Exploring collaborative creativity in young children’s play : Focusing on Glăveanu’s We-paradigm

Abstract

This study is a qualitative case study that explored various collaborative creativity in children’s play. Based on Glveveanu's We-paradigm, this study analyzed young children’s creativity with a contextual perspective. The research participants were 5-year-olds at a daycare center in Pusan, South Korea and we collected data through participant observations, informal interviews with children, and other collecting documents and material objects. Young children showed their collaborative creativity as intersubjective ideas in (unexpected) play situations and as children’s empathy and communication with others. In addition, young children’s creativity appeared as a process of constructing together in plays. This study argued diverse, complex, and unexpected features of creativity in young children’s play. Thus, the study urges us to move beyond the traditional positivist approaches to young children’s creativity and has a new lens to understand children’s social and cooperative creativity that emerged in their social and cultural interactions and collaborations.