This article elaborates the theoretical foundations for cultivating tolerance in primary school learners through children’s play folklore. Anchored in socio-cultural, ecological, play, social learning, and intercultural competence theories, the paper conceptualizes children’s folklore—ring games, counting-out rhymes, role and chase games, circle songs, and cooperative challenges—as a culturally embedded pedagogical medium that enables perspective-taking, rule negotiation, norm internalization, and prosocial behavior. Drawing on Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and guided participation, Huizinga’s ludic culture thesis, Sutton-Smith’s ambiguity of play, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems, Bandura’s social learning, and intercultural competence frameworks by Byram and Deardorff, we synthesize how play folklore structures support tolerance as a value, a social skillset, and a classroom climate. Methodologically, the paper offers a conceptual analysis of canonical research and practical models for classroom implementation that treat folkloric games as “micro-societies” where learners co-construct norms, practice inclusion, and resolve conflicts. We discuss mechanisms of impact—cooperative goal structures, distributed agency, language of rules, symbolic distance, and ritual repetition—alongside design principles for lesson organization, assessment approaches (observational rubrics and dialogic self-reports), and culturally responsive adaptation. The article culminates in an integrative framework that aligns curricular aims, teacher mediation, and ecological supports to embed tolerance within everyday school life through play folklore.

Tolerance, children’s play folklore, primary education

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