A Turkish View on Fathers’ Involvement in Children’s Play

The purpose of this study is to examine fathers’ participation in and views about play. This study was conducted in the southwestern part of Turkey and its sample consisted of 97 fathers who had a child attending randomly chosen public early childhood institutions. The Parents’ Participation and Views on Play instrument was developed and used to collect data. Independent sample t tests and a series of repeated measures analysis of variance procedures were conducted to assess the influence of independent variables on the fathers’ participation in and views on play. The results of the study indicated that fathers frequently participated in their children’s play, and they hold positive views about play. Fathers’ socio-demographic characteristics such as income, working status, family type and children’s gender influenced their participation and views about play. Results are discussed in relation to the literature on parent–child play and suggestions for further research are presented.