnographic data, we have come to the
conclusion that in contemporary society there are no adult elaborated forms of games; they have been crowded out and replaced
by various forms of art on the one hand, and by sport, on the other.
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Elaborated role-playing games continue to survive in childhood,
representing one of the major activities in the life of the contemporary child. And here we cannot agree with Vsevolodskii-Gerngross
that “in higher cultures, in which education per se is embodied in a
special social practice, the person—whether adult or child—obtains
the necessary skills for his further development through school instruction in a way that is vastly more rational, takes less time, and
achieves a higher level of skill. At that point the pedagogic and didactic significance of play diminishes” (1933, p. XVIII).
If the narrowly didactic function of play does, indeed, diminish, this in no way entails the loss of its significance for the formation of the child’s personality, especially in early childhood, before
the child starts school. Rather, the reverse is true: as younger
children become more and more cut off from joint work activities
with adults, the developmental significance of the advanced roleplaying forms of play increases.
The decrease in the historical significance of developed forms
of play over the course of history for adult members of society and
an increase in this role in the lives of children have made us aware
of the need to study precisely this form of play, especially since all
the authors we have read agree on the nature of this type of play.
The subject of our study then are the nature and essence of role
playing, the psychological structure of developed forms of play
activities, their origination, development, and decline, their significance in the child’s life and in the development of his future
personality.
The basic unit of the advanced form of play. The social
nature of role playing
It would be difficult to find a psychologist specializing in child
psychology who has not touched on the problem of play or advanced his own point of view regarding its nature and significance;
however, there are very few special studies of this issue, literally
just a handful. This is true despite the fact that play has been
extensively used for practical purposes in psychology. Special “play
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therapy” using developed forms of play to correct various abnormalities in children’s behavior (maladjustment, aggression, excessive reticence, etc.), and to treat psychological disorders has been
used extensively.
In J. Piaget’s fundamental work (1945 [reference omitted in the
original]) devoted to the child’s development of symbol, the developed form of role playing is not addressed. Piaget stops at its
threshold; he studies some prerequisites for its occurrence, but goes
no further. This can evidently be explained by the fact that Piaget
was not so much interested in play itself, as in the beginning of
symbolic reasoning in children. He traces the development of children up to age four, that is, before the period when role playing
starts, and then shifts to discussing games with rules that begin to
occur after age seven.
In 1976, J. Bruner and his colleagues published a major collection of works on play. This collection contained a large number of articles devoted to the study of the manipulative play of
lower and higher primates, significantly fewer devoted to the study
of children’s manipulative play with objects, and very few indeed to the study of games with rules and of the developed form
of role play, including one by Vygotsky entitled “Play and its
Role in the Psychological Development of Children” [Igra i ee
rol’ v psikhologicheskim razvitii rebenka], which was specially
devoted to role playing. It seems to us that the ratio among different types of studies in this book reflects the general state of
play research, which evidently results from the difficulty of studying role playing experimentally.
In experimental psychology, the study of play, like the analysis
of other forms of activity and cognition overall, has been ruled by
the functional analytic approach. In this approach play is considered a manifestation of already formed psychological capacities.
Some researchers (K.D. Ushinskii in Russia, J. Sully, K. Bühler,
and V. Stern abroad) have considered play to be an expression of
imagination or fantasy set in motion by a variety of affective tendencies. Others (A.I. Sikorskii in Russia, J. Dewey abroad) have
associated play with the development of thinking.
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It is of course possible to decompose any activity, including
play into the sum of different capacities: perception + memory +
thinking + imagination. Perhaps one can even determine the relative weight of each of these processes in various stages of development of one or another form of play. However, such decomposition
into individual elements completely destroys the qualitative uniqueness of play as a special form of activity in children, as a special
aspect of their lives in which their bond to the reality surrounding
them is realized.
Even if it were possible to find the means to determine fairly
accurately the relative weight of each psychological process in
one or another type of activity and thus to establish that the ratios
among these processes differ in different activities, this analysis
would still not bring us closer to an understanding of the nature
and unique quality of each of these types of activity, in particular,
the nature of play.
An analysis in which play is considered the expression of a relatively mature imaginative capacity led to attributing to it the features of imagination, to seeing it as the child’s flight from reality,
to considering it as a special closed world of the child’s autistic
dreams associated with deep-seated drives.
