Children's Play Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

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- Creativity, Children's Play, Children's Drawings, Preschool

Children’s Literature and Intergenerational Relationships: Encounters of the Playful Kind explores ways in which children’s literature becomes the object and catalyst of play that brings younger and older generations closer to one another. Providing examples from diverse cultural and historical contexts, this collection argues that children’s texts promote intergenerational play through the use of literary devices and graphic formats and that they may prompt joint play practices in the real world. The book offers a distinctive contribution to children’s literature scholarship by shifting critical attention away from the difference and conflict between children and adults to the exploration of inter-age interdependencies as equally crucial aspects of human life, presenting a new perspective for all who research and work with children’s culture in times of global aging.

- by Irena Barbara Kalla and +1
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- Picture Books, Children's Literature & Culture, Children's and Young Adult Literature, Children's Play

Stuff and Nonsense is a collection of words, images and essays inspired by the work of Stuart Lester. Stuart’s work has influenced a broad range of practitioners, academics and institutions to think differently about children’s play. In this celebratory book you’ll encounter strangeness, curiosity, humour, philosophy, creativity, high intellect and pragmatism, all of which will be mixed together with a high proportion of nonsense and realism.

- by Wendy Russell
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- Children's Play

This article suggests that Pentecostalism constitutes a genuine type of religion we can label as play. In order to identify the particular elements of this type, the article makes use of Erving Goffman's frame analysis to organize Pentecostal theological activity. This methodological starting point is followed by an overview of existing interpretations of Pentecostalism as a form of play. The main portion of this essay then constructs from an analysis of everyday experiences visible in Pentecostalism a primary framework of activities oriented around the transformative encounter with the Holy Spirit. The sequence of activity involves a primary and overlapping pattern of Pentecostal spirituality, experience, narrative, affections, practices, and embodiment. Demonstrating that play is not exclusive to Pentecostalism, but that Pentecostals manifest a particularly visible form, demands that greater attention is paid both to Pentecostalism as a religious tradition and to play as a theological model. Pentecostalism is frequently identified as one of the fastest growing religious movements of the twentieth century, and interest in Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity has grown dramatically over the last decades, but little agreement exists about the exact nature of what we label with the term " Pentecostal. " The adolescence of Pentecostalism may offer helpful insights into the development of young religious movements, yet the question can be asked if the Pentecostal movement indeed possesses a distinctive religious character and how its theology relates to the established Christian traditions and to religion as a whole. 1 It is the argument of this essay that the religious identity of Pentecostalism is rooted in its particular character as a genuine theological type held together by an enigmatic theological method: the mode of play. The difficulty of identifying Pentecostalism stems from a lack of apprehending the particular activities that together comprise religion as play. In order to identify the particular elements of Pentecostalism as play, I make use of Erving Goffman's social theory of conceptual frames to organize Pentecostal religious activity. This methodological starting point is followed by a brief overview of existing proposals that relate Pentecostalism and play. The main portion of this essay then conducts a frame analysis of the core elements characteristic of Pentecostal theology. I conclude with a proposal outlining why play can function as a model for the study of Pentecostalism and how it can be used to organize Pentecostal theology going forward. The essay ends with a discussion of the potential impact of play on the study of religion.

- by Wolfgang Vondey
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- Religion, Pentecostalism, Children's Play
- by Veronique Dasen and +1
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- Classical Archaeology, History of Religion, History of Toys and Play, Children's Play
- by gemma parís
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- Education, Creativity, Early Childhood Education, Visual Arts

This article reports on research examining the social purposes of Indigenous kindergarten children’s language and their construction of Indigenous cultural knowledge within and through interactions with peers during dramatic play and play with construction materials. The participants are three teachers and 29 children from two rural northern Canadian Indigenous communities that are accessible only by plane and winter roads. Data sources are video-recordings of the children’s play interactions taken over 4 months and their teachers’ perceptions of the Indigenous knowledge that the children construct in their play. Unlike results of many standardized oral language assessments indicating deficits in Indigenous children’s language, our results showed that children used language for a wide range of purposes; a range that corresponds with results of previous studies of nonindigenous children’s play interactions. Participating Indigenous children most often used language for learning and language for imagining in their play. Their teachers were heartened to see that their students, most frequently the girls, also used language for disagreeing and asserting themselves. Teachers felt that children were constructing powerful cultural identities that would contribute to positive change, if they could use language in these ways outside their Indigenous communities, as well. Participating children took up Indigenous cultural meanings in their play, such as relationships with the land and among family members. In some cases, they created hybrid narratives, bringing together elements of popular culture as well as traditional Indigenous land-based activities, such as fishing and hunting, into their play interactions.

