A Study on the Innovative Design of Diversity-Related Toys for Children

Toys have a long history. They provide opportunities for children to play, and existing research emphasizes the importance of toys for children's future development. Play develops the skills children need for the future, guides them to explore new environments and discover new things, and it also introduces them to different sounds, colors, and shapes, which helps them to better perceive their external environment. Children are currently living in a world full of diversity, and they begin to develop social awareness as infants. Helping them to understand social diversity not only reduces discrimination against others later, but also helps them to better integrate into social life, but there is still a lack of toys that help children understand diversity. Character toys, as toys that can help children better understand others in terms of behavior and psychology, have great potential to help children understand diversity. An analysis of existing role-play toys reveals that there are four main categories of existing toys, but none of them deal with diversity. As children imitate the behavior and actions of adults, film or book characters during play, it was found that adults also have an influence on children's social diversity perceptions, and new innovations in role toys are proposed that allow children to be exposed to diversity-related content during play, while emphasizing the importance of adults in their play and helping to correct misconceptions in a timely manner.