In contrast to an analysis that decomposes a complex whole
into its components, Karl Marx originated what might be called
the analysis of representative units. Marx provided a model of
the use of this method in his study of the capitalistic form of
production. Marx starts his book Das Kapital with a chapter called
“Product.”2 For Marx the product was a unit in a developed form
that incorporated all the features and internal contradictions of the
capitalistic method of production.
L.S. Vygotsky was the first to use this method for decomposing
complex wholes into units in psychology in his study of the problem of language and thought. He wrote:
By the term unit, we mean a product of analysis that, unlike an element, possesses all the basic properties characteristic of the whole,
and that is not further decomposable into other units. . . .
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If psychology wishes to study complex wholes, this must be understood. Psychology must replace the method of analysis that decomposes wholes into elements with one that decomposes them into units.
It must find the undecomposable units that retain the properties characteristic of the whole, units that represent the unseen side of these
properties and, using this analysis, attempt to resolve specific issues.
(1956, p. 48; emphasis in original)
We believe that such an approach is the only one that should be
used in the study of play. Only this type of approach makes it
possible to study its first appearance, development, and eventual
decay.
How do we find these units of play that are not further decomposable and that retain the properties of the whole? This may be
done only by considering the elaborated and developed form of
role playing as it appears before us in the middle preschool years.
In the analysis of the origination, development, and decay of play
we will be guided by Marx’s methodological dictum that precursors hinting at a higher level of development of some phenomenon may be understood at lower levels only if the higher level is
already understood.
“Human anatomy is the key to the anatomy of the apes,” writes
Marx. “The only circumstances under which hints at the nature of
higher species of animals can be understood in lower species is if
the nature of the higher species is already known. Bourgeois
economy thus provides us with the key to the economy of antiquity, and so on.”3
As we have already stated, in their description of children’s play,
psychologists have stressed the operation of the imagination or
fantasy. Play was considered an expression of special liveliness,
freedom from care, and highly developed imagination or fantasy.
There is nothing surprising here. Even the nonspecialist observing
the play of preschool children is struck first and foremost with the
fact that the child transforms the objects used in play. We will cite
a few statements to illustrate this point.
W. Preyer wrote:
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A piece of wood with laces, a walnut shell, things of no value whatsoever, like pebbles, leaves, the contents of the waste basket are given
great significance through the living fantasy of the child, which can turn
scraps of paper into cups, boats, animals and people. (1894, p. 31)
G. Compayre points out the same thing:
The child takes as his starting point some object and the alchemy of
fantasy immediately transforms it and turns it into something else. Absolutely anything can be the subject of such a transformation. The child
rides horseback on a stick, a stool turned upside down becomes a boat
or a carriage; a footstool right side up is a horse or table. A box turns into
a house, a cabinet, a wagon—in short, anything you like, anything that
the child’s imagination wants to make it into. (1912, pp. 190–91)
These quotations focus on the child’s transformation of objects
through the “alchemy of fantasy.” This is what these authors see as
the defining features of children’s play.
However, even J. Sully believes that the transformation of objects is a subordinate aspect of play. He writes:
The interesting thing about a child’s play is that it clearly reveals the
products of his innermost fantasy. In its creativity, fantasy may be triggered by the child’s actual environment. For example, a child might
see sand, pebbles, and shells and say, “Let’s play store.” But this is
only a secondary condition. The source of play is in the child’s drive
to embody an idea that has attracted him: as we shall see below, this is
the source of the close relationship between play and art. Some idea is
the ruling force while, at the time, it is a real idée fixe and everything
else must be subordinated to it. Thus, as the idea has to be externally
expressed somehow, it makes use of the environment. And here the
child is in his element. The floor immediately becomes two magic
kingdoms, the edge of the sofa turns into a steed, a carriage, a ship, or
whatever else he needs for his game.