- by Nazila Eisazadeh and +1
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- Literacy, Indigenous Peoples, Children's Play

Background of Study: Competence in motor performance skills is important in enabling children to be physically literate. Plyometric-based training has been suggested as an effective means to enhance motor performance skills in young athletes. However, no studies have reported the effects of a whole body plyometric-based program integrated into physical education on motor performance skills with young children. Objective: This study aims to examine the effect of a plyometric-based program on primary school students' motor performance skills, upper and lower body muscular power, and reactive strength index. Method: The sample was composed of 61 primary school students, 29 girls and 32 boys, aged 7-8 years old, from two secondgrade Physical Education (PE) classes. Both groups participated in their regular eight-week PE lessons (50-minute classes twice a week). During the study, the plyometric group performed a plyometric-based program in the 15-minute warmup of each class, while the comparison group performed regular warmup activities. Student's motor performance skill proficiency, reactive strength index, lower and upper body muscular power were assessed before and after the eight weeks of PE lessons. The data were analysed using a two-way analysis of variance, followed by pairwise comparisons with the Bonferroni adjustment. Results: The data analysis indicated significant increases in motor performance skill proficiency, upper and lower body muscular power in the plyometric group vs comparison group (p ≤ 0.05). Conclusion: These results suggest that including a plyometric-based program in the PE warmup phase of the lessons may improve motor performance skills and muscular power in primary school students.

- by Andrew Sortwell
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- Education, Plyometrics, Youth, Paediatrics

In philosophy, there are two competitor views about the nature and value of childhood: The first is the traditional, deficiency, view, according to which children are mere unfinished adults. The second is a view that has recently become increasingly popular amongst philosophers, and according to which children, perhaps in virtue of their biological features, have special and valuable capacities, and, more generally, privileged access to some sources of value. This article provides a conceptual map of these views and their possible interpretations, and notes their bearing on issues of population ethics and on the duties that we are owed during childhood.

- by Anca Gheaus
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- Family studies, Values, Parenting, Family
- by Lenka Naldoniova
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- Creativity, Learning and Teaching, Imagination, Culture in the Soviet Union
- by Jean-Baptiste Desveaux
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- Psychoanalysis, Donald W. Winnicott, Children's Play

Play has often been snubbed as a serious research topic. The combination of its supposed uselessness and its association with the world of childhood has led to a general lack of reflection about play on the part of high culture.
Nevertheless, play experience is symbolic, polysemic, ambivalent, laden with affect and a potential generator of contradictory and transformative knowledge (Huizinga, 1980; Fink, 1987, 1992; Suits, 1978). Due to its rich variety of expression and multiple meanings, it eludes the rigorous conceptualizations and reductionism favoured by contemporary mainstream educational science, which views play mainly as a teaching aid or as an opportunity for socialization, culturalization, transmission of contents or as a means of furthering linguistic, cognitive or affective development.
When we speak about the relationship between playing and childhood, we have to go beyond the real and concrete child, and also go beyond a univocal kind of game - as symbolic play. Although we expose ourselves to the risk of considering playing an important but limited activity, that has to be abandoned in favour of growing up, to evolve activity in more useful ways. But play is linked to the world of childhood in a deeper way, where childhood is understood as an archetypical dimension (Hillman 1988, 1999; Bachelard 1960), as an age which is not only biological, but represents the most imaginative season of life, mainly characterized by wonder and excitement about the world. Childhood is the season in which reality is not analysed, categorized or divided into disciplines, but is seen as a wonderful and fantastic playroom, viewed with passion and understood at a deep symbolic level. In this sense artists, poets, visionaries, dreamers such as players and gamers, nurture a symbolic childhood gaze, open to understanding Play as a fundamental experience for the development of human capabilities. In the chapter I will argue how this is possible, supported by philosophers, anthropologists, educators.

