School Playground as Festival

Abstract

The literature onthe school playground generally emphasizes its role as a locus for physical apparatus. This article, by contrast, examines the existing research literature, both behavioral and ethnographic, to support the thesis thathe school playground provides children with access to a cultural event of great endurance aswell as regular patterning by age, sex, and ludic form. It is argued thathe phenomenon has "festival" characteristics and that its preservation against current attempts to abolish or reduce it deserves support on the basis of children's rights.