"It's Not a Stick": Examining Power Relations Within Unstructured Play at Nature-Based Elementary Schools

• In Event: 32.083 - Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: 32.083-20 - Emerging Approaches in Environmental Education Research

Abstract

Within the field of environmental education, there is a substantial body of literature which emphasizes the importance of childhood play in natural environments as an important precursor to environmental interest and concern (Chawla, 2007; Gill, 2014; Kals, Schumacher & Montada, 1999; Kellert, 2002; Taylor, 1980). Concurrently, additional research has drawn attention to what Pyle (2002) refers to as the ‘extinction of experience’ (p.315), the loss of opportunities to play outdoors and thus, a diminished chance to develop care and concern for the world that sustains us (Louv, 2005; Sobel, 1996). As a result, there is a shift at the preschool and elementary aged level within Canada toward ‘unstructured’ and nature-based play as a way to reinstate environmental care and concern (Forest School Canada, 2013; Vadala, Bixler & James, 2007).

This research on ‘unstructured’ play within environmental education presents little information about what is occurring within content of the play itself and some research suggests that in fact, many play activities outdoors can be destructive to nature (Mergen, 2003; Vadala et. al, 2007). Affrica Taylor (2013) points out a dangerous tendency to assume that such play involves “hermetically sealed pure and perfect child-animal worlds” when in fact these relationships are “leaky, messy, challenging, dynamic and transforming” (p.88). This study responds to this gap in the literature as it investigates the semiotics of 'unstructured play time' at two nature-based public elementary schools (K-6 with 55 students and K-7 with 85 students) within Western Canada. Data includes field observations on a weekly basis over three years as well as teacher, student and caregiver interviews. Critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2001; 2003; Rogers, 2011; Weiss & Wodak, 2003) and applied semiotics (Sebeok, 2001; Semetsky, 2010, Shapiro, 2014) are the methods of investigation. These methods were chosen as they enable the researcher to deeply examine the cultural stories that are foregrounded and made manifest during this play time. Following a post-structural approach in part, this will also require the researchers to situate the study within their own contexts and approaches to meaning making (Gough, 1991).

In particular, this study lends insight into ways that power is enacted, reinforced and resisted in relationships between students and the natural world, the contradictions/paradoxes that this presents and the educational implications. Current findings suggest that despite their young age, these students are deeply embedded in cultural narratives which are ecologically and socially damaging and that the unstructured play is reinforcing such tropes. Educational implications of this suggest that educators should work to guide the play in more structured ways that offer new possibilities for relation. Research is ongoing and updated findings will be presented in this session.

Author

• Laura Piersol, Simon Fraser University