“If you don’t want to leave him out, go ahead”: Constructing belonging of non-native animals during Native American parent-child dyad play with a diorama

Abstract

This study examined open-ended play of urban Native American parent-child dyads with a forest diorama that included plastic representations of both trees and animals. Previous research demonstrated that Native four-year-old children engaged in habitat based ecological play with native animals on a forest diorama (Washinawatok et al., in press). The present study asks whether Native parent-child dyads continue to engage in habitat based play with non-native animals. This study found that parent-child dyads continued to engage land-based play and that belonging between animal and place on the diorama was a prominent play theme that led to emotional tension and unique problem solving strategies, including making specific relationships with land that were not habitat based. Drawing upon sociocultural research on play and research on situated cognition, this study extends current conceptualization of science learning in early childhood to include affective imagination as a core component of sense-making.