This edited collection explores the roles of material culture in socializing young people
through their play. Authors explore notions of play from diverse cultural viewpoints as well
as the impact of technology on play and the kinds of resistant and liberatory play children
might partake in. Informed by the field of performance studies the book considers play as
performance asking questions about embodiment at physical relational and ideological levels
and considering «performance» to be part of identity construction as well as a component of
enculturation into various societies. Of interest are the ways in which children try on various
identities through their play and how these identities may (re)define their attitudes values
and beliefs. As curriculum and instruction have become open to the use of games - and
children's material culture more generally - as a forum for learning intersections have
emerged between schooling and culture at large. This book broadens the scope of «learning» to
investigate how these cultural artifacts are open or closed to multiple perspectives and
narratives as well as how their use is constituted both in and out of the classroom.
