Children's play interactions: A comparative look at play in a sample of Norwegian and English early childhood education and care settings

The aim of this research was to investigate how practitioners in two early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings in England and Norway interacted with children during child-directed activities, specifically during play. The purpose of the research was to compare the support children received in these two contexts during child-directed play activities. To do this, child-directed activity times in all four settings were observed. Observations during adult-directed activities also took place to create a well-rounded representation of the day. Using a sociocultural perspective, the findings revealed that adult-direction was more present in the English ECEC settings than in the Norwegian ones, with more than half of the day in England being planned by practitioners. It was also observed that play was supported differently in the two contexts. Instructing behaviours were much more common in the English settings, whereas joining in was the most common supportive behaviour in the Norwegian settings, although, overall joining in was not a common activity observed in any of the settings. As a whole, the support provided to children while they engaged in play during child-directed activities proved to be rather limited in both settings, and did not indicate high-quality interactions from the practitioners. The findings presented clearly show the contrasting approaches to play and practitioner involvement during child-directed activities in the ECEC settings observed in each country. The findings prove significant when planning for play in ECEC settings across the world and how involved practitioners are in supporting and encouraging child-directed play. In addition, the findings add to the limited existing empirical research on the topic as well as providing a cross-cultural view on the topic, which is also lacking in the literature