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An ethnographic study of how children in the reception cohort of a sub urban London school use fantasy violence in their play.
“It’s alright, he lets us play” (Arif)
An ethnographic study of how children in the reception cohort of a sub urban London school use fantasy violence in their play.
Chapter One.
1. Introduction.
1.1 A description of this study’s educational establishment.
1.2 The historical context of this thesis.
1.3 The rationale for the research: “Getting Arif wrong.”
1.4 A statement of the main aims.
1.5 Research questions.
Chapter Two.
2. The Literature Review.
2.1 Introduction.
2.2 The importance of children’s autonomy over play choice.
2.3 Is play always seen as important?
2.4 Barriers to play practice.
2.5 The need for playful practitioners.
2.7 A zero tolerance of war, weapon and fantasy violence play.
2.8 A review of literature advocating the value of accepting and engaging in children’s fantasy violence play.
2.9 “Stressful Surveillance” and the, “Invisible Playground” (Jarvis, 2007).
2.10 Conclusion.
2.11 Research questions.
Chapter Three.
3. Research Methodology
3.1 A justification for adopting an ethnographic approach with a social constructivist worldview.
3.2 A discussion on the researchers “Positionality” (Cresswell, 2009).
3.3 Methods.
3.4 Understanding ethnography and the ethnographic style of approach.
3.5 Data Collection Methods.
3.5.1 The methodology behind the construction of this study’s sample.
3.5.2 Adopting a participatory role within the process of data collection.
3.6 Observation Methods.
3.7 Ethics
3.7.1 Ethical challenges in participant observation.
3.7.2 Informed Consent.
3.7.3 Honesty, trust, and a truthful presentation of data.
3.7.4 Intrusion.
3.7.5 Advocacy
3.7.6 Intervention
3.7.7 Privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity.
3.8 Data analysis
3.9 Conclusion
Chapter Four.
4. Data Analysis.
4.1 A discussion on the limitations, reliability, validity and generalisability of the data.
4.2 A reminder of the research questions underpinning the analysis of data collected in this ethnography.
4.3 A discussion of the ethnography’s main findings in relation to the research questions.
4.3.1 The children used fantasy violence play to support their skills in the rehearsal and creation of innovative narratives, significantly impacting on their attainment in Communication, language and Literacy.
4.3.2 When engaging in fantasy violence play, the children in this observed reception cohort displayed an understanding of the empathy towards the thoughts and feelings of others, the ability to resolve conflict and to show care and concern for each other.
4.3.3 The children used fantasy violence themed play to improve child self agency.
4.3.4 The Children in this reception cohort used fantasy violence themed play to develop their understanding of rule making, rule negotiation and share with others a moral sense of what’s right and wrong.
4.4.4 The incorporation of childhood cultural influences, connected to fantasy violence play, within the learning environment extended the time the children spent engaged in socio dramatic play.
4.4.5 The majority of female practitioners and teachers supporting this cohort displayed prejudices towards rewarding the creative play of the girls while showing a zero tolerance towards the boys' adventurous fantasy play.
4.4.6 A zero tolerance approach towards fantasy violence themed play, developed by the boys, increased the incidences of children displaying, “Mistaken Behaviours.” (Gartrell, 1995).
4.4.7 The children who enjoyed engaging in fantasy violence themed play often hid their socio dramatic play away from certain practitioners conducting surveillance over the learning environment.
4.4.8 The majority of practitioners supporting this reception cohort were reluctant to engage in the children’s play.
4.4.9 When adults engaged in the children’s autonomously created fantasy violence play, the value of such play became apparent and allowed for a “Symbiotic Learning Relationship” (Pascal and Bertram, 1997) to be created through which the narrative of the play was shared, sustained and enjoyed by both the adults and the children.
4.4.10 A lack of “play practice” skills and theoretical and understanding of the value of play were identified as barriers to practitioners developing shared and sustained moments of play with the children in this reception cohort.
Chapter Five.
5. Conclusion.
5.1 A summary of the work undertaken in this ethnographic study.
5.2 A discussion of the research questions in relation to the analysis of the observed data collected in the ethnography.
