School climate is crucial for understanding everyday school life. For pupils, breaktime seems to be associated with how they feel about their school climate. To better understand school climate and what social processes pupils address, this study explores pupils' perspectives on school climate with attention on how they perceive their breaktimes.…

The aim of this study was to examine whether the availability of affordances in preschool outdoor environments influences children's social play. Participants were 173 children aged between 3 and 6 years (M = 3.95, SD = 0.82) who were attending a total of 18 early childhood education centers in the Basque Country (Spain). The results indicate that…

We investigate the importance of spatial, material, and organisational factors to gendered peer relations on the school football pitch. The study is part of an ethnographic research project exploring the relations between school bullying and the institutional context of schooling, focusing on the perspectives of teachers and pupils from preschool…

The research presented explores the negotiation of hegemonic masculinity through football in a group of school children between three and five years of age in a school in Spain. The article shows that in the construction of masculinity within the school, football plays an important role. In this sense, it shows how the playing of football created…

This article examines how the preschool child is enabled to withdraw from the peer group and create a private, individual space within the institutional collective. The question under consideration is, "What factors are necessary to enable a child to create and maintain a withdrawal space in the preschool?" Data were collected through…

This paper explores the place of the school playground in the lives of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We discuss the physical environment, school systems and practices that support the development of social competence and increased peer interactions for children with ASD in their school playground. Highlighted issues include the…

Background: Increasing numbers of children are facing health problems as a result of physical inactivity. Besides the home, school is a natural place to promote children's daily physical activity (PA). Knowledge about factors promoting or preventing children's PA at school, from the perspective of children, is limited. Purpose: The purpose of this…

Today's school administrators and counselors recognize the continuing problem of aggression at recess, but struggle with how to respond to it. Given the wide range of possibilities, what can schools do to improve the playground environment? This article addresses that question and also offers a specific disciplinary model that can be applied to…

One of the most difficult problems that educators face today is dealing with bullying. This pervasive issue occurs in classrooms, lunch rooms, unsupervised areas, on playgrounds, and through electronic media. Based on the principles of protecting the child and establishing a safe environment for all students, this paper investigates the causes and…

This study examined three main issues among 364 primary school children: (1) self-reported levels of perceived safety in classroom and playground, and relationship with teacher, (2) associations between perceived safety in the two contexts and peer reported levels of being bullied, and (3) if relationship with teacher moderated the associations…

This article describes the five-step process used to design and construct a multipurpose fitness playground for students with autism. It can be followed to design school- or community-based playgrounds to meet the various needs of individuals with disabilities. This design yielded an outdoor classroom that can be used during physical education…

Most accounts of bullying and intervention programs against violence in school deal with aggregate prevalence estimates and outcome measures. Case studies are rare. Bullying occurs regularly within classrooms. Psychological aggression through teasing and harassment is more difficult to detect. Bullying and bullies are relatively persistent,…