Children on Playgrounds: Research Perspectives and Applications
Hart, Craig (ed.) (1993).
Albany: State University of New York Press; 459 pages. $27.50. ISBN 0791414671.
This volume is most timely and welcome indeed by all students of children's play and play environments, particularly outdoor environments commonly referred to as playgrounds. The book is specifically welcome because in the words of its editor, “what children do on playgrounds is incredibly understudied.” This has been the prevailing state of research on children's playgrounds throughout the history of their development in the U.S. and other countries due in large part to the misunderstanding of play and the low status that it holds in the minds of most adults. This anthology of research and practical implications for playgrounds is a trend setter for it expands research on playgrounds well beyond the typical analysis of play forms and types and equipment choices of players to include quantitative research methods on a wide range of play behaviors. The history and theory of outdoor play integrates into concise form the state of current thought on these topics and sets the base for the sections which follow, each of which is receiving growing interest by scholars and students of children's play. These are:
1. Conflict on playgrounds
2. Playground behaviors and peer relations
3. Family background influences and children's playground behavior
4. Playground behavior and literacy development
These sections extend the research base, examine issues and research, and give limited implications for practice. A major outcome of this work may well be the stimulation of additional studies into previously understudied topics such as the above. My graduate students currently involved in planning for or conducting play and/or playground research have already begun to examine this volume and to modify their thinking about future research directions consistent with the exciting topics and information gleaned from this valuable work.
The readers will find this work valuable for its world perspective. In addition to U.S. authors, contributors from Canada, Norway, and the U.K. expand the content to take into account the fine work of a growing number of serious play and playground researchers around the world. Indeed, the provincialism of play and playground research has been a major stumbling block to progress in understanding play in the past. This is now changing rapidly with the expansion of such organizations as the International Association for the Child's Right to Play, the development of international journals such as The International Play Journal and now the publication of a major work produced by an international team of researchers.
In recent years, a growing volume of research has countered the notion that play and play environments are frivolous and unimportant and built an ever stronger case for the importance of play and play environments in promoting human development. Children on Playgrounds expands this important research base and hopefully will enlighten those who feel that play is frivolous, that recess at school is unimportant, and that children are purely academic beings. We who are committed to children's play and to high quality, reasonably safe play environments welcome this fine work of our colleagues and commend it as a base for further understanding and future empirical inquiry into the phenomenon of play and its arena -the playground.
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