Recess battles : playing, fighting, and storytelling
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-163) and index.

This work is an exploration of the critical role of play and the gap in perception between adults and children. As children wrestle with culture through their games, recess itself has become a battleground for the control of children's time. Based on dozens of interviews and the observation of over a thousand children in a racially integrated, working-class public school, this book is a moving reflection of urban childhood at the turn of the millennium. The book debunks myths about recess violence and challenges the notion that schoolyard play is a waste of time. The author videotaped and recorded children of the Mill School in Philadelphia from 1991 to 2004 and asked them to offer comments as they watched themselves at play. These sessions raise questions about adult power and the changing frames of class, race, ethnicity, and gender. The grownups' clear misunderstanding of the complexity of children's play is contrasted with the richness of the children's folk traditions. This work is an ethnographic study of lighthearted games, a celebratory presentation of children's folklore and its conflicts, and a philosophical text concerning the ironies of everyday childhood. Rooted in video micro ethnography and the traditions of theorists such as Bourdieu, Willis, and Bateson, it is written for a lay audience. Folklorist Brian Sutton-Smith contributes a foreword, and the children themselves illustrate the text with black and white paintings.