Reconceptualising play: Balancing childcare, extra‐curricular activities and free play in contemporary childhoods

Abstract

This paper rethinks geographical approaches to children's play in the Global North. One narrowly conceived strand of past research considered the erosion of outdoor free play, but overlooked children's views of alternative play environments (e.g., out-of-school activities). A separate thread examined the feminisation of employment and growth in childcare, but investigations into children's play in care-based environments are rare, and explorations of their ability to balance different play landscapes are lacking. This paper builds on insights from both lines of research, and challenges their deficiencies, to map out a more broadly conceived geography of play. Drawing on rigorous quantitative and qualitative research with middle-and working-class parents and children, the paper examines the socially differentiated reconciliation of neighbourhood, extra-curricular and care-based play in contemporary British childhoods. The analysis highlights stark class differences in the balance between these play environments. Middle-class children's elective engagement in extra-curricular activities results in reduced outdoor free play, but they have little control over the total time they play in care environments. Working-class children have greater experience of playing out, but are underscheduled as they have less than desired access to play in structured activities and wraparound care. In conclusion, the paper argues that geographers must: (1) move beyond the romanticisation of free play and recognise children's right to participate in a diversity of playful spaces; (2) embrace an intergenerational approach which recognises that play is not a matter for children aloneadults can facilitate as well as limit play, but reliance on women's unpaid labour makes play a feminist issue; and (3) uncover play's role in social reproduction as wider inequalities emerge in, and are reproduced through, children's landscapes of play in times of austerity, whether as here in terms of class, or along other axes of social differentiation or location. K E Y W O R D Safter school activities, class, geography of play, working mother, work-life balance, wraparound care --

Questions of agency: Capacity, subjectivity, spatiality and temporality

“…However, if we are to understand societal-level shifts in the nature of play, we also need research which incorporates multiple spaces in order to investigate which children get to play where. Holloway and Pimlott- Wilson (2018), for example, take a cross-cutting approach in demonstrating that children's differential ability to access extra-curricular, care-based and free play environments is shaped by, and reproduces, classed power. It is noteworthy that data collection for extensive research requires a strategically essentialist methodology (as categories are temporarily fixed in the collection of information on the experiences of 'children' of different 'ages', 'classes', 'genders', 'ethnicities', etc.).…”

Walking with preschool‐aged children to explore their local wellbeing affordances

“…This near‐silence contrasts with work on older children for whom there is a well‐developed body of research on their experiences of urban environments and their rights to the city (Chawla, 2001; Christensen et al, 2018; Freeman & Tranter, 2011). Several studies, for example, have considered primary school children's activity spaces after school (Ergler, Kearns, & Witten, 2013c; Holloway & Pimlott‐Wilson, 2018; Karsten & Felder, 2015) and children's use of public open spaces and playgrounds (Hand et al, 2018; Horton & Kraftl, 2018; Karsten, 2003; Sargisson & McLean, 2013) and examined how they move around in their cities (Babb et al, 2017; Freeman & Quigg, 2009; Kullman, 2010; Mikkelsen & Christensen, 2009).…”

“…They use these experiences to scaffold their later experiences and build their capabilities (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Hart, 1979; Smith, 2013). However, children spend most of their time in child‐designated spaces such as playgrounds or institutionalised leisure spaces, and this current trend can hinder the development of inclusive communities and limit interactions with their social and physical environment, which adversely affects their later independence (Ergler et al, 2016; Holloway & Pimlott‐Wilson, 2018; Mikkelsen & Christensen, 2009; Woolley, 2008). In addition, growing safety concerns and restraints on children's freedom can curtail and undermine their place attachment, environmental literacy, and community belonging from an early age (Christensen et al, 2018; Malone, 2007; Wyver et al, 2010).…”

Qualitative methods I: On current conventions in interview research

“…Loyd et al (2018) too allow us to see how answers followed questions in a couple of cases, as does Robinson (2018). Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson (2018) include a number of dialogue excerpts from group interviews in their study of children’s free time – although only one includes the question posed by the interviewer. Antonsich (2018) in her study of migrants in Italy also took a more dialogical approach.…”