Comic• Visualized communication
associated with children (lower forms of expression)
• Conflict underlying the mytho-heroic narrative (moral panic over children’s leisure and fantasy)
• Paving the way for animation (Krazy Kat)
• First Cultural Product that kids bought on their own (competition for leisure time-- the hurried child)
Meaning Making
• Cognitive Structures (Jean Piaget)– Enactive = Play/ Actions/ Gestures– Iconic = Pattern Recognition/ Visual Representation– Symbolic = Spoken Language (system of abstract
concepts)– Games, Stories and Literacy (higher level
representations)
• Language• Play Identity/ Social Skills• Narrative
Why BFG?: Reading the politics of children’s
literature• Competing Rationales for Books
• Dahl/ Tolkeing:Archaeology of the Imagination– Lost in Translation/ Adaptation– Word Play and Conversation– Characters and Interactions– Therapeutic Ethos -- gentling the
imagination
Kamloops vs Leapfrog
Shopping Cart:
We’ll have lots of fun.
Lets go shopping!
LeapFrog Pretend and Learn Shop
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In Defense of Play
• Folk play is– Social and community– Natural and organic– Child-generated
narrative– intrinsically rewarding
ie structure of feeling associated with intensified feelings and self-challenge
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Children’s Games
-control and decontrol
-festival, drama and masquarade
-contest, chance and mastery
-
Carnival as theology and the repression of play
• Play mocks seriousness and the predictable world
• Play breaks work ethos - idle hands and the devils bidding
• Play as celebration (bracketing of reality .. Foundation of as if)
• Play as spirtual practice of culture making - ritualized theology of ‘chance’ and ‘chaos’
The modernization of play
Domestication, commodification, commercialization and technification
of play cultures
Toys as Educational Media: origins of constructivism
• inscribed with play values
• combining symbols and objects
• assembling components
Play as Learning- John Locke • preparation of the child for learning ie
blocks, construction, letters• sports - skills, strategy, rules and team
work - sports play/ phys ed• Practice, dexterity, mastery - bows,
guns, Yo-Yo ie Playskools and Fisher Price Pull Toys
• Games, Rules ie Dominos, cards, chess• Lego and construction sets
moral crisis of childhood removing kids from the streets
• Mean world syndrome - a cultural world contoured of fear and risk/ increasingly protection from harm– Eg the playground movement
- mobilize children into safe spaces (1900)
– Danish Planning– The street hockey game vs
the organized hockey game (soccer leagues 1990)
productive leisure: managing energy release and transgression
• Idleness is dangerous/ peer culture is dangerous - ie playgrounds to channel into healthy activity - play as control
• Sports and the Playing fields of Eton
• Children need to let off steam - physical challenge and burning excess energy makes children more pliant - the professionalization of sport
• My scouting career! Play as a form of moral oppression vs emancipation
Play as rehearsal - social skills and role taking
• Teams (kick the can, capture the flag) and games (spin the bottle)
• Plush- imaginary friends and bonding
• Rough and tumble- WWF• Playing house/ dolls house• Baby dolls, toy soldiers• Barbie play
Play and the liberated imagination• individual expression: art,
music, dance (JAZZ)
• Fantasy play- narrative elaboration and creativity
• Role play - doctor, d and d
• Exploration and problem solving (discovering the world, attitude of wonder ie playing in nature vs playing with transformers)- computers
The development of a toy industry:
• Early Toy industry (Gary Cross- Kid’s stuff: Toys and the Changing World of the American Child)- the children’s day movement - 1928
• Toys as Marketed Commodities - ideal toys co. and the Teddy Bear
• History of industry: Marketing vs the market– Pre-ww1- dolls and plush:– Early Industrialization- FP, Playskool, Monopoly, Lego, – Post war-1980- Barbie/ Mattel - early ads
