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ABSTRACT
Street Play projects have become increasingly popular in Western contexts where children’s outdoor free play has been in decline. Street Play projects are generally organised by adults: children play on urban streets closed to traffic. This paper reports results from an evaluation focused on the Hantown Street Play Project (pseudonym) that took place in a large English town. Hantown Leisure Trust (pseudonym) set up the project, run by playworkers, and commissioned the evaluation ‘ … to identify the impact of the Street Play project on participating children’s perceptions of play in their community and residents’ perceptions of community spirit’. Children aged 3–11 years, parents and local residents participated in questionnaire surveys (n = 216) and semi-structured interviews (n = 25), eliciting 10 themes indicating that participants generally regarded the project positively. However, this paper argues that Street Play is a different proposition from children’s own play on the streets, according to widely recognised definitions of play.
Acknowledgements
The authors recognise the work of the HLT, thank Winterborough residents and acknowledge the generous support of Dr John Horton and Celestina Berlingieri in completing this study. Grateful thanks are also extended to Professor Sue Ralph.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Jane Murray, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Education and Research, University of Northampton, UK, where she leads the M.A. Education (Early Years) pathway and supervises Ph.D. students. She researches in the fields of education, early childhood education and social justice, with particular focus on children’s advocacy and agency.
Cristina Devecchi, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Education and Research, University of Northampton, UK, where she teaches research methods at Master’s level, supervises Master’s and Ph.D. students and has research interests that include educational workforce development and young people’s advocacy.