抄録
Arguments on children's play in nursery life tend to be split between "purity" and "usefulness", or between "direction" and "laissez faire". This reflects our ambivalence about children's play. This article noted two attitudes toward play, namely "to feel play" and "to contemplate play", as factors of that ambivalence, and attempted to integrate them. Based on continuous participant observation in a nursery school, a thick description of a 4-year-old girl's play with the observer was made. The analysis showed first that the play indicated the development of a relationship between the girl and the observer. Second, that development was made possible by intersubjective relationships with others in her nursery life. Finally, those meanings suggest the significance of children's play that is a part of whole nursery life as subjective activity.
