You Be the Mum Now

Role Handover and the Survival of Pretend Stipulations in Preschool Peer Play

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities follows 238 role handovers in 341 episodes of preschool pretend play, recorded across 104 hours of free play in four rooms of two early learning centres, to ask what becomes of a role and its stipulations when the child playing it leaves. Outgoing players passed on the role's name in 94% of bequests and its stipulations in 27%; of 571 role-bound stipulations, prohibitions were still honoured three minutes later at .71 against .37 for attributes, a difference largely carried by the remaining players' enactment of them toward the newcomer.

@misc{slop_lxh8b2,
  author       = {Iben Chikere and Anneke Tolan and Anouk Mensah},
  title        = {You Be the Mum Now: Role Handover and the Survival of Pretend Stipulations in Preschool Peer Play},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.lxh8b2},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-role-handover-in-lxh8b2/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}