Can I Join in? Understanding Children’s Participation in Play

Authors

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23865/nse.v43.5511

Abstract

Based on a design-based research project and ethnographic observations of children’s play in school and after-school activities, the paper analyses how children participate in play. Using participatory sense-making (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007) the main contribution of this paper is to show diversity in sensory, playful participation in children’s play, and emphasise the importance of paying attention to the not spoken, sensory, embodied movements that children share when playing. The analysis illustrates that children participate in play through a sensory engagement, which is short, intense and not spoken, and by taking part in other children’s and adults’ participatory approaches.

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Author Biographies

Anne-Lene Sand, Designschool Kolding, Denmark

Anne-Lene Sand is an associate professor at LAB Play and Design School Kolding. She holds a MA in educational anthropology and a PhD in child and youth culture. Her research deals with design and pedagogy, particularly focusing on playful material and social practices to which she has contributed in-depth analysis and theoretical developments. Sand has a core interest in young people, play and making.

Jens-Ole Jensen, VIA University College, Aarhus, Denmark

Jens-Ole Jensen is an associate professor at VIA University College and head of the research programme Body, Sports and Movement at the Research Center for Pedagogy and Education. He is interested in existential and phenomenological dimensions of children’s participation in play and movement in day care, school and leisure. His research is practice oriented and has been studying the joy of movement, meaningfulness in movement, wild and dangerous games and the importance of space and architecture for play and movement.

Helle Marie Skovbjerg, Designschool Kolding, Denmark

Helle Marie Skovbjerg is professor at the Design School Kolding and a research leader in LAB Play and Design and the projects ‘Can I Join’ and ‘Playful Learning Research.’ Skovbjerg’s contribution to play research is the mood perspective—a universal human perspective on play—which, through near-empirical studies, focuses on participants’ possibilities and experiences and the forms of exercise’s connections to situations. The mood perspective has most recently been unfolded in the books On Play (Skovbjerg, 2021) and Framing Play Design (Gudiksen and Skovbjerg, 2020).

Hanne Hede Jørgensen, VIA University College, Aarhus, Denmark

Hanne Hede Jørgensen holds a PhD in design for play. Hanne is employed as an associate professor at University College in Aarhus and is affiliated with the Research Center for Pedagogy and Education. Hanne is particularly interested in children’s play participation, children’s experiences of being in play and the importance of educators in play environments in schools and day care.

Full text

Published

2023-12-18

How to Cite

Sand, A.-L., Jensen, J.-O., Skovbjerg, H. M., & Hede Jørgensen, H. (2023). Can I Join in? Understanding Children’s Participation in Play. Nordic Studies in Education, 43(4), 272–289. https://doi.org/10.23865/nse.v43.5511

Issue

Vol. 43 No. 4 (2023)

Section

Articles

Keywords:

design, play design, pedagogy, experiment, senses

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Anne-Lene Sand, Jens-Ole Jensen, Helle Marie Skovbjerg, Hanne Hede Jørgensen

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.