- by Francesca Antonacci
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- Children's Play

In India, policymakers are interested in improving the quality of services in government run early childhood education and care centers, known as anganwadis, run by India’s Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). One measurement of program quality is the presence of play, which experts construct as a valuable tool for individualized cognitive development. Drawing on ethnographic data from a 13 month study of anganwadis in three southern Indian states, the author uses a postcolonial feminist lens to argue that, contrary to the expectations outlined in cognition-based approaches to quality evaluation, in India, play often functions as a tool for the collective good rather than for individual social progress. Consequently, in anganwadis, early childhood education programs may be falsely judged as poorly run because they do not conform to standards based on inappropriate, decontextualized notions of play’s form and function. The author argues that broadening ideas about what play looks like and what it is for can lead to more accurate pictures of program quality and, by extension, more specific and effective recommendations for improvement.

This special issue continues a two-year conversation about a #playrevolution in literacies research, theory, and practice. The juxtaposition of play and revolution is intentional, highlighting the tension between play's prosocial benefits and collaborative production and the rapid change, uncertainty, and violence in today's schools, where we desperately need more humanizing elements that build people's connections to one another. The #playrevolution calls educators and researchers to explore the (un)predictable, (un)expected knots emerging through the coalescence of play and literacies, while also considering the possibilities play holds for educational equity in contemporary times. Bringing together twelve educational researchers across the United States, Canada, and Australia, this #playrevolution special issue explores the lively ecology of play-literacies in a variety of spaces-traditional writing and storytelling workshops, digital dialogues, video games, teacher-education courses, makerspaces, and playgrounds-with learners from preschools and kindergartens to high schools and universities.

- by Jaye Johnson Thiel and +1
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- Literacy, Equity, Children's Play

BACKGROUND: Qualitative research into the effect of school recess on children's physical activity is currently limited. This study used a write and draw technique to explore children's perceptions of physical activity opportunities during recess.METHODS: 299 children age 7-11 years from 3 primary schools were enlisted. Children were grouped into Years 3 & 4 and Years 5 & 6 and completed a write and draw task focusing on likes and dislikes. Pen profiles were used to analyze the data.RESULTS: Results indicated 'likes' focused on play, positive social interaction, and games across both age groups but showed an increasing dominance of games with an appreciation for being outdoors with age. 'Dislikes' focused on dysfunctional interactions linked with bullying, membership, equipment, and conflict for playground space. Football was a dominant feature across both age groups and 'likes/dislikes' that caused conflict and dominated the physically active games undertaken.CONCLUSION: Recess was important for the development of conflict management and social skills and contributed to physical activity engagement. The findings contradict suggestions that time spent in recess should be reduced because of behavioral issues.

- by Daniel Parnell
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- Health Promotion, Play, Qualitative methodology, Qualitative Methods

A boy child could simply be defined as a male infant growing into a young boy. There are many issues which have exacerbated to the plight of a boy child.
Equally of concern as regards to this is the prevalence given to a girl child which has led to the negligence of the issues affecting a boy child and causing them to be vulnerable to an unforeseen future. The popular misconception that when you educate a girl you educate an entire society to imply that the same is not true of educating the boy child, this is misleading fact has led to the decline of a participation of a boy child in education.

- by Inyeneabasi Eshiet
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- Gender Equality, Children's Play, Social Issues, boy-child

Fairy tales play a substantial role in the shaping of childhoods. Developed into stories and played out in picture books, films and tales, they are powerful instruments that influence conceptions and treatments of the child and childhoods. This article argues that traditional fairy tales and contemporary stories derived from them use complex means to mould the ways that children live and experience their childhoods. This argument is illustrated through representations of childhoods and children in a selection of stories and an analysis of the ways they act on and produce the child subjects and childhoods they convey. The selected stories are examined through different philosophical lenses, utilizing Foucault, Lyotard and Rousseau. By problematizing these selected stories, the article analyses what lies beneath the surface of the obvious meanings of the text and enticing pictures in stories, as published or performed. Finally, this article argues for a careful recognition of the complexities of stories used in early childhood settings and their powerful and multifaceted influences on children and childhoods.

