Promoting student engagement for all students in physical education, and specifically in game play, is a challenge faced by many middle and high school physical education teachers. Often, the games we play in physical education are not "good games" because, as early as middle school, some students are already resistant to playing…

This paper inquires into the experiences of an early childhood educator named Claire who taught a young girl with a chronic illness at East Willows Elementary School, a western Canadian elementary school. Using narrative inquiry as the methodology, Claire's experiences in her curriculum making alongside Madeline a young girl with Turner syndrome…

The current study explored the effects of child-centered group play therapy (CCGPT) on social-emotional assets of kindergarten children and the therapeutic aspect of group sizes in CCGPT outcome. A total of 43 participants were randomly assigned to either the intervention or waitlist control groups. We used Parent and Teacher forms of Social…

This paper draws on an ESRC-funded study of play and creativity in preschool-aged children's use of apps in the UK. The main objectives of the study were to collect information about access to and use of apps in the home, establish the most popular apps and identify the features of those apps that are successful in promoting play and creativity. A…

This paper explores the phenomenon of spontaneous vocalisations in the self-chosen, unstructured outdoor play of children aged 3-12. Spontaneous vocalisations encompass the whole range of children's unprompted, natural, expressive vocal soundings beyond spoken language. Non-participant observations at childcare centres and on elementary school…

This article reviewed the literature on parental rearing styles and used responses from an online discussion forum to investigate people's opinions towards parental rearing styles and strategies when children use hand-held devices. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used as an analysis method via micro, meso and macro multi-level…

The use of creative methods has been advocated within disability and childhood research as a means of including voices of inarticulate participants in research, as it can support and supplement the use of conventional language. This paper draws on a research project aimed at designing "the best school in the world" with five students in…

This study addresses the need to better understand how providers' perceptions of indoor and outdoor childcare settings can set the stage for arranging play spaces to optimise children's moderate-to-vigorous physical play. Childcare providers' perceptions of the level of physical activity, safety, and quality that children experience…

A visual artist and teaching artist considers teaching as performative, conceptual arts practice.

This article introduces the notion of "contemporary" play in relation to existing ideas about children's play, learning and development from a sociocultural perspective. The need to think about the nature of contemporary play is considered in response to arguments suggesting that the quality of children's play has declined in…

Terry Marks-Tarlow is a clinical and consulting psychologist and psychotherapist and a member of the teaching faculty at the Reiss Davis Child Study Center in Los Angeles. She is the author of "Awakening Clinical Intuition: An Experiential Workbook for Psychotherapists"; "Psyche's Veil: Psychotherapy, Fractals, and…

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…

This is an exploratory study about pupil selection. Admission regulations are central to understanding issues of school mix, segregation and educational justice. In Chile, student selection has been intensively discussed but scarcely studied. Using a questionnaire for headteachers (N = 581), we explore how school admission processes are organised…

There has been a growing awareness of the contribution of play to the young children's learning and development. This study aims to investigate the implement of board games play on children's aesthetic experience and interpersonal understanding in Montessori and Constructivist classrooms. With the underlying framework follows a developmentally…

A speech-language pathologist and former primary teacher who is now a researcher conducting action research with kindergarten teachers in northern rural Canadian classrooms collaborate in an analysis of one teacher's interactions with her students in a dramatic play center. We use three principles to show how the teacher supports children's…