Designing for Inclusive Play communities in Schools

Research topic/aim: A number of recent studies show a close correlation between the lack of play competences and social marginalization. Based on an ongoing research project – Can I join in? (2018-2022) this symposium will examine how play can be used as a pedagogical tool in the inclusion among marginalized children through different themes.

Research design/method: The empirical work stem from a number of design experiments, taking a design-based research approach, where we involved 2 schools, 600 children age 6-9 and 50 pedagogues. The empirical materials consist of fieldnotes, pictures, videos and surveys.

Theoretical framework: We combine theories from inclusive education with play theory and childhood studies. We define inclusion as a social practice that consists of both inclusion and exclusion processes, producing and reproducing norms, values, rules, and routines through social processes, interactions, relations and negotiations leading to a specific social order. A social order always presupposes the establishment of a collective social identity, and individuals need to adapt to this collective identity by learning and following rules and principles and internalizing shared
understandings in order to be included. At the same time, a social order reflects individual difference up to a point in order to ensure all individuals’ participation. The definition on play draws on the Scandinavian and international research in children´s culture. Play is a shared cultural practice and children create play situations through collective competences in knowing about different games, different rules and routines, all together creating social play order. They are always driven by the participants taking part in the shared cultural practices and the children learn and develop their play competences while doing so.

Findings: Open-endedness and flexibility together with enough materials are crucial when planning play activities; children creating together create togetherness and belongingness; children´s inclusive participation depends on: Taking the play upon oneself; giving play practices to the play and what you give must be something that play wants. Pedagogues have an important role in supporting children to take, give and share, and they must be position in different ways – inside, on the boarder of play, having different obligations in relation to the children and play. They can never just stay away pointing to the value of free play if they want to work pedagogically with play.

Relevant to Nordic educational research: The symposium will explore the relation between play and school, aiming at understanding how play can be a part of school, how pedagogues and teacher can work with play informed by research and how we in a Nordic context can continue working with play as an important value in the life of children.