- by Marek Tesar and +3
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- Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Education, Media Studies
- by joëlle zask
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- Contemporary Art, Public Art, Sculpture, Children's Play

Le misure di sicurezza imposte dai governi per limitare la diffusione del conta-gio da SARS-CoV-2 e la conseguente condizione di isolamento in cui sono coin-volti individui e famiglie stanno inevitabilmente indebolendo quella dimensione sociale e relazionale che rende unica la nostra specie. Le fasce di popolazione che stanno pagando il prezzo più alto, in termini di impoverimento delle rela-zioni, sono quelle deboli: anziani e bambini. Se, infatti, gli anziani sono stati costretti a ridurre drasticamente i contatti con i propri familiari, vivendo una condizione, seppur cautelativa, di solitudine forzata, i bambini stanno sperimen-tando un ulteriore, grave depauperamento: quello dei momenti di gioco tra pari, fondamentali per la costruzione della loro futura personalità. Il difficile periodo che stiamo attraversando sottopone i bambini a una disorien-tante dilatazione della dimensione temporale che, abitualmente, nella scuola dell'infanzia, è scandita da attività ludiche e momenti di con-divisione. L'isola-mento, invece, impone uno spazio fisico-quello abitativo-in cui, giocoforza, non viene più esperita la relazionalità ludica tra pari, privando i bambini di un tempo imprescindibile: quello che consentirebbe loro, attraverso il gioco, di de-codificare la realtà sociale, con le sue regole, i suoi ordini, le sue gerarchie.

- by Tommaso Farina
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- Ritual, Symbolic Interaction, Children's Play, Mímesis

A paralisia cerebral pode ocasionar diversas limitações nas atividades, dentre elas o brincar, principal atividade de escolha da criança. A escala lúdica pré-escolar de Knox revisada (ELPK-r) avalia as habilidades de desempenho das crianças enquanto estão brincando em quatro dimensões: domínio espacial, domínio material, faz de conta e participação. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi avaliar as habili-dades de desempenho de crianças pré-escolares com paralisia cerebral durante o brincar. Participaram cinco crianças com paralisia cerebral do tipo espástico, do sexo feminino, com idade entre 51 e 60 meses, pertencentes a famílias de baixa renda, com comprometimento motor leve a moderado. Os índices de desempenho variaram bastante entre os participantes; entretanto, os resultados apontam a influência do comprometimento motor e da função bimanual no brincar, apesar de essa influência não ser isolada, já que há outros fatores que podem contribuir positiva ou negativamente para o desenvol-vimento integral da criança. Descritores: Paralisia cerebral – Desempenho motor – Brincar. Weight gain evolution after gastrostomy in children with cerebral palsy spastic quadriplegia was Cerebral Palsy can cause different limitations on activities like playing, which is the main activity chosen by children. The revised Knox preschool play scale (ELPK-r) assesses the performance of children while playing in four dimensions: space domain, material domain, pretend playing and participation. The performance of preschool children with cerebral palsy while playing was assessed in five female children (51 to 60 months of age) with spastic cerebral palsy, with light to moderate motor impairment, from families with low socioeconomic level. The performance rates varied a lot among the participants, but the results suggest the influence of motor impairment and bimanual function on playing, although such influence is not isolated, since there are other factors contributing positively or negatively on the integral development of the child.

- by Luzia Pfeifer and +1
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- Cerebral Palsy, Children's Play

Increasingly, children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are included in general education preschool classrooms. These children often have difficulties with socially appropriate peer interactions, social behavioral skills, and communication. In early childhood, play is important for young children’s development in terms of understanding the world, self-regulation, social interaction, and communication. Using strategies such as setting the environment for social interaction, providing appropriate toys and centers, peer grouping, and adult facilitation can help teachers promote these crucial developmental skills in young children.

- by Amy Papacek and +1
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- Communication, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Social Interaction, Inclusion

The article studies the relationship between the well-being and the ludic principles of human agency. According to Gwen Gordon the research of the connection between the play and the health (well-being) is highly omitted in contemporary psychology. As the psychological concept of eudaimonism refers primarily to Aristotle’s ethical philosophy, the article starts to analyse Aristotle’s concept of happiness and ethics. It will be shown that Aristotelian ethics has a teleological, morally normative, elitist and universal framing. This is why the idea of eudaimonism, personal singularity and non-normativity in contemporary psychology cannot structurally use its alleged Aristotelian source. The succeeding study of Eudaimonia in Fink and Agamben offers the possibility to use the concept of play as a basic structure of human self-relationship, place of self-development and creation of the real. “To be happy” doesn’t mean in this case to achieve any state of inner harmony, unity and/or flourishing, but to have the capacity to live in a conflict, to go through the moments of destruction and transformation and to create new reality. The article reinterprets Aristotelian concept of happiness which excludes the ludic principles from any form of the “serious”, „real“ well-being and shows how the play can take a genuine part in the mature human personality.

