The Ecology Of Playful Childhood

While studies of San children have attained the peculiar status of having delineated the prototype for hunter-gatherer childhood, relatively few serious ethnographic studies of San children have been conducted since an initial flurry of research in the 1960s and 1970s. Based on the author’s long-term field research among several San groups of Southern Africa, this book reconsiders hunter-gatherer childhood using “play” as a key concept. Playfulness pervades the intricate practices of caregiver-child interactions among the San: immediately after birth, mothers have extremely close contact with their babies. In addition to the mother’s attentions, other people around the babies actively facilitate gymnastic behavior to soothe them. These distinctive caregiving behaviors indicate a loving, indulgent attitude towards infants. This also holds true for several language genres of the San that are used in early vocal communication. Children gradually become involved in various playful activities in groups of children of multiple ages, which is the major locus of their attachment after weaning; these playful activities show important similarities to the household and subsistence activities carried out by adults. Rejuvenating studies of San children and hunter-gatherer childhood and childrearing practices, this book aims to examine these issues in detail, ultimately providing a new perspective for the understanding of human sociality.

This volume illustrates the wide range of current theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and research directions in studies of the ecology of children's play. The contributors represent a range of disciplines and methods including ecological psychology, ethology, cross-cultural psychology and anthropology, education, and architecture.

Enriched with findings from anthropological scholarship, this book provides a guide to childhood in different cultures, past and present.

Early childhood teachers know that the quality of child-teacher interactions has an impact on children's social and educational outcomes. Talking with children is central to early learning, but the significant details of high quality conversations in early childhood settings are not always obvious. This Handbook brings together experts from across the globe to share evidence of teachers talking with children in early learning environments. It applies the methodology of conversation analysis to questions about early childhood education, and shows why this method of studying discourse can be a valuable resource for professional development in early childhood. Each chapter of this Handbook includes an up-to-date literature review; shows how interactional pedagogy can be achieved in everyday interactions; and demonstrates how to apply this learning in practice. It offers unique insights into real-life early childhood education practices, based on robust research findings, and provides practical advice for teaching and talking with children.

This book honors the legacy of Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Sutton-Smith was considered the premier play scholar of his generation, with numerous publications in the fields of developmental psychology, folklore, anthropology, sociology of sport, education, and philosophy. We present an eclectic array of essays written in honor of the centennial of his birth, ranging from the scholarly to the overtly playful. There are essays distilling his work to their key ideas and some that offer a robust and respectful critique. There are personal anecdotes honoring his memory, and original works of fiction celebrating his legacy. The book is a publication in the TASP biannual Play and Culture Studies series and includes photographs of Brian Sutton-Smith, as well as heartfelt appreciation from scores of colleagues.

How globalization is undermining sustainable social environments for children This book uses the ecological model of child development together with ethnographic and comparative studies of two small villages, in Italy and the United States, as its framework for examining the well-being of children in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Global forces, far from being distant and abstract, are revealed as wreaking havoc in children’s environments even in economically advanced countries. Falling birth rates, deteriorating labor conditions, fraying safety nets, rising rates of child poverty, and a surge in racism and populism in Europe and the United States are explored in the petri dish of the village. Globalism’s discontents—unrestrained capitalism and technological change, rising inequality, mass migration, and the juggernaut of climate change—are rapidly destabilizing and degrading the social and physical environments necessary to our collective survival and well-being. This crisis demands a radical restructuring of our macrosystemic value systems. Woodhouse proposes an ecogenerist theory that asks whether our policies and politics foster environments in which children and families can flourish. It proposes, as a benchmark, the family-supportive human-rights principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The book closes by highlighting ways in which individuals can engage at the local and regional levels in creating more just and sustainable worlds that are truly fit for children.

This edited volume brings together interdisciplinary scholarship on children’s everyday leisure from across the globe, addressing key questions around children’s agency, rights, child-adult relations, and social change. It is positioned to inaugurate a new frontier of research within leisure studies. Leisure theory has historically been adult-centric and based in the global north, and consequently, children’s lived experiences of leisure have remained marginal to theory-building exercises within leisure studies since its inception. As the call for decolonizing leisure studies grows, this book champions a cross-cultural and social justice agenda that does not privilege global north childhoods but acknowledges the multiplicity of lived childhoods across the globe and their inter-connections. By drawing attention to children’s leisure – across multiple genres such as organized leisure, sports, play, and digital leisure among others, this edited volume drives a new wave of research that speaks simultaneously to leisure studies and childhood studies and thereby advances the intellectual remit of global leisure studies.