Young Children’s Play and the Role of Grandparents as Play Partners during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Play involves diverse meaning-making for young children and grandparents. This paper derives from a larger intergenerational family practices project conducted in Australia during 2021–2022 against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team undertook intergenerational group interviews and filmed family play activities in addition to collecting videoclips and photos of young children’s play from six families. In this paper, vignettes from two families are described and given meaning. Rogoff’s social learning three planes theory involving the intertwined and interdependent—‘personal’, ‘interpersonal’, and ‘community’—planes is used to analyse the data. Our findings show the important role that grandparents play in facilitating children’s learning including through the creation of linguistic and cultural heritage play spaces. We argue that intergenerational play practices can offer a means to integrate linguistic and cultural experiences in young children’s lives by providing a space and time for social interaction and learning.