Playful approaches to learning as a realm for the humanities in the culture of higher education: A hermeneutical literature review

This paper is based on a qualitative, hermeneutical literature review of playful approaches to teaching and learning, understood in light of educational culture in higher education. Specifically, the aim of the literature review was to select, understand and present the literature through a theoretical and practice-oriented perspective on culture and play. The paper reflects a literature review that explores a field that is emerging and only just establishing itself. This emerging nature of the field has posed methodological challenges, which are briefly described in the paper. By means of the literature review, we have found that looking at the field of higher education through the lenses of playfulness and playful approaches has the potential to emphasize creativity in learning and human flourishing in education. This insight, however, leads to a number of questions in respect of societal, institutional, and organizational educational culture, and questions regarding approaches to teaching, learning, humanity and society.