Considering play in schoolyards as collective occupations to generate practice possibilities focused on creating community

This abstract was presented at the OSE conference as an oral presentation

Abstract Introduction: Recent scholarship positions children’s equitable play opportunities, as an issue of Occupational Justice and advocates for practices that address the barriers that restrict participation and inclusion in schools[1]. There has been limited research on children’s play in Irish schoolyards2. A critical inquiry into children’s play, in the shared space of the Irish schoolyard, aimed to contribute to justice focused practice knowledges. Approach: A multi study inquiry was designed involving a scoping review and two qualitative inquiries, with 10 primary schoolteachers and 23 children, used virtual and walking interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, to explore play and social inclusion in Irish schoolyards. Supporting Arguments Generated: This inquiry generated knowledges on the contextualized and collective nature of play and teachers practices in schoolyards. Studies highlighted how children’s and teachers’ choices were experienced as emerging processes within the always changing particularities and relationships of each schoolyard. A lack of shared purpose however contributed to teachers’ uncertainties regarding how best to support inclusion. The individualizing of choice was central to exclusionary processes. Teacher’s diverse intentions included maintaining safe spaces, achieving an absence of conflict, and supporting individual freedoms and preferences with less attention to how children develop and sustain friendships and create belonging within play. Implications for Occupational Science: This inquiry supports understandings of play in Irish schoolyards as collective occupations and proposes extending practices focused on individual children’s play alone, to consider the transformative potential in play to build community.