Further Perspectives on Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective

Further Perspectives on Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective
Author: Pete King
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2020-10-08
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0429685564

Building on the success of the first volume of Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective, this book further develops the crucial research of playwork as an emerging and unique discipline. The first volume explored how an understanding of playwork theory and practice can inform research into children’s play. From the seven contributors, four common themes to researching play from a playwork perspective were identified: rights-based; process, critical reflection and playfulness. This second volume aims to explore these four factors from two angles. The first considers how four more playworkers have researched play in four different contexts: prison, gender and toys, in Dutch play provision, and in the area of autism. In the second part of the book, the four pillars of playwork research are explored by academics from other disciplines with an interest in playwork research. This will be of great interest to researchers and upper-level students in the fields of playwork, childcare, early years, education, psychology and children’s rights. It will also appeal to practitioners in a wide variety of professional contexts, including childcare and therapy.

Playwork Practice at the Margins

Playwork Practice at the Margins
Author: Jennifer Cartmel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2020-11-26
Genre: Education
ISBN: 042984462X

Playwork Practice at the Margins explores the circumstances where playwork practice intersects with practice from diverse contexts and settings, encompassing disciplines such as health, education, early intervention and community development. Each chapter focuses on a research project situated in a unique setting or space such as zoos, hospitals, refuges and rainforests. In these settings, the authors reflect on Playwork Principles and consider these in relation to the theory, research, design and findings of their project. By presenting research from settings at the margins of traditional playwork, the authors use shared values and principles to consider the significance of playwork when embedded in transdisciplinary work. The book is underpinned by a model of reflective thinking that is used to examine how playwork practice is intertwined with knowledge from other disciplines. With a range of international contributions from both researchers and practitioners, this is the ideal text for academics and researchers in the fields of early childhood education, allied health, community development and social work disciplines as well as human geographers and practitioners in children’s services worldwide.

Re-imagining Playwork through a Poststructural Lens

Re-imagining Playwork through a Poststructural Lens
Author: Linda Jane Shaw
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2022-07-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000623416

This book explores how poststructural theory can make an important contribution to the growing body of work on playwork as an academic field of practice and research. Drawing on theoretical concepts used by sociologists and philosophers, such as the sociological imagination (Mills); hauntings and the fictive (Derrida) and technologies of power and the self (Foucault), the text considers how these devices may be methodologically productive for playwork research. It reframes research into children and childhood as a process in which research and practice are connected but diverse skills. The book raises questions around power and voice, and highlights the complexity of research which involves human participants and their roles as researcher and/or researched. Chapters relate concepts from post-structural, feminist research and frame them within the context of playwork practice through the use of vignettes constructed from stories told by playwork practitioners and the children with whom they work. A valuable addition to an emerging academic field, this book will be of great interest to researchers and students in the fields of playwork research, education and youth studies, early childhood students, and the sociology of education.

Play Across Childhood

Play Across Childhood
Author: Pete King
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2022-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3030724611

This book explores how play is perceived and practiced through the lens of various different professional and international contexts. Children’s experiences of play will vary according to the different institutions and organisations they are involved in across their lifespan during childhood. The chapters cover play from pre-school to adolescence that includes education, playwork and the new developing area of intergenerational play. This wide variety of contexts and cultures raises questions about universal concepts and notions of ‘play’. The editors and contributors explore how policy, practice and research can identify both differences and commonalities between the way that play is perceived and experienced by children and adults across different types of provision.

Play in a Covid Frame

Play in a Covid Frame
Author: Anna Beresin
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2023-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1800648944

During the international coronavirus lockdowns of 2020–2021, millions of children, youth, and adults found their usual play areas out of bounds and their friends out of reach. How did the pandemic restrict everyday play and how did the pandemic offer new spaces and new content? This unique collection of essays documents the ways in which communities around the world harnessed play within the limiting frame of Covid-19. Folklorists Anna Beresin and Julia Bishop adopt a multidisciplinary approach to this phenomenon, bringing together the insights of a geographically and demographically diverse range of scholars, practitioners, and community activists. The book begins with a focus on social and physical landscapes before moving onto more intimate portraits of play among the old and young, including coronavirus-themed games and novel toy inventions. Finally, the co-authors explore the creative shifts observed in frames of play, ranging from Zoom screens to street walls. This singular chronicle of coronavirus play will be of interest to researchers and students of developmental psychology, childhood studies, education, playwork, sociology, anthropology and folklore, as well as to toy, museum, and landscape designers. This book will also be of help to parents, professional organizations, educators, and urban planners, with a postscript of concrete suggestions advocating for the essential role of play in a post-pandemic world.

