In this article, the author deploys Erving Goffman's concept of territories of the self as an analytical tool to understand the challenges and opportunities a childcare setting presents for children engaged in social fantasy play. He uses this concept to unpack the unique institutional play habitat of a childcare facility and shows how Goffman's…

The authors investigated the outdoor physical play of Norwegian first graders in after-school programs using a study that viewed play from the children's perspective. The authors identified three themes of the physically active play they observed--"playing with friends," "no one decides," and "I can do it." Their…

Drawing on such academic topics as the white racial frame, critical race theory, Black critical theory, and Black male studies, the authors offer Black PlayCrit, a tool focusing on the specificity of Blackness and anti-Black violence in play. Calling for the adoption of Black PlayCrit in future studies, they suggest researchers should consider…

The growing interest in addressing the mental health needs of Chinese children through play therapy calls for an understanding of the cultural roots and norms of Chinese families. To help professionals succeed in this traditionally Western treatment when providing cross-cultural play therapy, the authors make recommendations concerning the…

Because children spend so much of their time in schools, their playgrounds offer a good setting for promoting active play in young lives. Teachers, instead of considering active play a taxing demand on their busy day, have begun to develop an informal curriculum for it. The authors review the research on children's active play and explores its…

Playgrounds with spaces that attract children increase the likelihood children will use them, the authors note, and playgrounds offer an opportunity for children to experience the risks of outdoor play. The authors used natural observation to study the children at play in a newly built New Zealand playground where such an important kind of…

The authors point out a basic contradiction: On one hand, we want to keep children as safe as possible; On the other, they suggest, learning to take risks is a normal part of childhood and child development. In Norway, research has shown that early-childhood education and care (ECEC) practitioners have, in the past, taken a permissive approach to…

Creating play environments for children usually requires groups of adults working together. An extensive scientific literature describes how groups function to achieve shared goals in general terms, and groups attempting to empower play may find this literature useful. Design principles for managing natural resources, identified by Elinor Ostrom…

Sand play commonly occupies children at preschools, child-development centers, and school and park playgrounds. The authors review the research on sand play and present a small study on outdoor sand play conducted at a university-based, child-development center using a method they call "facilitated-action research." This study had four…

Joe L. Frost is Parker Centennial Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of America's leading experts on play and playgrounds. In addition to having taught child development and early childhood education at Texas and several other universities, he has written or edited fifteen university-level textbooks and more than one…

Penny Wilson is a playworker--one of a group of professionals who facilitate children's play in adventure playgrounds, parks, and other settings, principally in the United Kingdom. Wilson grew up in the Southeast of England and spent much of her childhood playing on the coast near her family home. She studied illustration in art school, settled in…

This article looks anew at the important role of physically active, outdoor play in children's social and cognitive development and the role of adults in supporting active, child-directed outdoor play. The authors describe the concept of play ecologies to highlight how children experience their environment as enlivened by their interactive…

A preeminent play-theory scholar reviews a lifetime devoted to the study of play in a lively, even playful, recounting of his illustrious career and some of its autobiographical roots. The author covers the development of his three major theories of play--as a viability variable, as culturally relative play forms, and as a co-evolutionary…

Drawing on a range of sources in the history of play, this article discusses how play for all ages mirrors social change, especially but not exclusively in America. The article explores three broad themes from colonial times to the present: first, how play was shaped by changes in work and time at work; second, how play activities were transformed…