Abstract/Summary

Exploring play as a base for children’s learning and development has for long been in the core of researcher’s interest, and exploring parents’ perceptions about the benefits of play, in different social, and cultural settings has also been widely explored. Nevertheless, there seem to be a limited studies that explored the perceptions of Muslim mothers who come from different background and live in the UK. This study was conducted with the aim to contribute to filling that gap. It explored the intersubjective meaning of Muslim mothers, who come from diverse backgrounds and reside in the UK, particularly in Berkshire, aiming to understand how they perceive and interpret play as a base for learning and development in early years, and how they act towards it. This study also explored the social, cultural, and religious factors that might have affected these mothers’ perceptions of, and attitudes towards play, along with exploring the methods in which these mothers support themselves to gain more knowledge about play. A mixed-method case study research design was used in this study utilising a questionnaire for quantitative data collection, where 103 mothers participated, and a semi-structured interview, where 16 mothers participated. The study adopted the interpretivism/social constructionism paradigm and was underpinned by a theoretical framework consisting of two main theories; 1) Developmental niche or parental ethno-theories (Harkness & Super, 1983, 1992, 2006), and 2) Sociocultural theories (Vygotsky, 1978; Sutton-Smith, 1999; Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1991). Results revealed that Muslim mothers who live in the UK and come from diverse backgrounds (21 backgrounds counted in this study) are highly aware of the potential benefits of play as a base for children’s learning, growth, and development, indicating significant positive perceptions and attitudes towards play. Results also revealed that the social, cultural, religious, as well as personal factors have participated in shaping these mothers’ perceptions and attitudes towards play. The main finding was that despite their different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, Islamic religion and Islamic teachings participated in uniting Muslim mothers’ views, perceptions, understandings, interpretations, and actions towards parenting and paly practices, highlighting that Islam is a way of life and not merely a religious faith. This study contributes to knowledge with an extended understanding of the Muslim mothers’ level of awareness about the importance of play in early years and provides an overview of the important parenting ideas and practices related to play, which are unique to the Islamic culture. The main implication of this study to policy is developing affordable culturally and religiously sensitive family programmes tailored for Muslim families that emphasise the significance of play addressing cultural and religious challenges. This study also paves the way for future research to extend our understanding of the cultural differences in play practices by offering a meeting point between different worldviews of play, within an era of increasing globalisation and intercultural mindedness.