The stronger and more wide-ranging activity of the fantasy in
children’s amusements may be explained by their deep-seated drive to
play, the desire to be something, or to play some role. Portraying
Robinson Crusoe or some other hero, the child, as a seeker of adventure, breaks out of the bounds of his present self and beyond the confines of his daily life. In playing his role, in his imagination he changes
everything around him and it takes on the appearance and meaning
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that this role demands at the given moment. . . . The essence of children’s
play consists of performing some role and creating some new situation. (1901, pp. 45, 47)
Almost all the researchers who have attempted to describe the
play of preschool children repeat in so many words this idea of Sully’s
that the essence of children’s play is in playing some role. (However, their analysis of play fails to go on to elucidate the structure of
the role itself and its genesis, instead describing the features of the
child’s fantasy that are putatively manifest in this play.)
And yet, it would appear that it is precisely this role and the actions associated with its performance that are the true unit of play.
To illustrate this and at the same time explain this statement, we cite
an excerpt from the observations of one game and analyze it.4
In a large room children are playing railroad. The game is taking place after the children have observed the life of a railroad
station in the course of a trip to the country. Before the game, the
teacher and the children have prepared several props: a red cap for
the stationmaster, a stick with a wooden circle (the railroad staff),
actual pastries for the food counter, a sign that says “Ticket Office,” and so forth. Boris is the stationmaster and he is wearing the
red cap and carrying the stick. He has partitioned off a corner for
himself and explained, “This is the station where the stationmaster
lives.” Tolia, Lucia, and Elena are passengers. They have lined up
their chairs one behind the other and sat down in them. The girls
are carrying dolls—their children.
Leonid says, “How can we go without an engineer? I will be the
engineer.” He moves up to the front chair and hisses, “Sh-sh-sh.”
Galia runs the food counter. She has placed a box on the table into
which she has ripped up some paper for money. Next to the paper
she has neatly laid out the pastries in rows, first cutting them into
smaller pieces (so that there will be more of them). “Look at what
a fancy food counter I have,” she says.
Barbara says, “I’ll sell the tickets . . . oh, what is that person
called?” The teacher answers, “The cashier?” Barbara: “That’s right
the cashier. Give me some paper.” Getting the paper, she tears it
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into larger and smaller pieces. She sets the larger pieces aside.
“These are the tickets and this is money, so I can give change.”
She puts the cardboard window with the “Cashier” sign, which
she gets from the teacher, on her table. Then she sits down at the
table with a businesslike air.
Boris comes up to Leonid and says, “When I give you this circle,
start up immediately.” Leonid hisses like a steam engine and with
his hands and arms imitates the motions of an engineer, the passengers and their children sit in their places. Suddenly Boris
remembers something and says, “The passengers don’t have their
tickets and it’s time for the train to leave.” The passengers rush
over to the ticket window, hand Barbara their little pieces of paper,
and receive their tickets. While this is going on, Boris announces,
“The train is going to leave in five minutes.” The passengers take
their places quickly. Boris goes over to Leonid and gives him the
circle. Leonid hisses, whistles, and the train starts off.
Galia (with a petulant expression): “When are they going to
come and buy something?” Boris, “I can come now; the train has
left and I am free.” He goes up to the food counter, and asks for a
pastry. Galia gives him a piece and demands, “Where’s your
money?” Boris runs over to the teacher and gets some paper from
her, then returns and “buys” a pastry. He eats it with evident enjoyment. Barbara squirms in her chair and looks at the food counter
but does not leave her post. Then she looks again in the direction
of the counter and asks the teacher, “When can I go get something
to eat? Right now there are no customers,” she says, as if to justify
herself. Barbara looks all around to make sure there are no passengers who want to buy tickets, then she quickly runs over to the
food counter. She rushes to buy a treat and runs back to her post.
Galia, alone at the food counter, moves the pastries from one
plate to another. “I want one too, but what should I do, am I
supposed to buy one?” Boris (laughing): “Buy one from yourself
and pay yourself.” Galia laughs but takes two pennies and buys
two pieces from herself, saying as if explaining to the teacher,
“Now, they’ve been bought.” Teacher: “Why did you buy so few?”
JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2005
39
Galia: “The train will come soon, and what would be left to sell
the passengers?”
Leonid hisses loudly and yells, “Stop!” He and the passengers
rush over to the food counter and buy pastries. Galia (to one of the
passengers): “Buy another one for your little girl, they’re very tasty.”
One of the passengers feeds her doll (child), saying “Eat it up, it’s
very tasty.” After that she eats the pastry herself. Boris takes the
circle from Leonid and then gives it back. The passengers sit down
in their places. Leonid hisses and the train starts off.
