Australasian Journal of Early Childhood Volume 38 Number 3 September 2013 127 Introduction It is well understood in practice that when children are emotionally competent and have emotion regulation, a harmonious kindergarten environment results because children work more effectively together in these group settings. Denham, Bassett and Zinsser (2012) point out that young children’s emotional competence ‘is crucial for social and academic (i.e. school) success’ (p. 1). But this is also true of children in playgroups, kindergartens and childcare centres. Despite the avalanche of research into emotion regulation (e.g. Barblett & Maloney, 2010; Halberstadt & Lozada, 2011; Holodynski, 2009; Koole, 2010), little has been directed towards group settings and the role of educators and how they frame experiences to support children’s development of emotions (Ahn, 2005; Davies et al., 2010; Galyer and Evans, 2001). According to Denham, Bassett and Zinsser (2012) most research examines individual resilience, with ‘next to nothing published about how early childhood educators promote such emotional competence’ (original emphasis; p. 2). Yet most international curricula focus on emotional development. For instance, the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) in Australia (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR], 2009) explicitly addresses emotional development. Consequently, more needs to be understood about supporting emotion regulation in group settings. Within the scope of this paper, we limit ourselves to emotion regulation because central to a sociocultural or cultural-historical 1 reading of emotions is how children with the support of their social and material environment come to understand their emotions as particular feeling states. That is, how an emotion becomes named and expressed is directly shaped by the particular cultural communities from within which the child lives and develops (Cole et al., 2002; Halberstadt & Lozada, 2011). Emotions can only be understood in the context of social others who shape and are shaped by the social situation of children’s development. This perspective of emotions is counter- intuitive to a developmental view of emotions where the focus is on examining the child socially, emotionally, cognitively and physically (sometimes spiritually) as discretely conceptualised areas of development. We see this in documents, such as the Developmental Milestones and the Early Years Learning Framework and the National Quality Standards (Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd, NSW, n.d.). A cultural-historical reading cannot separate how a child thinks about their feeling state or how thinking is refracted 1 The term ‘cultural-historical’ is foregrounded in this paper rather than the more commonly known term of ‘sociocultural’ because this more accurately reflects the theoretical work as named by Vygotsky and neo-Vygotskians in Russia. ‘Perezhivanie’ in group settings: A cultural-historical reading of emotion regulation Marilyn Fleer Marie Hammer Monash University, Australia THERE IS AN OVERWHELMING AMOUNT of research on emotion regulation (e.g. Barblett & Maloney, 2010; Koole, 2010). Much of this work has centred on experimental studies rather than group settings such as childcare centres and kindergartens. In drawing upon cultural-historical concepts, this paper presents a theoretical discussion on how fairytales help children to collectively develop emotion regulation. We specifically explore emotions and cognition during the telling, re-telling, and role-playing of fairytales. It is argued that fairytales can act as a pedagogical framework for helping children become more conscious of emotions as they role play. Cultural-historical theory is used to give a new perspective on both fairytales and emotion regulation.