• Commercialization of Play (global industry) – Contemporary-Hasbro, Mattel, Leapfrog
Milestone Toys
• Learning: cards/ dominos, Puzzles, sand-box, guessing game, Construction
• Development: Ball, Blocks, Rings, Riding, • Role Play: Play house, board games, DnD• Fantasy: Puppet, Teddy, Barbie, GI Joe• Function: trains, trucks, cooking• Entertainment: Jack n box, pin ball, video
game
Manipulating Objects with Functions
• Construction Sets• Trains• Cooking Utensils• Domestic Technology• Trucks• Pull Toys• Wagons
Increasing role of marketing in toy industry
• Early advertising to kids
• Mattel
• Tie-ins and spin offs
• Character marketing
• Synergy Marketing
DOLLARS UNITS
1997 1998 % Chg 1997 1998 % Chg
I.INFANT/PRE-SCHOOL $1,403 $1,379 -1.7 218 214 -1.8
II.DOLLS $2,154 $2,085 -3.2 252 252 0.0
III.PLUSH $1,353 $1,614 19.3 259 303 17.0
IV.ACTION FIGURE TOYS $1,046 $907 -13.3 186 154 -17.2
V.VEHICLES $1,544 $1,633 5.8 349 411 17.8
VI.RIDE-ONS $743 $728 -2.0 34 33 -2.9
VII.GAMES/PUZZLES $1,479 $1,506 1.8 248 245 -1.2
VIII.ACTIVITY TOYS $2,087 $2,097 0.5 680 682 0.3
IX.ALL OTHER TOYS $3,446 $3,266 -5.2 1,095 1,080 -1.4
TOTAL TOY INDUSTRY$15,2
5515,215 -0.3 3,321 3,374 1.6
VIDEO GAMES $4,253 $5,106 20.1 112 159 42.0
TOTAL TOY INDUSTRY WITH VIDEO
GAMES
$19,5
08$20,321 4.2 3,433 3,533 2.9
Family Life: Postwar Trends
• babyboom
• suburbs
• consumer lifestyle
• fragmentation of family
• growth of leisure
Revaluing Play as Leisure
• MODERN• learning• action• construction• social
• POSTMODERN• fun• entertainment• consumption• individual
Fantasy Worlds:Science Fiction, War,
and Fairyland
• play sets
• immersion
• simulation games
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Fictional Sociality: Identity, Peers and Fantasy Play
• role play games
• character toys
• action figures
Globalized Playthings Industry (85 billion)
Présentation PowerPoint
What is Play?• Modern Play Theories
– Piaget - play as mental structuration and concept learning: enactive, iconic, symbolic
– Erikson- play as working through in fantasy– McLuhan - games and the psychic structure of
culture (sports, contests, war games)– Sutton-Smith - play as paradoxical communication
and the basis of peer culture
The play ethos: What makes play good for children?
• Physical:Coordination, energy release, fitness, health• Skills and role rehearsal/ behaviour practice • Exploration, Discovery, • Mastery, confidence, self-satisfaction • Conceptual schema ( piaget enactive and symbolic stages)• Language, Identity, self expression• Rules structures, self discipline• Creativity and imagination• Learning as pleasure• Peer culture, social cooperation
The Dilemmas of Modern Childrearing
• Emphasis on psychological maturation over needs and growth
• Emphasis on identity and personality
• Emphasis on children’s autonomy
• Emphasis on cognitive development - intellectual stages rather than cross-age mingling
• Freudian theory (trauma, sexual development, progressing through stages)
“...the last toy that we bought was that light thing from Disneyland...because he hounded us, actually we did it to
keep our sanity.”
““constantly nag nag nag ...constantly nag nag nag ...I gotta have this mom...I gotta have this mom......especially when he is ...especially when he is watching the afternoon watching the afternoon
TV shows...”TV shows...”
Rough and Tumble:The Ecstasy of Agon-y
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Concerned Parent“you can do a lot with Lego and you are not committed to Batman’s version of the world ... to ugly people are bad, to big strong guys are heroes, to buy more weaponry. “
The thin Black Lion: (life within the domestic sanctuary
• stress of being a good parent is great– financial
– time
– partnering
• how to win/ ensure a childs emotional bonds to family - bonding as well as preparing for the big bad world! – well-being vs love (santa gifts)?
• what is healthy development ?– how much freedom and autonomy?
– how can I define limits?
– How can I know what is good for kids