Ebook: Ethical Dilemmas in Education: Considering Challenges and Risks in Practice

Ebook: Ethical Dilemmas in Education: Considering Challenges and Risks in Practice
Author: Carol Brown
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2022-11-07
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0335251331

“Ethical Dilemmas in Educational Research is a valuable resource for both researchers and supervisors. Having myself sat on a university ethics committee, I appreciate not only the considerations needed when approving applications but also the controversy around what could be viewed as undue restrictions on research. The real-life and hypothetical dilemmas presented in this book should help guide researchers towards effective but ethically sensitive designs." Dr Katy Smart CPsychol AFBPsS, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, UK Ethical Dilemmas in Educational Research is an invaluable guide for educational researchers around the world, helping to develop best practices and make informed decisions. This book demonstrates how a careful balance must be struck between the needs of participants, increasing regulatory guidelines and the academic freedom of the educational researcher. The authors discuss an array of issues arising in the field of educational research, including: ethical dilemmas in action, issues of agency and privacy, and researcher reflexivity. With a foreword by Professor Ian Menter, this book goes beyond the guidelines and focuses on the specific dilemmas that educational researchers face, illustrated with real-life and inclusive examples. The book: ● Focuses on the resolution of ethical dilemmas in educational research, and not just the dilemmas themselves ● Highlights the role of committees and guidelines, with an emphasis on misunderstandings and common purposes ● Is written by academics from differing theoretical and methodological perspectives and disciplines across the spectrum of educational research ● Presents specific dilemmas encountered during research in the early years, schools and universities The authors use these ideas to build on the foundations of an ethical approach and find new ways of working together and learning from one another, to ensure best practice in the educational research field and forge a more united forward path. Carol Brown is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Education Faculty Research Ethics Officer at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Mary Wild is Professor in Education and former Head of the School of Education at Oxford Brookes University, UK.

Childhoods & Leisure

Childhoods & Leisure
Author: Utsa Mukherjee
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2023-10-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3031337891

This edited volume brings together interdisciplinary scholarship on children’s everyday leisure from across the globe, addressing key questions around children’s agency, rights, child-adult relations, and social change. It is positioned to inaugurate a new frontier of research within leisure studies. Leisure theory has historically been adult-centric and based in the global north, and consequently, children’s lived experiences of leisure have remained marginal to theory-building exercises within leisure studies since its inception. As the call for decolonizing leisure studies grows, this book champions a cross-cultural and social justice agenda that does not privilege global north childhoods but acknowledges the multiplicity of lived childhoods across the globe and their inter-connections. By drawing attention to children’s leisure – across multiple genres such as organized leisure, sports, play, and digital leisure among others, this edited volume drives a new wave of research that speaks simultaneously to leisure studies and childhood studies and thereby advances the intellectual remit of global leisure studies.

Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective

Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective
Author: Pete King
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2017-07-06
Genre: Education
ISBN: 131722213X

Play is of critical importance to the well-being of children across the globe, a fact reflected in Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet existing literature on the subject is largely confined to discussing play from a developmental, educational or psychological perspective. Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective offers a new and exciting angle from which to view play, drawing on the authors’ own experience of conducting research into various aspects of this all-important and pervasive phenomenon. This innovative work will act as a compass for those looking to undertake research into different aspects of play and child welfare. Each chapter explores how the author has combined established and new research methodologies with their individual playwork approaches to arrive at emergent understandings of playwork research. The overall conclusion discusses directions for future research and develops a new model of playwork research from the four common themes that emerge from the contributions of individual authors: children’s rights, process, critical reflection, and playfulness. Examples from the United Kingdom, Nicaragua, and Sweden give this unique work international relevance. Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective will appeal to researchers and students around the world working in the fields of playwork, childcare, early years, education, psychology and children’s rights. It should also be of interest to practitioners in a wide variety of professional contexts, including childcare and therapy.

Perspectives on Play

Perspectives on Play
Author: Avril Brock
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 572
Release: 2018-10-24
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1315288559

This brand new text breaks the mould of books on the subject of play currently on the market. It explores, debates and further develops the theory of play, relating cutting-edge theory to examples of practice, taken from a broad range of multi-disciplinary perspectives. Each author brings their own perspective to the subject, based on rich and diverse experience, examining play-based activities from a wide variety of settings: the classroom, the playground, the home and local community. Each chapter is illustrated throughout with observation notes, case studies, interviews and discussions, encouraging you not only to critically evaluate current research but to reflect on ways in which you could develop and improve your own practice. Perspectives on Play will be an invaluable resource for any student studying within childhood studies, playwork programmes or training to teach at early years or primary level. The book is also ideal for early years, primary and play practitioners.

The Cambridge Handbook of Play

The Cambridge Handbook of Play
Author: Peter K. Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1108135501

Play takes up much of the time budget of young children, and many animals, but its importance in development remains contested. This comprehensive collection brings together multidisciplinary and developmental perspectives on the forms and functions of play in animals, children in different societies, and through the lifespan. The Cambridge Handbook of Play covers the evolution of play in animals, especially mammals; the development of play from infancy through childhood and into adulthood; historical and anthropological perspectives on play; theories and methodologies; the role of play in children's learning; play in special groups such as children with impairments, or suffering political violence; and the practical applications of playwork and play therapy. Written by an international team of scholars from diverse disciplines such as psychology, education, neuroscience, sociology, evolutionary biology and anthropology, this essential reference presents the current state of the field in play research.