- by Alice Koubová
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- Ethics, Virtue Ethics, Giorgio Agamben, Eugen Fink
- by Francesca Caprino
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- Disability, Children's Play, Play and Disability, CHILD RIGHT TO PLAY

This research aimed to explore children’s play in relation to gender stereotypes and beliefs and practices of educators in preschool settings. A feminist poststructuralist approach framed the design of the research and data was collected in two settings through predetermined categories of play during periods of spontaneous free play. The question asked in this research was, do early childhood educators’ perceptions of gender influence children’s play? Findings suggest that there were differences between these two settings and these differences are explained through individual beliefs and practices of the educators.

Play for a Change is a review of perspectives on play, policy and practice carried out for Play England by Stuart Lester and Wendy Russell of the University of Gloucestershire. The authors of drew on a range of academic disciplines, especially brain sciences,
sociology and geography. While recognising the foundation that developmental psychology has given to theories about children and play, the focus of this review has largely been on alternative approaches. It considers three strands:
• the policy context for supporting children’s play, including an analysis of the literature on approaches to policy-making and on children and childhood
• the literature on the benefits of children’s play and on children’s play patterns
• provision for play and working with children at play.

- by Wendy Russell
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- Children's Play

Play as a learning practice increasingly is under challenge as a valued component of early childhood education. Views held in parallel include confirmation of the place of play in early childhood education and, at the same time, a denigration of the role of play in favor for more teacher-structured and formal activities. As a consequence, pedagogical approaches towards play, the curriculum activities that constitute play, and the appropriateness of play in educational settings, have come under scrutiny in recent years. In this context, this study investigates children's perspectives of play and how they understand the role of play and learning in their everyday activities. This article reports on an Australian study where teacher-researchers investigated child-led insights into what counts as play in their everyday classroom activities. Children (aged 3–4 years) described play as an activity that involved their active participation in " doing " something, being with peers, and having agency and ownership of ideas. Children did not always characterize their activities as " play " , and not all activities in the preschool program were described as OPEN ACCESS Educ. Sci. 2015, 5 346 play. The article highlights that play and learning are complex concepts that may be easily dismissed as separate, when rather they are deeply intertwined. The findings of this study generate opportunities for educators and academics to consider what counts as " play " for children, and to prompt further consideration of the role of play as an antidote to adult centric views of play.

- by Maryanne Theobald and +2
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- Ethnography, Early Childhood Education, Ethnomethodology, Interviewing

Abstract: The text presents the play spaces reserved in childhood memories. The places that children infuse with their emotions they recognize as their own and where they define the rules of the games. The period was covered is the... more

- by Plamena Kirova
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- Children's Play

In this chapter, I argue that the elusive phenomenon of perezhivanie (or “intensely-emotional-lived-through-experience”) can be made available for analysis in its full, dynamic complexity in part through the use of synthetic-analytic methods of representation that themselves evoke and manifest perezhivanie. I de- scribe an application of Vygotsky’s method of analysis of literary works to play that makes perezhivanie an empirically researchable phenomenon. I focus on one example of this application in which a team of researchers, including the author, made maximum use of our roles as participant-observers by enhancing our own and others’ emotional re-engagement in adult-child joint play using the art form of film and play. My claim is that this process did not show us perezhivanie that was less ‘real’ than the perezhivanie we had experienced firsthand but instead revealed qualities of the perezhivanie we had experienced that we could not see without our “film-play”.

- by Beth Ferholt
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- Creativity, Early Childhood Education, Early Childhood, Cognition and Emotion

Concerning America's--and Nevada's--poor educational system vs. the rest of the world (notably Finland). How it could be improved, if tailor-made to advances in child development research: for example, starting high school later, letting teenagers sleep in. Also discusses standardized testing and the "Social Efficiency Model," the value of play and Creativity equaling problem-solving.

- by Joe Hunt
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- Sleep & Circadian Rhythms, Children's Play, Sleep Deprivation, Standardized Testing
- by Hillel Schwartz
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- Baseball, Baseball History & America, Children's Play, Games

At first glance the problems of children playgrounds in Sofia today are identical with the problems of any new public space that has appeared in the city in the past few years: they are expensive, do not take context into consideration, and most of all - children find them boring.
On the other hand, the problems of children play areas in Sofia are shared by most of the facilities all around the world. They are eternally safe, industrially tested, painfully labelled, and multiplied without any imagination.
How did it happen that playgrounds became so dull?
It is curious how history of Bulgarian playground design repeats all the restless quests of architecture in the second half of the XXth century.

