Rising to the concrete: A cultural-historical study of concept development of infants and toddlers in imaginary situations

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a cultural-historical study of the genesis and development of concepts by infants and toddlers. Under the conditions of an educational experiment of a Conceptual PlayWorld in a living laboratory of a childcare centre, we investigated the developmental conditions and dramatic imaginary play moments of this cultural age period. We found that a family system was the genesis of the lived experience of a concept from which other concepts are formed/embedded/imagined, and that institutional settings can replicate the historical development of family as an early form of rising to the concrete. We noted how in imaginary play the caring for another kind of family system, supported the conditions for becoming aware of a lived experience of a family. In addition, imaginary play when co-experienced between infants and toddlers and teachers, acted as the initial carrier of word meaning and when educators acted ‘as if’ the infants understood the word meanings in imaginary play, the early development of concepts over time was supported. These findings add empirically to what is known about the development of word meaning and gives theoretical insight into what it means to historically rise to the concrete within the earliest cultural age period.