The record of this game makes it possible to identify the following interrelated aspects that comprise its structure. The first of
these involves the roles that the children took on—station master,
engineer, cashier, food seller, passenger; second, their actions,
abbreviated and generalized in nature, through which they implemented adult roles and adult interactions; third, the “playful” use
of objects (chairs—train, dolls—children, pieces of paper—money,
etc.); finally, the actual relationships among the child participants,
expressed in various instructions and comments through which
the entire course of the game was controlled.
The central aspect, which unites all the others, is the role the
child takes on. It cannot be played without appropriate actions. A
child is the cashier because he or she sells tickets; another is the
stationmaster because he or she announces that the trains are leaving and gives the engineer permission for them to leave; a third is
the food-counter manager because she sells pastry, and so on.
All the remaining aspects are determined by the role and actions associated with it. Pieces of paper become money and tickets in order that the roles of passengers and cashier can be
performed. The relationships among the children that arise in the
course of the game are also determined by the roles. Judging by
their behavior, the main thing for the children playing is to perform the role they have taken. This is clear, if only from the meticulous and punctilious way they treat the performance of the
actions that embody the roles each of them has assumed.
Thus, it can be asserted that it is precisely the role and the actions
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integrally associated with it that represent the basic, undecomposable
unit of the developed form of play. The affective-motivational and
operational-technical aspects of play are an integral part of this unit.
As the experimental investigations that will be described and analyzed later will show, there is a close functional interconnection and
a paradoxical unity between the role and the nature of the actions
that correspond to it. The more general and abbreviated the actions
in play, the more deeply they reflect the meaning, goal, and system
of relationships in the adult activity that is being recreated.
What is the basic content of the roles that children take on and
perform in their play?
Virtually all the scholars describing or studying role playing
unanimously note that the child’s real environment has a decisive
influence on the themes of the play.
K.D. Ushinskii describes this feature best:
Adults may influence play in only one way without destroying its fundamental nature, that is, by providing material for the constructions
that the child will deal with independently. But it should not be thought
that this material can all be purchased in a toy store. You buy your
child a shiny, beautiful dollhouse and he uses it as a prison; you buy
him peasant dolls and he makes them into soldiers; you buy a charming little boy doll and he punishes him severely. In short, he will transform and reinterpret all the toys you buy, not in accordance with their
intended nature, but on the basis of the elements that he has assimilated from his real-life environment—and it is this material that parents and teachers should be concerned about. (1950, pp. 440–41)
One of the most important questions to be asked here involves
what precisely in the child’s environment has a definitive influence on role play. The answer to this question, the answer to the
question of the content of the roles that children take on in their
play, may lead to an elucidation of the true nature of role play.
In a series of pedagogic studies, although they were devoted to
the elucidation of other issues, we find material allowing us to
give a tentative answer to this question.
R.I. Zhukovskaia (1963) studied the influence of didactic games
JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2005
41
conducted during special lessons on children’s independent play.
Thus, a trip to a store, although it interested the children, did not
on the whole influence their play. Afterward, in a special lesson it
was suggested to the children that they play a didactic game of
store. The purpose of the game was to show the children the variety of tasks performed by the salesclerk, and to refine and reinforce their concept of the rules that should govern the behavior of
the clerk and customers, including courteous treatment of each other.
During this didactic game, the children began to show great interest
in the roles of salesperson and cashier, everyone wanted to take these
roles. Zhukovskaia remarks that the trip, and especially the didactic
game of store, led the children to develop a variety of role-playing
games involving the buying and selling of various objects.
Thus, after the children were shown the dealings of the salesclerk and cashier with the customers, these roles started to attract
them. In Zhukovskaia’s research this was accomplished by means
of special didactic games, but, undoubtedly, this could have been
attained through other pedagogic means.
T.A. Markova (1951) studied the influence of children’s books
on their play. The study showed that not every work of children’s
literature gave rise to games on children’s part. Only those works
that clearly and understandably described people, their activities,
and how they interacted caused the children to want to reproduce
the content of the story in play.
Thus, didactic games, reading and telling children stories, introducing them to aspects of their environment, and other lessons
influence the occurrence and development of role play only if they
introduce children to the activities of adults and their interactions
and relationships.
