Background: Play is central in children’s lives and has been identified as a crucial contributor to
their learning. Early Childhood Educators use play pedagogies to create learning opportunities.
Less is known about children’s perceptions of play in a learning context.

Aims: A study that explored children’s perspectives of play investigated what connections children
make between play and learning.

Method: Socio-cultural theories of play and epistemological understandings of childhood studies
informed the qualitative methodology. Data generation encompassed video-recording children’s
play and watching the videos to stimulate conversations in groups of children. These were also
video-recorded so children’s verbal and nonverbal forms of expression could be captured. Ethics
included providing children with opportunities to give their informed consent for all steps of data
generation.

Results: The children only mentioned learning in their play when the researcher inquired about it.
Then they showed awareness of ‘what’ they learnt in play and how they learnt and the educator’s
role in it. Paying attention to children’s nonverbal contributions indicated that they learned
through engaging with peers during play. The overall data informed an ethical framework to
promote ethical practices to seek and include children’s perspectives of play.

Conclusions: Educators can make informed decisions for a play pedagogy that enhances children’s
learning while protecting the right to play in its own right. Listening to children and providing them
with opportunities to have control over decisions concerning their experiences promotes wellbeing,
access to quality education and early childhood development, ensuring responsive,
inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels, starting from early
childhood.

Implications for children and families: Children can be active contributors to play pedagogies.

Implications for practitioners: The ethical framework can promote the inclusion of children’s
voices to inform future research on play and learning.

Key words: children’s voices, qualitative methods, play, ethics

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions