Cambridge Dialogues: Imaginative Play within Islamic Storytelling

Dr. Claire Alkouatli, University of South Australia, Cambridge Muslim College
Dr. Mariam Alhashmi, Zayed University
Tala Hammour, Usual Academy, Beirut, Lebanon

Research on imaginative play is currently dominated by studies centered in the Western world and a pressing area of inquiry is young children’s imaginative play in more culturally diverse sites of learning. In response, six Muslim educational researchers came together to initiate an exploratory study on imaginative play within Muslim learning communities in Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Riyadh, and Toronto. We wondered: how do children engage in imaginative play within an Islamic educational context and how do adults support children’s play? Imaginative play in Islamic education is largely understudied, despite key referrals to play in traditional sources and play’s proposed developmental benefits in the broader literature. Our study was framed by an Islamic research paradigm and included sociocultural sensitizing concepts that identify imaginative play as the leading source of development in the early years. Collaboratively, we crafted an ‘intervention,’ a ten-session playgroup centering Islamic traditional storytelling, infused with invitations to engage in imaginative play, and a free play component. Via convenience sampling, we invited children aged 2 to 7 years old to participate (and their adults), averaging 9 children per research site, across 5 sites. We employed participant observation of video-recorded playgroups and audio-recorded interviewing with children and adults, which generated a collective data corpus of 75 hours of video-footage and 47 hours of audio interviews, which we thematically analyzed. We also analyzed artifacts children created during play, including across research sites within the same story. Over the six-month design experiment, we observed how the children’s play developed within the five sites, and how they altered the playgroup through their engagement with it. Key themes included that children in all sites needed scaffolding to develop mature imaginative play, yet certain conditions inspired it: mixed-experienced players, child agency, play materials evoking imagination, and Islamic cultural tools. Culture shaped the playgroups; the culture children brought into their play—wizards, princesses, cats—suggest that an emergent, responsive, contextual approach is optimal in supporting children’s play, even in playgroup centering Islamic traditional material. Indeed, imaginative play within Islamic storytelling could be effective in mediating between that material and children’s meaning making, learning, and developing as Muslims. This study expands the analytic gaze on imaginative play to highlight possibilities within Muslim educational communities.