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Play: A Theory of Learning and Change

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Editors:
  1. Tara Brabazon

    1. School of Teacher Education, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia

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  • Activates the ambivalent meanings of play
  • Acknowledges the intellectual legacy of play theory
  • Presents interdisciplinary engagement with play
  • Explores how play transforms through digitization
  • Incorporates teacher education, sociology, cultural studies, media studies and history

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vi
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  2. Introduction: Play Up? Play Around?

    • Tara Brabazon
    Pages 1-4

  3. Setting the Field of Play

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 5-5
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    2. Play in Early Childhood Education: An Historical Perspective

      • Sandie Wong, Helen Logan
      Pages 7-26

    3. Playing with Play: A Playful Reconnaissance

      • Randa Khattar, Karyn Callaghan
      Pages 27-33

    4. Team Players

      • Felicity McArdle, Jennifer Sumsion, Sue Grieshaber, Kellie Bousfield, Paul Shield
      Pages 35-54

    5. Faculty, Candidates, and Children at Play: Perceptions and Dissonances

      • Linda Charko, Cameron Fraser, Don Jones, Umar Keoni Umangay
      Pages 55-70

  4. Playing with Bodies (of Knowledge)

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 71-71
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    2. (Re)Playing Decolonization Through Pele, Aloha’Oe and Indigenous Knowledge

      • Umar Keoni Umangay
      Pages 73-81

    3. Pre-service Teachers, Aboriginal Students and the Cross-cultural ‘Playing Field’: Empowering Futures

      • Maria Bennet, Bev Moriarty
      Pages 83-94

    4. From Local to Global: International Initiatives in School Leadership

      • Zeffie Nicholas, Erica van Roosmalen
      Pages 95-106

    5. Alternative Models of Learning, Thinking and Teaching

      • Beverley Moriarty, Louise Wightman
      Pages 107-117

    6. Press Play

      • Tara Brabazon
      Pages 119-144

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 225-235
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines the question of why ‘play’ is a happy and benevolent verb in childhood, yet a subjective label of behaviour in adulthood. It studies the transformation of the positively labelled term ‘child’s play’, used to refer to our early years, into an aberrance or deviation from normal social relationships in later life, when we speak of playing up or playing around. It answers the question by proposing play as a theory of learning, an ideology that circumscribes behaviour, and a way of thinking. Written by scholars of early childhood through to further and higher education, the book presents research on play enacted in a way that arches beyond the specificity of age groups or predictive, normative patterns. It is international in its focus, moving beyond insular, inward and parochial educational standards and limitations in one city, province, state or nation. Finally, it demonstrates the value of play to educational policy and theories of learning. 


Editors and Affiliations

  • School of Teacher Education, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia

    Tara Brabazon

About the editor

Tara Brabazon is the Professor of Education and head of the School of Teacher Education at Charles Sturt University, Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA) and Director of the Popular Culture Collective. Previously, Tara had held academic positions in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. She has won six teaching awards, including the National Teaching Award for the Humanities.


A Springer author, Tara has published 16 books and over 180 refereed articles and book chapters through her career. She writes for the Times Higher Education, Times Education Supplement and Times Literary Supplement. She is best known for her books Digital Hemlock (2002), the University of Google (2007), Thinking Pop (2011) and Digital Dieting (2013). Her new Springer books are City Imaging (2013), Unique Urbanity (2014) and Enabling University (2015). For further information about Tara, please refer to www.brabazon.net. A full CV is also included with this proposal.

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