Play and Cultural Context

Abstract

Introduction Human beings are biologically sociocultural. Every human activity is, thus, permeated with and affected by culture, and reciprocally affects culture’s dynamics and historical transformations. Play is no exception. Culture permeates and is affected by children’s play in two major ways: creative assimilation, or interpretive reproduction of mesoand macro-cultural aspects of the social environment (routines, rules, values); and construction of shared meanings and routines that constitute the microculture of peer groups.