The toy classification

The question this book and investigation seeks to answer is now not: “what are the stimulating qualities of each individual toy for a child’s general development?” but rather: “which toys do certain families with certain lifestyles choose or refuse to use in their play/time together?”

The listing of the classification model draws on the instructions of Zacharias (1987): Biographies as the background for “the ecology of play” and Berg-Laase (1987): Social ecological description and methodology: Games and Living Space Analysis.

The classification used in this book (Steenhold (1993,b) was prepared on the basis of information collected from 401 Danish children and their parents concerning the toys they use everyday and their favourite toys. From the collected schematic material returned by the children and their parents, approximately 7000 toys were registered.

Many toys of the same kind were mentioned repeatedly because they exist in different versions and manufacture. Many of the toys were also registered in a variety of versions or were mentioned as plurals.

The classification itself is built up on the idea that registration of toys should take place as the data collection was underway.

The model is therefore constructed in the centre of the socio-ecological circle and contains:

people, animals, instruments, systems, nature

These are the five main groups in the classification. Each individual toy will be placed in one of 29 subgroups. This means that no single toy will appear more than once in the overview.

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