5.3 Recommendations for the improvement of the schools practice.
5.3.1 The school needs to develop the professional skills of it early years practitioners so that within their “play practice”, each adult is able to engage, enrich and deepen the fantasy play of all children.
5.3.2 The school needs to support practitioners and teachers by providing time for them to use their developing theoretical knowledge on the value of play, improve the quality of the play environments they create and develop their own play practice.
5.3.3 To overcome the barrier to engaging in children’s play presented by “Stressful Surveillance,” (Jarvis, 2007) the schools senior leaders need to ensure that practitioners adhere to the adult: child ratio’s assigned to the reception and nursery garden spaces.
5.3.4 The school needs to collectively review its position with regards to the seemingly self adopted zero tolerance approach displayed by members of staff to the fantasy violence themed socio dramatic play of the boys.
5.3.5 A Professional Learning Community should be created which challenges the existing play cultures of the adults in school, with the intention of creating a new shared culture towards play and a shared understanding of the need for playful practitioners.
5.3.6 The knowledge discovered through this ethnography places its researcher in a position in which they could ethically develop a further action research project which explores the impact of fantasy violence play on children’s self agency.
5.4 Conclusion
6. Reference List
7. Appendix
7.1 The Research Journal.
An ethnographic study of how children in the reception cohort of a sub urban London school use fantasy violence in their play.
Chapter One.
1. Introduction.
1.1 A description of this study’s educational establishment.
The school is a larger than average sized infant school. The overwhelming majority of the pupils are of minority ethnic background and three quarters of learners are new to English or bilingual. There is a steady increase of eastern European families and refugees. The take up of free school meals is lower than the national average, as is the number of pupils who have identified special needs.
1.2 The historical context of this thesis.
In February 2006, the results of a pupil questionnaire exercise indicated that 28% of the children did not always feel safe in this infant school. In 2007, the responses rose to 31%. From 2007, the schools senior leadership team introduced a range of strategies to try and find a possible solution to this issue, including a teacher and parents working group. By February 2010, 33% of the children’s feedback collected during conferencing and questionnaires indicated that they did not always feel safe in the classroom, with18% communicating that they only felt safe some of the time to not at all. 54% of the children recorded that they only felt safe some of the time to not at all in the schools playground.
The initial consideration of a focus for this thesis was the designing of an action research project through which the theoretical ideas advocated in the literature of Jones (2002) Mojie and Mcarthy- Lawerence (1973) in Compton-Lilly (2006),Paley (1988) and Rich (2003) could be explored. This literature discusses how fantasy violence and superhero play supports children in improving their self agency, their ability to reposition their self identity, develop a sense of power and cope with perceived fear. However, ethical action research requires the designer of the initiative to ensure that the planned intervention is well informed by current research literature and that data exists which supports an indication that the intervention is directly related to the indentified issue and will impact on the issue in a positive way (Woods, 2006). This was not the position in which the researcher was placed. The more the literature of Jones (2002); Mojie and Mcarthy- Lawerence (1973); Compton-Lilly (2006);Paley (1988) and Rich (2003) was discussed with the schools staff, the greater a concern grew over how much time was actually being spent by early year’s practitioners engaging with the children in their fantasy play narratives.
The analysis of the children’s conferencing data collected in March 2012 identified that while data relating to responses about feeling safe in school improved by 13%, 22% of the children shared the opinion that the adults in the school didn’t always listen to them. The children also shared the view that, from their perspective, increased adult engagement in their play would really improve their learning experiences and make them feel safer. Many of the identified areas for staff development related to teachers and practitioners working in this schools Foundation Stage Team identified a need for improving adult skills in responding more effectively to children’s autonomously created play. When analysing the attainment of the children in this reception cohort it was also observed that while their Foundation Stage Scale scores relating to Mathematics, Phonics, Reading, Writing and Knowledge and Understanding of the World were all significantly higher than national averages, the children’s Creative Development scores were at best in line with national scores, indicating a concern over the provision the children experience connected to creative play.
