Mildred B. Parten

"customs, mores, traditions, social controls, past experience in groups, emotions and native equipment"

Genetic Sociology

"Investigators of social behavior have overlooked the period when adjustment to the group is first acquired and practiced...The reactions of children are more or less spontaneous and overt and therefore perceptible to investigators."

Urie Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model of human development

How can we understand adult group habits?

Nursery School of the Institute of Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota

How can we minimize the effect of complex social factors?

Mildred B. Parten

• Intelligence
• Sex
• Occupational category of the father
• Age
• Size of Family

Social Participation Among Preschool Children

Social Play Among Preschool Children

Leadership Among Preschool Children

Published 1932

1933

Playmate Groups and Activity Choices

Stages of Play

Leadership

Six Categories of Play

Size

Playmate Choice

Social Value of Toys

• Possessed in varying quantities
• Function of group members and activity

• Unoccupied
• Solitary
• Onlooker
• Parallel
• Associative
• Cooperative

Cooperative Play

Organized Supplementary Play

Play Time!

Please split into your assigned groups and fill out the back of your assessment sheet!

Are you doing what I tell you?

No, we aren't gonna play with you.

• Plays in an organized group
• Marked sense of belonging or not belonging
• One or two members who direct
• Division of labor (i.e. take on different roles)

• material product
• competitive goal
• dramatizing situations from adult and group life
• playing formal games

The Brute Force Leader

Pre-Bandura

Uses physical force to accomplish his objectives

Associative Play

Can I borrow one of your red blocks? I need to use it for my stove.

"It is conceivable that the technique of leadership is learned through being the follower of a forceful leader. It is the author's impression that these three young followers employed the same brute force methods as their leader."

• Plays with other children in similar or identical activity
• Conversations about common activity
• Share play equipment
• Mild attempt to control group composition

Oh yes, that's what I meant, that's next as good.

I'll play too. Get a new chair, that's more fun.

Parallel Play

• Plays independently
• Uses toys similar to the ones used by children around them
• Plays beside rather than with other children

The Artful Director

Use indirect suggestions to lead to desired end

Onlooker

• Watches particular groups of children play
• Talks with them (e.g. asks questions or offers suggestions)
• Within hearing, speaking, and seeing distance

Solitary Play

• Plays independently
• Uses different toys from nearby children
• Pursues own activity

Unoccupied

Play

• Not visibly playing
• Occupied by their own bodies
• On and off chairs
• Standing around
• Following the teacher
• Sitting in one spot, glancing around the room