Challenging Contemporary Thinking on Play / edited by Victoria de Rijke, Rebecca Sinker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

De Rijke, Victoria.

Contributor:

Sinker, Rebecca.

Series:

Education Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Education--Philosophy.

Education.

Educational psychology.

Educational sociology.

Art--Study and teaching.

Art.

Educational Philosophy.

Educational Psychology.

Sociology of Education.

Philosophy of Education.

Creativity and Arts Education.

Local Subjects:

Educational Philosophy.

Educational Psychology.

Sociology of Education.

Philosophy of Education.

Creativity and Arts Education.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (281 pages)

Edition:

1st ed. 2025.

Place of Publication:

Cham : Springer Nature Switzerland : Imprint: Springer, 2025.

Summary:

This book explores the leaps and overlaps of play and aesthetic activity, across theories of feminism and posthumanism, neuroscience, ethology, pedagogy and postdevelopmental thinking, sociologies of space, game design and digital play from the very young to artist’s practice. It concludes with an entirely original exploration of dark play, and its complexities. As a series of interview or conversation pieces, key thinkers in each area of focus toy with positions around their field’s identification of play, proactively countering their Eurocentric demographic by drawing on examples of playful and arts practice/’research acts’ from as diverse a global reach as possible. Drawing on an interdisciplinary methodology including phenomenological, materialist, posthumanist and arts practice as a form of research, the book challenges and criticizes over-used or lazy applications of play and bring theories of possibility and thinking into the arena of culture within contemporary conceptual reference. Formulaic and production-led education is critiqued, arguing that to engage more fully with pedagogies of play and its in-built interdisciplinarity and criticality carries risks but with that, transformative practices.

Contents:

1 Introduction: The impossibility of defining play

Part 1 Play biologies and behaviours

2 Play and growth

3 Animal play and the Brain

Part 2 Play sociologies and behaviours

4 Play and risk

5 Digital play

6 Game play

Part 3 Dark play

7 Word play

8 Perfomance play

9 Material play

10 Conclusion: An interview with the great late play theories Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

3-031-91639-5

OCLC:

1546971334