In constructing a small scale social research project, the researcher should approach the project design by identifying a “Triangulation” (Denscome, 2007) in data that establishes a problem to be studied. The data collected in our March 2012 pupil conferences identified that 22% of the children felt the adults in the school didn’t always listen to them, monitoring reports identified a need for the early year’s team to improve their ability to engage in the children’s autonomously created play and the children’s creative development attainment scores being lower than expected provided the three points of “Triangulation” (Denscome, 2007) that suggested this thesis should in some form study the schools approach to creative play practice and the children’s own autonomously created play.
1.3 The rationale for the research: “Getting Arif wrong.”
Arif is a five year old child learning in this schools reception year group. When observing Arif and his friends engaging in their most favourite play choice, fantasy violence, Arif’s supervision of the group consistently creates socio dramatic play of a high quality. This judgement was made when comparing the context and content of the play with Bruce’s (2006) “Quality Play Charter”. In one observation session, Arif’s teacher was invited to sit and watch the group playing out their fantasy violence narrative. During this time Arif invented the groups play narrative, shared innovative ideas and creative language. He negotiated arguments over narrative development to a compromised conclusion and stopped the play when a peer fell over to make sure he wasn’t hurt. Arif’s teacher watched, and then commented, “I always thought he was quiet, not very clever, not really wanting to do anything apart from mess about with Dillan. I got him wrong.” (Research Journal, pg. 37)
Arif explained that he doesn’t let teachers see his or his friends play because they don’t like it; he saves it for the big playground where he and his friends can’t always be seen. He apparently conforms to expectations, a zero tolerance of such play, but secretly engages in his favourite form of play in seemingly invisible spaces. After observing, playing and sharing conversations with Arif and his friends, a rationale for this thesis began to form. The zero tolerance approach displayed by adults to accepting Arif’s play choices meant that he moved both his play and that of his closest friends into invisible places away from possible adult interaction.
Watching Arif and his friends play provided the researcher with a sense of ecology, an understanding of why this focus for the thesis was personally important. Feiersinger et al (2008) describes how schools should create, “Nostalgic Histories” for children, memories of school life that the children will take with them throughout their lifelong learning experiences. This has indeed been the case with regards to the researcher’s decision to create a study that explores how children use fantasy violence in their play:
“I remember how my early year’s teacher, Mrs Rollins, allowed us to create our own school play about He-Man. We made our own costumes, excitedly created the plays story including many make believe fight scenes. Through sharing in our play Mrs Rollins scribed our narrative. Looking back, Mrs Rollins must have understood how important this play was to a group of children growing up in a difficult council estate environment. She ensured this “show” was shared with the whole school in an assembly performance. I remember sitting on the carpet talking with Mrs Rollins, sharing He Man stories and endlessly reacting plays as she listened to us, joined in our play and shared in our excitement. I fail to see any such experiences of shared and sustained high quality play in our early years practice.” (Research Journal, pg. 2)
The new Early Years Foundation Stage Framework will take effect from September 2012, the Children’s Minister Sarah Teather has also communicated the “Government’s wider vision” to free professionals to focus on their interaction with children. Yet, the failure to observe and understand how children use fantasy violence play to support their learning has resulted in this schools practitioners and teachers effectively reducing the language of play through which they can engage and interact with certain children in this cohort. The research literature of Mojie and Mcarthy- Lawerence (1973) illustrates how when children and adults fail to connect meaningfully within shared and sustained learning environments, such as Arif and his teacher, the self esteem of young learners can be damaged and ultimately lead to cumulative failure, resulting inevitably in comments like, “I got him wrong.”
1.4 A statement of the main aims.
This ethnography aims to identify how the children in this reception cohort use fantasy violence to support their learning; it also aims to identify the barriers that prevent adults from engaging in the children’s autonomously created play, reducing the language of play through which they could develop their interaction with the children.
1.5 Research questions.
How do the children in the reception cohort of a sub urban London school use fantasy violence in their play?
What are the barriers that stop the adult practitioners working in this early year’s team from engaging with the children in their autonomously selected play choices?
Chapter Two.
2. The Literature Review.
2.1 Introduction.