Reconsidering The Role of Play in Early Childhood

Towards Social Justice and Equity

Julie M. Nicholson, Debora B. Wisneski, Julie M. Nicholson, Debora B. Wisneski

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367583798
• eBook ISBN: 9780429769993
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Reconsidering the Role of Play in Early Childhood: Towards Social Justice and Equity —a compilation of current play research in early childhood education and care—challenges, disrupts, and reexamines conventional perspectives on play. By highlighting powerful and provocative studies from around the world that attend to the complexities and diverse contexts of children's play, the issues of social justice and equity related to play are made visible. This body of work is framed by the phenomenological viewpoint that presumes equity is best confronted and improved through developing an expanded understanding of play in its multiple variations and dimensions. The play studies explore the potential and troubles of play in teaching and learning, children's agency in play, the actual spaces where children play, and different perspectives of play based on identity and culture. The editors invite readers to use the research as an inspiration to reconsider their conceptions of play and to take action to work for a world where all children have access to play.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.

Introduction

Julie Nicholson and Debora B. Wisneski

Throughout the western history of research and understanding of early child development, care, and education, children’s play is often at the centre of our inquiry. Childhood play has provided the context for understanding development and learning (Piaget, 1945; Vygotsky, 1978) and has provided insight into cultural and social understanding of childhood itself (Rogoff, 2003; Sutton-Smith, 1995). Play has also been the centre of the curriculum for young children in many societies (Van Hoorn, Nourot, Scales, & Alward, 2015; Wisneski & Reifel, 2012). Furthermore, play remains central for many local, national, and worldwide advocacy organizations (i.e. International Play Association, US Play Coalition, Defending the Early Years, Alliance for Childhood, Play England, Association for Childhood Education International) inspired by decades of child development research highlighting the benefits of play for children’s learning, development and overall well-being (Ginsburg, 2007) and Article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child promoting a child’s right to play and their right to enjoy a full cultural and artistic life (United Nations, 1989). Thus, play in the early years of life has been framed as an optimal foundation for children’s learning and construction of meaning in the world, an intervention to redress the negative consequences of poverty and other inequities, a form of therapy to support healing and resilience from childhood stress and traumas, and an effective means to strengthen children’s educational and developmental outcomes.

Yet, many world events and social and institutional policies inhibit and threaten children’s access to, and involvement in, play. Further, children’s play is not an innocent endeavour and many scholars have documented how children make sense of the world through play in ways that mirror and/or reinforce inequities in the societies in which they live (e.g. racism, sexism, classism). Therefore, play is a contested, complex, and contradictory human experience that offers researchers a rich opportunity to explore the ruptures in our current knowing and understanding of childhood development, care, and education (Grieshaber & McArdle, 2010; Nicholson, Kurnik, Jevgjovikj, & Ufoegbune, 2015; Sutton-Smith, 1997/2001).

Reconsidering the Role of Play in Early Childhood: Towards Social Justice and Equity is a collection of current research and theorizing about play that challenges, disrupts, and reexamines our current ‘contexts, perspectives and meanings’ (Fromberg & Bergen, 2015) of play in early care and education. Highlighted are pressing issues involving play for children living in diverse contexts around the world. Specifically, the issues of social justice and equity related to children’s play today are made visible and expand our theorizing and educational practices for supporting play while also recognizing the complexity of its expression and role in children’s lives.

Our interest in this topic springs from our shared experience as professors charged with the responsibility of guiding early childhood students to learn about the complex construct of young children’s play.Our students range from young twenty-something millennials to seasoned grandmothers returning to school after decades of raising children into adulthood. One of us teaches a primarily white population, the other a population that is racially and ethnically diverse with childhoods that took place in various socioeconomic and sociocultural contexts internationally. We are passionate about helping our students to gain a deep understanding about the many cognitive, social, emotional, and physical benefits afforded to children through play. We ardently communicate that through play, children communicate important information about their life stories; they share with adults how they are organizing and making sense of their world and reveal what has happened to them, how they feel about it, and what they need and want from the adults around them. We believe it is a professional obligation that early childhood professionals learn how to mindfully observe children’s play and listen to the stories they convey and disclose to us while they are playing. We stress in our coursework that play is a right of all children and deeply connected to how democracy functions. And we often find our students’ understanding of play’s association withlargersocietal issues – liberation,voice,equality,justice – iselusive without persistence in unfurling the layers of discovery that characterize deep learning in college classrooms.Issues of equity and social justice are central to children’s play. It is our job to make this visible.

Given the alarming rates of trauma impacting children’s lives globally – whether the increasing rates of extreme poverty in the United States, the unaccompanied minors fleeing gangs and violence in Central and South America, or the countless children losing their lives in conflict areas including Syria and Afghanistan – it is essential that we protect and defend children’s right to play. Without play, we are taking away their most natural and therapeutic context to endure (and resist, subvert, and reassemble) the injustices we expose them to. The global zeitgeist is shifting fast as evidenced in recent elections across Europe and the United States where we have witnessed shifts from ‘we’ to essentialized and marginalized ‘other’. Our children are going to grapple with the messages they see swirling around them about divided red and blue nations, and hate, oppression and bigotry and they will reflect our best and worst sensibilities in their play. As early childhood professionals, we are charged with not pretending not to notice but instead, developing our own, and our students’ and colleagues’ skills, knowledge and capacities in learning how to respond both sensitively and intentionally in a manner that disrupts cycles of injustice.

