That play is a main path to human flourishing is well-recognized by research scholars and enthusiasts in practice, advocacy, and policy making. In this special issue of IJP and the previous one we have been exploring and coming to realize another significant pathway. Engagement with vulnerability can lead to heightened manifestations of human vitality and social resourcefulness. Facing situational and chronic stress caused by the pandemic, poverty, war, or other adversities requires that we lift ourselves out of our individual thrones of autonomy and self-protection and respond to the needs and interests of others. In these times, many people – adults, adolescents, and children across age groups – are suffering directly or indirectly from adverse circumstances.
Play and playfulness often enhance our capacity and willingness to engage and even embrace vulnerability in various social situations. Play and playfulness can buffer the impact of risk factors and stressors and create protective factors that alleviate tension and conflicts. Play can repair the human spirit and can offer the experience of joy and hope. As highlighted in IJP Volume 10 Issue 4, play fosters emotional survival when it may seem that we are barely clinging to our mental health and other aspects of human functioning.
In this second theme issue, we have again selected reflection pieces and empirical research articles that are consistent with the overall focus on play and resiliency amidst adversity. We again sought to represent the work of scholars from low-and middle-income countries as well as high-income ones. The customary features of IJP including book reviews, ‘What is the State of Play?’, and Books worth (Re)reading are also aligned with our special theme. Multiple perspectives are offered on many topics across various cultural contexts.
Across the pages, we see play along dry riverbeds and open fields in Turkana, Kenya, on sidewalks in Canadian urban neighborhoods, as well as in the homes, schools and medical centers of other cultural communities, both real and virtual. We encounter and read about play and struggle and coping in response to crisis related to abject chronic poverty, the pandemic, war and refugee status, and political unrest and migration. Employing diverse methodologies, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical perspectives, the many contributors, representing different nations, share findings and insights concerning play and resiliency in extreme circumstances.
The gift of play seems to shine through for people facing harsh social realities. Play is a highway to positive experiences and human flourishing. Play in crisis is an activity related to repair, maintenance, prevention, or enhancement. It is an important means of becoming and being together, perhaps especially when striving to overcome the odds, engaging and embracing adversity in a self-forgetful way, for the sake of the other person more than the self, letting our individual royal crowns slide back while seated in our individual thrones, to show better our human faces to one another; certainly our play faces matter especially when the chips are down.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
James E. Johnson
James E. Johnson (Ph.D., Wayne State University) is Professor of Early Childhood Education at The Pennsylvania State University-University Park, PA. His main research interests relate to play and curriculum, parent-child relations, teacher preparation, and pan-cultural professional networking and development. He is Series Editor of Play & Culture Studies and a co-facilitator of the Play, Policies and Practices Interest Forum of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Jaipaul L. Roopnarine
Jaipaul L. Roopnarine (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is Pearl S. Falk Professor of Human Development at Syracuse University, USA and Professor Extraordinary of Developmental Psychology at Anton de Kom University of Suriname, Paramaribo, Suriname. His main research interest is in father-child relationships and childhood outcomes in diverse cultural and ethnic groups around the world and has published extensively in the child development and early childhood education areas. His recent book, Fathering across cultures: Developmental and clinical issues (2019), is published by Routledge. He is the current editor of Caribbean Journal of Psychology.
Michael M. Patte
Michael M. Patte (Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University) is Professor of Early Childhood Education and Program Coordinator for the Child Life Specialist & Playwork Certificate/Minor Programs at Bloomsburg University.