The results of the research described above show that role play
is especially sensitive to human activities, work, and the interactions among people, and thus that the major content of roles that
children take on involves the reproduction of precisely this aspect
of reality.
A possible way to experimentally verify this statement was sug-
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gested by the work of a teacher. After she had taken the middle
class of preschool on a trip to the zoo and introduced the children
to various animals—their appearance and characteristic behaviors,
what they ate, and so on—the teacher brought into the room various toys depicting the animals she had introduced to the children
and suggested that the children play zoo. But the children did not
play zoo either that day or on the days that followed.
Then she repeated the trip and introduced the children not only
to the animals but also to the personnel who took care of the animals and interacted with visitors to the zoo. This trip was structured to introduce the children to the work tasks performed by zoo
staff: the cashier who sells admission tickets to the zoo, the gate
person who takes the tickets and lets people in, the cleaners who
clean the paths and the animal cages; the cooks who prepare the
animals meals, the zookeepers who feed them; the guide who explains things to visitors; and the nurses and doctor who treat sick
animals.
Some time after the second excursion, the children began on their
own to play zoo, taking the roles of the cashier and gate person,
mothers and fathers with children, guides, cleaners, zookeepers, the
animals’ kitchen with a cook and helpers, the hospital with a doctor,
the zoo director, and so on. All these characters were introduced
gradually into the game, which continued for several days growing
progressively more complex and richer.
The results of this experience with children suggested to us the
idea that introduction to various aspects of real life may have greater
or lesser significance in stimulating role play. The reality in which
a child lives and that he encounters may be divided up into two
related but different areas. The first is the area of objects, natural
and manmade; the second is the area of human activity, the area of
work and interactions among people, which they enter into in the
course of this activity. To which of these areas is role play more
sensitive?
To completely clear up this issue, one would need to specially
introduce children to reality in two different ways: once so that the
JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2005
43
main content of this introduction involved objects, and the second
time so that the main content was the human actor, his activities,
and the interaction among people in the process of these activities.
N.V. Koroleva performed this study (1957).5
During a trip to the country, a group of children gained many
striking impressions of the railroad; they were at the station, saw
the train, observed people getting in and themselves entered and
sat down, heard announcements of trains leaving, went with their
parents to buy tickets, and so forth. The teacher believed that these
impressions would be completely adequate for stimulating a game
of “railroad.” But no such game was started, although the impressions were evidently relatively strong. The children described their
trip, and drew pictures of the station and train.
The teacher tried to influence the initial occurrence of the game.
The children were offered attractive toys—a steam engine, railroad cars, a ticket window, and, with the teacher’s help the roles
for a game of train were distributed among the children. However,
despite her help, the game never really got underway.
Thus, the direct impressions the children obtained while on their
train trip, despite their being emotionally charged, did not give rise
to a role-playing game. Next, the children were taken a second time
to the railroad station, during which time they were introduced to
the objects involved in life on the railroad. But even this additional
experience did not cause a game to get started, although, judging
from the children’s drawings in which they depicted these objects,
the children’s concepts of the train, engine, station, ticket window,
baggage carts, and so on had become more accurate.
After a relatively long period of time, when the children returned to the city after their summer stay in the country, the same
group of children was taken on yet another trip to the railroad
station. At this time, the children were introduced to how the
stationmaster met each train, how the passengers leave the train,
how baggage is unloaded, how the engineer and his assistant care
for the engine, how the workers inspect the cars, and how the conductors clean the cars and serve the passengers en route. When the
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children visited the passenger waiting room, they saw how the
passengers buy tickets, how the porters meet the trains and carry
the baggage, how the cleaners make sure the room is clean, and so
forth. After this trip, the children immediately began to play railroad. The children played with great interest; and the game of railroad survived for a long time in their play repertoire, often
combining with other themes—family, kindergarten, post office,
and the like.
In an analogous fashion, the children were twice introduced to
the work of a sewing shop, the construction of a new house, work
at a factory that manufactured board games, and work at the post
office. In all cases a role playing game was initiated only after the
children had been introduced to people’s activities and their interactions in the course of doing their work. It is completely natural
that the children’s ideas were not always clear enough immediately after their introduction and that the teacher, either during the
course of the game or when reading to them, had to extend and
correct their ideas about the adults, their work, and their interactions with others.
