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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.