Michael Patte

Looking back over the first year of the International Journal of Play

Having now completed one year of publication of the International Journal of Play (IJP), with three issues, it seems timely to look back and reflect on the past year. From its earliest days, IJP was conceived of as a multi-disciplinary journal. The very first challenge to this, for the editors, was in selecting images for the cover page of the journal; to capture, in just those four letters that spelt ‘play’, a range of play-related disciplines, cultures, ages and gender. In addition to these variables, we were also challenged to depict a diversity of settings for play and alongside this, to acknowledge that the materials and resources that support play are as varied as the artefacts that exist in the world, both indoors and out. Then began the ongoing process of selection from the generous number of submissions we have received. In the first year we have published four papers derived from sociological perspectives and three papers from each of the disciplines of anthropology and special needs. There have been two papers with an educational focus, two from playwork perspectives, two from psychology and two also from the area of sport and leisure. We have published one paper that has focussed on methodological approaches to researching play and one that has prioritised children’s perspectives on play. Geographically, we have published six papers from Australia and eight from Europe, with six being from the UK and two papers from Scandinavia. We have published five papers from the USA, and one paper from Asia. Noticeable by their absence from the journal cover page are images of adults engaging with players. The young man pictured in parkour, or urban jumping, on the cover, is clearly the player here and not a play facilitator. As yet, we have not received an article about adult play – we await such writing with interest. However the role of the adult in the play experience was the subject of the very first ‘What is the state of play?’ piece provided by Elizabeth Wood and as she says: ‘although adults’ attempts at understanding play will continue to be challenging and exciting, their attempts at managing and controlling play will always be problematic’. She pointed to the dilemmas of ‘policy-sanctioned versions of play’. These two aspects do seem to be deeply inter-connected across the developed world in particular and are at the forefront of many debates on the place of play in our societies and within the journal. Wood’s work has focussed on the pedagogies of the early years classroom but we also published, in this first issue of IJP, an article from Penny Wilson where the pedagogies of ‘playable cities’ are in focus and where the policies of powerful adults serve to limit children’s playful experiences rather than to liberate them. Play, it seems, must always fight for its place, especially as our urban environments are increasingly sanitised and controlled. But who better to conduct that fight than the players themselves? We see examples of the power and longevity of play subversion and persistence in the first issue of IJP in an extended interview with the leading play scholar, Brian Sutton-Smith. Not only do Brian’s reflections reveal a continuing, indeed a lifetime’s quest for an ever deepening understanding of play, the interview concludes with a beautiful moment of pedagogy. But this is not the pedagogy that Wood warns against, the ‘managing and controlling’; it is a pedagogy borne of sensitivity and knowledge of the human condition, as Brian Sutton-Smith speaks of reaching across to his wife, asleep but in the tumult of nightmare, and how ‘just a touch on the arm or leg and the devil disappears’.

Handbook of international perspectives on early childhood education

The first Swedish preschool for young children was established in 1836 to provide a practical solution to the problem of child supervision during the Industrial Revolution. During this period of in ...

Brian Sutton-Smith Memorial Panel – A Celebration of the Life and Works of Brian Sutton-Smith

ABSTRACT On the final day of the 2015 TASP conference, we heard of the sad passing of our great friend and inspiration, Brian Sutton-Smith. The memorial panel, which was one of the centre-pieces of the 2016 TASP conference, was the first opportunity we had to mark his passing. We did so with a selection of memories and reflections on his life. Brian spent his adult life studying the phenomenon of play in all its forms: child and adult; frivolous and serious; sporting and educational; charming and disgusting. He showed that children are not always innocent in their play, and that adults often feel guilty about theirs. His academic legacy lies in hundreds of articles and over fifty books, including the seminal work The Ambiguity of Play (1997). However, those of us who knew him well also remember the great joy with which he lived his life. The Panel was a mixture of friends, collaborators, ex-students and TASP colleagues. All of them had a story to tell about the way this great supporter of TASP touched their lives.