Playing and working in kindergarten: cognitive coconstruction in two educational situations

The sociocultural model of learning and development is proposed as a compre hensive framework to study and evaluate practice in early childhood educati on (ECE). In order to explore the sociocultural concept of cognitive cocons truction, two characteristic educational situations in Dutch kindergartens were compared, namely, free play and work lessons, the first as an instanti ation of a child-run and the second as an instantiation of a teacher-run mo del of ECE. Measures concerned the active participation, intersubjective co operation, and cognitive distancing of four- to five-year-old children. The study involved 40 target children (mean age 53 months) in seven kindergart en classrooms. Both child-related factors (personality characteristics, cog nitive ability, SES of the family) and situation-related factors (peer and teacher behavior, situation characteristics) were found to influence childr en's cognitive coconstruction processes. Within the constraints of the Dutc h kindergarten curriculum, free play was found to be superior from the soci ocultural point of view. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved .