Children's Access to their Right to Play

Abstract

Background The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that all children have the right to play; inclusive education and inclusive play are mutually reinforcing and should be facilitated daily throughout early childhood education and beyond. Methods/participants Adopting a sociology of childhood and children’s rights agenda, a systematic literature review explored how children define ‘play’ and ‘work’ in the classroom, and the contextual influences on the development and reinforcement of these perceptions. A comparative case study explored children’s experiences of accessing their right to play through Key Stage One curriculum delivery in two differing United Kingdom contexts - England and Wales. The experiences and perceptions were explored through structured classroom observations of children and semi-structured interviews with their teachers. Across the two schools, 16 children and two teachers participated. Analysis/findings The literature review identified that very young children have clear ideas about differentiating between ‘play’ and ‘work’. Some educational contexts are associated with a clearly perceived play-work dichotomy, whereas blurred lines between the two concepts are visible within constructivist classrooms that support play-based learning and children’s choice and control. Case study findings identified influences on children’s access to play, relating to individual teacher practice, and the wider curricular, local and national context. While both teachers valued play for its intrinsic and instrumental purposes, the Welsh context had local and national policy and legislation that gave permission for children’s access to their right to play across a continuum of child-initiated, play-based and teacher-initiated learning experiences. Conclusion/implications Dissemination of findings involved collaboration with Play Wales, a governmentfunded organisation advocating for children’s right to play, and dissemination through conferences, journals, media and educational psychology practice, promoting how adults working within educational settings can best facilitate children’s access to play.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Cathy Atkinson (Supervisor) & Caroline Bond (Supervisor)