Children’s play and democratic culture

ABSTRACT

Children’s play has figured on innumerable occasions as one of the principal focal points for research on different approaches to human development. Most research has focused its interest on the benefits that it brings to psychological development, simplifying the complex significance of such a multifaceted phenomenon. Through trialling, observation and experimentation, play offers a space for the creation, transformation, consideration and learning of the norms and values of democratic culture. Children’s play is seen as one of the first representations or a tool of citizen participation. Far from regarding children as passive recipients, play offers opportunities to (re)create the cultivation of personality and democratic culture. At a time when play is losing time and space, the questions arise of how the relationships between play, culture and citizenship are interwoven and what the pedagogical possibilities are for the cultural meaning of play in western society.

KEYWORDS:

• Children’s play
• free play
• education for citizenship
• democratic culture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contibutor

Laura Camas Garrido is a Ph.D. student and member of the research group Civic Culture and Educational Policies of the Faculty of Education at the Complutense University of Madrid. At present, her thesis focus on the study of pedagogical possibilities of democratic and culture meaning of children’s play.

ORCID

Laura Camas Garrido http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8077-2358

Notes

1 This implies that the theories of play are culturally embedded, including the ones offered in this article.

2 This concept is referring to the dominant discourse (present in children’s play but also in other fields) which arises from psychology and focuses its efforts on emphasising the cognitive dimension of the psyche as the epicentre of human studies.

3 I am currently working on a deeper exploration of this role. It will be developed more broadly in future research works.