A large body of educational research has focused on play as one of children's own activities, however, considerably less attention has been paid to structures and practices associated with joint play between adults and children. This article contributes to this line of research by analyzing adults' participation in joint play with very young children. The data consist of 10 rich makebelieve play cases taken from 150 hours of videotaped, naturally occurring interactions in a group care setting. The results show that the ability of adults to build sustained co-participation in play with very young children demands delicately timed observations, initiatives and responses with attuned and coordinated use of gesture, gaze and talk. In all, this study provides one way to study and understand better what adults are doing in practice while they are actively co-participating in play. Pedagogical implications for early childhood education are discussed. Keywords play; participation; joint action; adult-child interaction 2 understanding of what is happening during adult-child-group interactions when the adult is actively co-participating in children's play. Previous research has pointed out that joint play, involving children and adults, is a complex cultural and pedagogical practice in which adult participation can vary in one single interactional sequence from a withdrawal to intensive observation and active co-participation (Jung, 2013; Lobman, 2006; Trawick-Smith & Dziurgot, 2011; van Oers, 2013). Although there is shared understanding among scholars about the different roles adults can have in children's play, the studies to date have not provided solid, empirically confirmed arguments about when, how and under what premises adults should participate (van Oers, 2013). Empirical interaction studies have identified role characterizations like: 1) an observer or a behavior monitor 2) a stage manager and a provider of the material resources and 3) a play partner or a play facilitator (e.g., Jones & Reynolds, 1992; Jung, 2013; Kontos, 1999). There is also research on adult's pedagogical positioning inside and outside the play (Fleer, 2015) as well as studies on adults' questions and children's responses in play situations (Meacham, Vukelich, Han, & Buell, 2014; Tompkins, Zucker, Justice & Binici, 2013). However, what these characterizations provide is a more or less static typology of different roles, positions and isolated practices, rather than analysis of how play actions are built and responded to in situ by relying of different verbal and non-verbal interactional resources and turn taking practices (Bateman, 2015; Goodwin, 2007a). There is a large body of research on play as a situated social activity between two or more peers

This paper considers the ways in which adults active participation in play has the potential to manage and manipulate participation frameworks in adult-child joint activities, drawing on a dataset of 150 hours of video-recorded, naturally occurring adult-child-group interactions from one Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) institution for children under the age of three. A total of 47 instances of multi-party make-believe play were located from the dataset and subjected to multimodal conversation analysis. The data-driven microanalysis revealed that adult role in play is more complex and multidimensional than prior research has shown. Playing can be understood as a shared communicative project, a form of mutual understanding, between adults and children. In adult-child interaction play has the capacity to simultaneously invoke two different institutional frames: that of playing and that of caring or educating (e.g., soothing or including). In a multi-party context, adults playful stance taking can serve different kinds of institutional tasks and balance asymmetries of participation among children and between adults and children. The results contribute to theoretical and pedagogical discussion of adult roles in children s play and facilitate early childhood .

The purpose of this single case study was to investigate emotional and playful stance taking in adults and very young children as they engage in joint make-believe play activity in a natural Finnish group-care setting. Drawing on the sequential approach of conversation analysis (CA), the study represents an effort to understand play in an early childhood education (ECE) setting from both children's and adults' perspectives at the same time. The results suggest that the interplay of emotional and playful stance taking in make-believe play produces emotional transitions in interaction. These transitions can be understood as interactional accomplishments that offer children and adults the possibility to align and affiliate themselves with their own and each other's emotional experiences and to explore personal reflections of the emotionally heightened real-life trajectories in a shared makebelieve play frame. Based on these findings, it is argued that creating and maintaining emotionally heightened joint play with very young children requires adults' emotional involvement and delicately calibrated participation through leading, following and leading by following. Further empirical study is needed to investigate sequences in which playful and emotional stance taking stand in a non-aligning and non-affiliating relationship. Such research could reveal problem-remedy sequences more evidently and provide important further development of ECE theory and practice for children under the age of three.

In recent years, in the wake of a growing number of studies highlighting the beneficial impact of quality early childhood education and care (ECEC), politicians and other stakeholders have implemented changes in ECEC practitioners' work conditions via new policies and guidelines. One central theme characterizing these various efforts has been a push toward focusing attention on compassion in ECEC. This chapter discusses the notion of practical wisdom as a lens for viewing acts of compassion in a way that is attentive to the complexity and situational richness of everyday life in ECEC settings. Our sociocultural perspective on compassion highlights practical wisdom and compassion as socially shared and culturally mediated processes that are integral to the ongoing lived practice. Reflecting on such moments offers a possible avenue for change in the interactional and cultural practices of ECEC. Furthermore, we advocate that in efforts to promote compassion in ECEC institutions, primacy should not be placed on creating compassionate individual practitioners but, rather, on the cultivation of cultures of compassion. As such, our chapter study has implications for ECEC practitioners, leaders, and policymakers who wish to promote compassion in ECEC. New policies, changing work conditions, and compassion The sociocultural conditions impacting the work of early childhood education and care (ECEC) educators are changing. In response to a growing number of studies highlighting the beneficial impact of quality early childhood education and care (e.g., Sylva et al., 2010), politicians and other stakeholders have begun to implement new policies to improve existing ECEC practices. Many of these policies, building on a long line of argumentation within the ECEC literature, emphasize the pedagogical aspects of early childhood education and care. In Finland, for example, the new National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care stresses that ECEC should be goal-directed

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