title: Muslim mothers' intersubjective perceptions of play in the early years: a UK case study focusing on Berkshire
Creators: name: Abada, Amel
Publisher: name: University of Reading
Year: 2024

description: 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 &amp; 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.