Koroleva’s work convinces us that role playing is especially
sensitive to human activity and interactions and that its content is
precisely this area of reality.
Thus, the content of the elaborated, developed form of role playing is not the object or its use or alteration by humans, but human
interactions that occur as people interact with objects; not the person as an object, but the person as a human being. And because the
re-creation and thus the mastery of these interactions occur through
the child taking on the role of an adult, this role and the integrally
associated actions form the unit of play.
Because in real life the specific concrete activity of people and
their interactions are extremely varied, the subject of play is extremely diverse and variable. In various historical epochs, depending on social and historical, geographical and concrete living
conditions, children have played games with various contents. The
content of the play of children from various classes, free and
JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2005
45
enslaved peoples, children of the north or south, the taiga or the
desert, the children of industrial workers, fishermen, animal herders, and farmers is very different. Indeed, a single child may change
the content of his play as a function of the specific conditions in
which he temporarily finds himself.
Our analysis has led us to the need to distinguish between the
topic and content of play. The topic of play is the area of reality
that children are reproducing in their game. The topics of play, as
we have already pointed out, are extremely varied and reflect the
specific conditions of the child’s life. They change as a function of
these specific conditions, when the child enters a broader circle of
life, just as his outlook does.
The content of play is the child’s reproduction as its central
characteristic the activities and interactions among adults in their
lives at work and in society. The content of play expresses the
child’s more or less deep penetration into the activity of adults; it
may reflect only the external aspect of human activity—only what
the adult actually does, or the interactions of people with their
work and with others, or, finally, the social significance of human
work.
Of course, the specific nature of interactions among people that
are reproduced in play may vary greatly. These include collaboration, mutual aid, division of labor, and care and consideration for
other people; however, they may also include wielding power, even
despotism, hostility, disrespect, and so forth. Here everything depends on the specific social conditions of the child’s life.
That the topics of children’s play are a function of the social
conditions of their lives is an indisputable fact acknowledged by
many. However, some psychologists, while acknowledging this
relationship, at the same time consider play to be a phenomenon
that is biological in nature and origin. This is very clearly expressed
by W. Stern, for example, who wrote as follows about play:
Here the internal laws of development operate with such power that
children of the most diverse countries and eras, despite the great differences in their environmental conditions, always show the identical
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play instincts at a given stage of development. Thus, there is no doubt
at all that play associated with throwing, doll play, and war play arise
regardless of national differentiation or the progress of culture. The
specific material on which the children’s instincts to move, care for
something, and fight may change with the environment; but the general forms of play remain invariant. (1922, pp. 172–73)
According to Stern, the variability of play topics under the
influence of conditions of life is only a manifestation of the unaltered biological instinctive nature of play. Stern was not the
only one to hold this opinion. Many researchers have accepted
the biological nature of play.
The difference among them lies only in what instincts or deep
drives they claim are satisfied in play: the instincts for power, care,
and fighting (Stern and A. Adler); the sex drive (Freud); or inborn
instincts for freedom, synthesis, and repetition (F. Buytendijk).
The biological theories of play, which see the essence of play in
manifestation of the child’s primitive instincts and drives, cannot
explain the social content in any satisfactory way.
From our point of view, the special sensitivity of play to the
area of human activity and interactions among people shows that
play not only takes its topics from the child’s living conditions but
also that it is social in its internal content and thus cannot be a
biological phenomenon. Play is social in its content precisely because it is social in its nature and in its origin, that is, it arises out
of the conditions of the child’s life in society. Theories of play that
see its sources in internal instincts and drives, in effect, eliminate
the question of the historical source of role play. At the same time,
it is precisely the history of the development of role play that can
cast light on its nature.
Notes
1. This overview is a mimeographed publication with no date of publication
indicated. It was compiled for UNESCO. The overview was given to me by A.P
Usova and I used it in my work.
2. See K. Marx and F. Engels, Sochineniia, vol. 23.
3. Ibid., p. 731.
JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2005
47
4. This record, in an abbreviated form, was first published by A.N. Leontiev
(1944). The game described was taken from the observations of F.I. Fradkina and
depicts the ordinary playing of children with the introduction of certain experimental elements.
5. This research was carried out under the direct supervision of Z.M. Boguslavskaia.
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