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Comparative research on young children's perceptions of play—an approach to observing the effects of kindergarten educational reform

Kindergarten children's perception of play is a reflection of their life and experiences, which can be used as an index of the quality of pre‐school provision and the influence of kindergarten education reform that began in the 1980s in mainland China. Therefore, based on this hypothesis, the current authors argue that to examine young children's perceptions of play is to examine the experiences of their life in kindergarten and, indirectly, the effects of kindergarten education reform. Using photo classification and on‐site interviews, the current research explored 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children's perceptions of play. This article reports on research comparable to previous research which aimed to examine the effect of the 15‐year kindergarten education reform. One of the principles which the reform advocated was that kindergartens and early years practitioners should respect young children's rights to play, emphasizing and providing play over group lessons as the basic activity in kindergarten settings. Similar to the results of previous research, the current research showed that group lessons remained the main reference used by young children to judge the nature and meaning of activities in kindergartens. However, the activity in the interest corners/areas, which has been a main method of organizing children's activities in kindergartens advocated by the top‐down approach to kindergarten educational reform since 1989, was found to be a new criterion in young children's judgements. The current research revealed that kindergarten education reform had achieved some positive effects as expected.