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ABSTRACT.
In this essay Amy Shuffelton considers Jean-Jacques Rousseau's suspicion of imagination, which is, paradoxically, offered in the context of an imaginative construction of a child's upbringing. First, Shuffelton articulates Rousseau's reasons for opposing children's development of imagination and their engagement in the sort of imaginative play that is nowadays considered a hallmark of early and middle childhood. Second, she weighs the merits of Rousseau's opposition, which runs against the consensus of contemporary social science research on childhood imaginative play. Ultimately, Shuffelton argues that Rousseau's work offers an important cautionary note to enthusiasts of children's imaginative play, due to the potentially disruptive influence of consumer capitalism, though she also notes that imagination may play a more redemptive role than Rousseau granted it.
Introduction
Research on children's play often hails progressive philosophers of education as proponents of "learning through play." Opening a sociological or psychological work on children's play, a reader is likely to find cited Maria Montessori's maxim that play is the work of the child or Jean-Jacques Rousseau's admonition to parents and educators to promote the games of childhood. To some extent this association of progressive educational philosophies with play is justified. Progressive philosophers have indeed tended to support activities considered native to children, including play. Children's play takes many forms, however - building a model robot is very different from playing stickball, and both are at some remove from playing house - and progressive philosophies of education have not uniformly supported all kinds of play. Notably, some of the most important theorists of progressive education, including Froebel, Montessori, and Rousseau, discouraged imaginative play, while encouraging physical playfulness. In contrast, social scientific studies of play over the past half-century have often treated imaginative play as the very pinnacle of children's play, an activity that is cognitively sophisticated itself and the precursor of humanity's most admirable intellectual and social activities. Recent research connects imaginative play to many desirable educational outcomes: creative problem solving, sophisticated literacy, and socioemotional skills.1 This presents a question: inasmuch as imaginative play has proven to have many positive educational outcomes, what difference might it make to our readings of these theorists that they seem to have gotten this critical aspect of children's development completely wrong? After all, these are...