The manuscripts in this collection can each be viewed as powerful and provocative on their own. However, when read together we found four strong themes that help us understand play through a lens of equity, social justice, and complexity. The first theme explores the potential and troubles of play in teaching and learning. The next theme reminds us to reconsider the agency and power that children bring to play experiences that challenge the adult interpretations or attempts to control play. In a third theme, readers are asked to re-focus their attention on the physical and virtual spaces of play that are often overlooked or taken for granted. A final theme helps us consider different perspectives of play, from parents, to children, to cross-cultural conversations about play – reminding us that children’s play occurs in a complicated web of relationships and contexts. The following sections will provide an introduction to each of the manuscripts in the context of these themes.

Potential and troubles of play in teaching and learning

While play has been situated as part of early education and care settings for young children, the role of play in learning has been complex. Too often children’s play is not understood or visible as part of the process of teaching and learning. Some have troubled the notion of having play as an integral part of learning when play itself is seen as incongruent with formal teaching and learning. Furthermore, policies and practices of schools can create barriers to play and educators, based on their knowledge, skills, and dispositions towards utilizing play as a pedagogical tool, hold much power over when, where, and how children play. The following research studies illuminate such struggles.

Cohen and Emmons’article, Block play: Spatial language with preschool and school-aged children,is a response to the decline of unit block play due to current educational reforms and policies. The authors situate their study in this context of the lack of play in preschool as well as elementary schools, despite the strong research evidence that children learn through play. The purpose of this study is to describe and examine the use of spatial words in a playful venue and document children’s development of spatial language supported by adult-guided play with blocks. Their findings lead us to see how block play with adult guidance in using spatial language does enhance children’s use of spatial language, not only for preschool age children, but older children, as well. Hence, the authors advocate for use of unit block play across childhood.

Kroll’s study, Early childhood curriculum development: The role of play in building self-regulatory capacity in young children, takes a similar approach as Cohen and Emmons in showing the benefits of play for learning by highlighting the positive enhancement of children’s self-regulation through play. The study takes place in a lab school kindergarten where teachers regarded play as central to their curriculum and to the development of self-regulation in their students.In discussing the findings, Kroll considers the educational context in which these children will enter once leaving the lab school environment. She argues that current educational standards are ‘detrimental, miseducative, and unrealistic for 5 year olds, but, nevertheless, as early childhood educators, we have to think about how we can prepare our young children to weather these conditions as healthily as possible.’ Kroll speculates, if children are in play-less educational settings without teacher support, as play experiences are the optimal context in which to learn self-regulation, how will children learn self-regulation?

Otsuka and Jay’s study, Understanding and supporting blockplay: Video observation was completed with preschool children in England in which the researchers closely observed and listened to the play interactions to explore the process in which the children’s self-directed block play supported their development of abstract thinking. Through observing play behaviours, the authors are able to follow children’s connections between symbolic representations leading to abstract thinking. Three main features of this process are described as (i) child/child sharing of thinking and adult and child sharing of thinking;(ii)pause for reflection; and(iii)satisfaction;and these aspects are identified as signs of learning. Once again, our authors lead us to a place in which educators are urged to understand the value of play and provide adequate time, space, and a thoughtful environment for children to play. From the perspective of these three studies which illustrate how learning occurs through play,the conclusion can also be drawn that access to play in educational settings for children leads to access to learning opportunities. While these research studies are not directly framed in the context of social justice or equity, they challenge the current policy trends towards removing play from education and the current assumptions that only through direct instruction can low-income children or children of colour learn. Furthermore, in each study the educator has an integral role in providing access to play for children and for enhancing the process of learning through play for children.

The following two studies illustrate how educators’perceptions and understanding about play can also be a barrier for children’s access to play. These studies seem to illustrate what has been suggested before by Rogers (2011): while there has been a consensus about the importance and benefits of play in Western discourse, there are great difficulties in realizing this in practice and conceptualization of play.

The difficulty in play arises in Gyöngy’s study, Play rules: Experienced and trainee caregivers of toddlers nursery practitioners in Hungary, as the author recognizes that within the context of free play in nurseries in Hungary, caregivers create different rules for children while playing. The study exposes rules adults impose during free play as social,health and safety,and environment-related rules.While experienced and novice caregivers seemed to agree upon safety and health rules, there were disagreements on the environment-related rules, which controlled space utilisation in toddler groups. Interestingly, they find that there has been little research on this type of rule-making that heavily shapes children’s play, but this seems to be part of the practical knowledge of the profession. As one can imagine, many rules are imposed on children’s play based on the assessment and fear of risk. Yet, risk has been documented as an important aspect of play. Educators are often torn between their desire to encourage play and their reluctance to accept the risk inherent in play.

In van Rooijen and Newstead’s paper, Influencing factors on professional attitudes towards risk-taking in children’s play: A narrative review,the authors propose an alternative approach to supporting practitioners in allowing risk by exploring the complexity of these influencing factors. This narrative literature review reveals fi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword: Is play a privilege or a right? And what's our responsibility? On the role of play for equity in early childhood education
• Introduction
• Index