An Example to Us All: Child Development and Identity Construction in Early 20th-Century Playgrounds

Abstract

At the turn of the 20th century, children's play came under new and heightened scrutiny by urban reformers. As conditions in US cities threatened traditional notions of order, reformers sought new ways to direct urban-social development. In this paper I explore playground reform as an institutional response that aimed to produce and promote ideal gender identities in children. Supervised summer playgrounds were established across the United States as a means of drawing children off the street and into a corrective environment. Drawing from literature published by the Playground Association of America and a case study of playground management in Cambridge, MA, I explore playground training as a means of constructing gender identities in and through public space. Playground reformers asserted, drawing from child development theory, that the child's body was a conduit through which ‘inner’ identity surfaced. The child's body became a site through which gender identities could be both monitored and produced, compelling reformers to locate playgrounds in public, visible settings. Reformers' conviction that exposing girls to public vision threatened their development motivated a series of spatial restrictions. Whereas boys were unambiguously displayed to public audiences, girls' playgrounds were organised to accommodate this fear. Playground reformers' shrewd spatial tactics exemplify the ways in which institutional authorities conceive of and deploy space toward the construction of identity.

Introduction to the special issue “Young People and New Geographies of Learning and Education”

“…Aitken, 2001;Ansell, 1999;Cahill, 2000;Holloway and Valentine, 2000;Holloway et al, 2010;Johnston et al, 2000;Katz, 2004;McDowell, 2002;Nayak, 2003;Skelton and Valentine, 1998). Many of these have tended to engage in more detail with young people's everyday spaces of learning, both in formal education and in informal settings (Gagen, 2000;Mills and Kraftl, 2014;Robinson, 2017).…”

Introduction: Geographies, Histories and Practices of Informal Education

“…Significantly, this historical element is relatively new within the subdiscipline of children's geographies and geographies of education, discussed in the previous section. While there have been historical studies of formal schooling and children's built environments within geography (Ploszajska, 1998;Gagen, 2000), the presence and activities of alternative and informal learning spaces over time have been hitherto neglected (although see Mills, 2013, on scouting andCameron, 2006, on an experimental school). In excavating some of the hidden historical geographies of informal education, this text highlights the need to consider informal education over time as well as space.…”

“…The United Kingdom is not alone in its continued focus on young people's citizenship education, moral fortitude and leisure activities that are part of much wider global historical trends (for example, Gagen, 2000, on these themes in early twentieth century New York; Alexander, 2009, on imperial Canada and India through the lens of Girl Guiding; and Verschelden et al, 2009 on the internationalisation of youth work practices across Europe).…”

Children's Political Geographies

“…the possibility to influence children's growth and development towards adulthood makes them prime targets for the manipulation of the shape of future societies, subjecting them to some very powerful political passions (Gruffudd 1996;Gagen 2000;Wainwright and Marandet 2011).…”