A History of Children's Play: The New Zealand Playground, 184-195

by Brian Sutton-Smith

Overview

New Zealand children from 1840 to 1890 were subjected to an unusual combination of agrarian existence and an industrial social philosophy in the newly formed schools. When schools became more universal in the expanding industrial society, a new emphasis on the control of children developed, and from 1920 onward, adult supervision in the form of heavily organized sports and playgrounds encroached more and more on the untrammeled freedom of the rural environment.

Returning to his home country of New Zealand, Brian Sutton-Smith documents the relationship between children's play and the actual process of history. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of informants from every province and school district of New Zealand, the author illuminates for the first time the various social, cultural, historical, and psychological context in which children's play occurs. He treats both formal and informal play, as well as the play of both boys and girls.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812278088
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	01/29/1981
Series:	Anniversary Collection
Edition description:	Reprint 2016 ed.
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Brian Sutton-Smith, Professor of Education, Emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of some fifty books and hundreds of journal articles. In 1995 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Folklore Society.