In the field of early childhood education, one is presented with a dilemma – whether to guide and educate young children in relation to already established values or whether to give children room to become people in their own right. How do we engage and orient children towards the world through play activity? Fleer confronts this dilemma by drawing on the cultural–historical research tradition evolved from Vygotsky's theory and shows a way forward, a way, although rather complex, that views the child as both engaged and self-initiating, while at the same time as part of a collective cultural tradition. This dilemma starts the moment the child is born.

When, in the early 1970s, I was a newly educated researcher in developmental psychology and had had my first child, what do you think came to mind? To document the child's development, of course. I was inspired by several great men in child psychology. In the 1970s infant research started to show that babies were more competent than had been previously conceptualised in child psychology (Bruner 1968, 1999). This work inspired me, so together with a more experienced colleague, I decided to make a video of my first child from six weeks onwards and to follow him over the next two years. My colleague was a professor and an experienced clinical child psychologist.