(play)grounds and spatial environments

This research topic explores the spatial and environmental conditions that facilitate, expand, bound, and surveil play. Play scholars across history have demonstrated how young people use imaginative and fantasy play to craft intricate and complex play scenarios even without any specific materials or artifacts. Play is facilitated by peers and the resources within the spaces children inhabit. Some of these spaces are purposefully designed to engender specific kinds of play – playgrounds, parks, after school programming. Other times, specific environments are far more loose and undefined in how children play.