- by Aneta Vasileva
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- Art History, Architectural History, Public Space, Children's Play
- by GÖKHAN GÜNEŞ
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- Children's Play

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo registrar e analisar as estratégias de organização de espaços e atividades de interações e brincadeiras, destinados ao trabalho educativo com crianças, com centralidade nas artes e nas culturas infantis. A pesquisa articula-se com a extensão universitária, como campo propício à produção do conhecimento, por meio do projeto Balaio de Sensibilidades, protagonizado pela Faculdade de Educação (FACED) da Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA). Deste projeto, a ação Sarau Infantil Toda Criança é um Poema étomada como objeto de estudo no sentido de ampliação de repertório das possibilidades de trabalho com a infância. O texto estrutura-se pelo levantamento teórico-bibliográfico e pela pesquisa participante de cunho intervencionista, tendo como procedimentos da pesquisa, a observação participante e os registros escritos, fotográficos e audiovisuais do Sarau Infantil.Os resultados da pesquisa apontam que o campo das culturas infantis abrange áreas distintas do conhecimento e formas próprias e diversificadas de interações e de produção de saberes. O Sarau Infantil pode ser considerado uma experiência plural, interativa, livre e com diferentes possibilidades de interações entre crianças, artistas, escolas e brincantes.

- by Marcos Machado
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- Early Childhood, Children's Play, Playfulness, Childrens culture

During the preschool years, children need a lot of learning opportunities that can ensure their development in mental, physical, social, emotional and creative domains. Play, especially water and sand play, can provide these learning opportunities. Observation has revealed however that many pre-primary schools in Nigeria do not give children opportunities to engage in these two important plays. Therefore, as a way of advocating for the use of water and sand play in fostering holistic development of preschool children, this study carried out an experiment with water and sand to document the skills that preschool children can demonstrate during water and sand play. Qualitative research method was adopted. Seven preschool age children were purposively selected for the study. Data was collected through observational technique that involves the use of field note, photo and video camera. Findings from the experiment revealed that water and sand play hold a lot of oportunities for children to develop mathematical, language, scientific, physical, social, emotional and creative skills. Ministry of Education through SUBEB therefore needs to enforce the policy on method of teaching at pre-primary school level. Workshops and seminars are needed to train preschool heads and caregivers on how to use water and sand play in facilitating children's learning and development.

- by Peter K . OLOWE
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- Children's Play

Childhood cancer can significantly impact children’s wellbeing and physical development. We will examine whether stimulating physical play can help children in both these domains. The design perspective of ‘playscapes’, in particular in a Gibsonian frame, offers possibilities in pursuing the intended experiential and clinical outcomes. Questions concerning the design of playscapes are raised and the potential relevance of this approach beyond the context of pediatric oncology and physical development is discussed.

- by Boudewijn Boon and +1
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- Design Research, Physical Activity, HCI, Affordances
- by Gary Coates
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- Landscape Ecology, Architecture, Climate Change, Landscape Architecture

In the mid-twentieth century, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted their famous "doll test" in which they asked African American children whether they preferred black or white dolls. Most children identified white dolls as "nice" and black dolls as "bad"-proof, the Clarks argued, that segregation damaged black children psychologically. These findings figured pivotally in Brown v. Board of Education. Bernstein defamiliarizes the "doll test" by locating it not in the history of Civil Rights but instead in the history of representational play involving racialized dolls. Bernstein argues that a black child's rejection of a black doll might indeed reveal internalized racism; but it could also constitute a rejection of violently racist practices of play that had, for a century, been coordinated through black dolls. Thus Bernstein offers a new understanding of the Clarks' child-subjects not as passive internalizers of racism instead as agents who resisted inherited traditions of performance.

- by Robin Bernstein
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- History, American History, Sociology, Cultural Studies

Play therapy is saintifically supported approach widely used to address social, emotional and
behavioural difficulties for children at school. Play provide means for communication, while toys
and creative materials are the languages for children. Schools consider as situational setting for
play therapy in helping children or young peoples express their feeling, thought and behaviour.
This article presents a brief overview of situational play therapy as therapeutic intervention for
counseling children and young people at school. The authors present how situational play therapy
can foster symbolization process for children and young people. In addition, child-centered play
therapy themes ,patterns and activities also be highlight as effectively tools to work with children
and young people experiencing emotional and academic issues at school.

- by Dr Azizah Abdullah
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- Play Therapy, School Psychology, Children's Play, Situational Analysis