Based on the study of seventy-four middle school children of mostly Filipino and part Hawaiian heritages, this article explores the relationships of children's thinking styles, play preferences, and school performance. Using the Group Embedded Figures Test, the Articulation of the Body Scale, and written responses to three questions, the authors…

In this article, the author outlines Plato's notions of play in ancient Greek culture and shows how the philosopher's views on play can be best appreciated against the background of shifting meanings and evaluations of play in classical Greece. Play--in various forms such as word play, ritual, and music--proved central to the development…

Based on a study of 149 parochial-school students enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade, this article explores children's outdoor recess activities in an urban setting--with a focus on how age, gender, and size of play group influence their outdoor play preferences--and examines changes in children's activity preferences over a single…

The author looks at children's play from the perspective of interpretive reproduction, emphasizing the way children create their own unique peer cultures, which he defines as a set of routines, artifacts, values, and concerns that children engage in with their playmates. The article focuses on two types of routines in the peer culture of preschool…

For most children in North America, Halloween is one of the most exciting holidays of the year. But some critics insist that its emphasis on ready-made costumes, store-bought candy, and trick-or-treating seduces children into cultural passivity and socializes them to mindless consumption. These critics argue that trick-or-treating was an inherited…