Politicizing Children’s Play: A Community Photovoice Process to Transform a School Playground

Play is included as a universal right for every child in Article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child [UNCRC], 1989). However, the right to participate in play can be compromised by physical, social, cultural, or economic contexts, inclusive of school playgrounds (McQuade et al., 2015; Morgenthaler et al., 2023).

Play is a meaningful occupation for children and a “subjective experience of joy and fun, that comes from engaging in freely chosen, intrinsically motivated, self-directed meaningful occupations” undertaken for their own sake (Lynch & Moore, 2016, p. 519). However, like any other occupation, play is culturally and politically negotiated, which requires acknowledging the complexity of political factors and power dynamics (Pollard et al., 2008) that might shape opportunities for participation in play.

Occupational therapists and scientists have always been concerned with social and occupational injustices (Rudman, 2021). A critical agenda aimed at problematizing those injustices has been gaining momentum in the hegemonic professional discourse (Lavalley & Johnson, 2022; Rudman, 2021). Scholars have named these praxes as social, critical, political, or transformative occupational therapy and science, among others (Bruggen et al., 2020; Kronenberg et al., 2005; Pollard et al., 2008; Rudman, 2021). Recently, occupation-based social transformation seems to be the common terminology for these practices, because it encompasses “various approaches that focus on using occupation as [a core approach] to restructure practices, systems, and structures, to ameliorate occupational and social inequities” (Bruggen et al., 2020, p. 5). In this article, we describe an occupation-based research project aimed at improving playgrounds in a public elementary school in a suburban area of northwest Spain as a strategy to ultimately promote children’s right to play. We situate this project within a collective effort (Rudman, 2021) to move practices toward social transformation through occupation. We intend to contribute (1) to inserting occupation-based transformative work into the profession’s practice repertoire (Bruggen et al., 2020) and (2) to the collective endeavors that address children’s play from a rights perspective (Davey & Lundy, 2011; Gately et al., 2023).

Initiating projects in emergent fields of practice, such as occupation-based socially transformative projects, for occupational therapists working with children was established as a priority by the occupational therapists’ educational team at the University of A Coruña (A Coruña, Spain) in 2017–2018. Contact with a public school was initiated in January 2018 because of an existing collaboration between Natalia Rivas-Quarneti and the guidance department. Meetings were held to identify potential venues for a community–university partnership. School representatives identified the playground as a priority because its design, materials, and space did not facilitate children’s participation and inclusion in play. In previous school meetings, families and teachers had expressed their desire to improve the school playground.

School playgrounds have been identified as places where occupational injustices often occur in Western societies (Snow et al., 2019). For instance, participation in play, which is fundamental to children’s development, inclusion, and meaningful life (Moore & Lynch, 2018; Royal College of Occupational Therapists, 2023), is often jeopardized because of factors such as disability, gender, adults’ risk perceptions, space design, and materials, as well as funding policies, among other aspects (Bundy et al., 2017; Snow et al., 2019). Although participation in school playgrounds has been studied from an occupational perspective, research has mostly focused on the reality of students with disabilities (Gately et al., 2023) and the impact of different intervention processes (Cosbey et al., 2012; Egilson & Coster, 2004). For example, Egilson and Coster (2004) found that the school playground was the most challenging setting for children with disabilities and interpreted this as the result of play being a less prioritized occupation than other domains in the academic context. Conversely, interventions to increment activity levels at school playgrounds have been studied for children with disabilities, aiming to increase play opportunities (Bundy et al., 2017; Sterman et al., 2020), physical activity, and social interactions (Bundy et al., 2017). Despite valuable insights for the profession, these studies lack problematization of how multiple contexts (e.g., social, institutional, political) interact to shape children’s opportunities to play at school playgrounds.

Yet, some scholars have focused on playground contexts from a critical perspective. For instance, a qualitative inquiry investigated girls’ participation in play at school, inviting them to imagine what an ideal playground would look like from an occupational justice perspective (Snow et al., 2019). Snow et al. (2019) emphasized the need for managers to better understand play from the children’s viewpoints to warrant participation opportunities for all. In Brazil, the METUIA project, led by occupational therapists, has been working since 2001 to promote the democratization of the school context through workshops with pupils (Lopes et al., 2011). Similarly, Saigh Jurdie et al. (2004) used ludic activities in a public school to promote transformation processes for children’s daily occupations. These Brazilian initiatives established community–university partnerships with public school institutions to address identified needs. To the best of our knowledge, no research has addressed barriers to and facilitators of participation in occupations such as play at school playgrounds from a critical stance and with different community stakeholders (i.e., children, families, teachers, and other staff members). In 2018, participatory action research (PAR) with the local school started. We aimed to better understand barriers to and facilitators of participation in occupations on the school playground to plan actions that could transform the playground to enable play and therefore prevent occupational injustices.

We conducted PAR in which research and action are inextricably linked and “changes are expected to occur throughout the research process, [going] through recursive cycles as preliminary findings are fed into the system being researched” (Banks at al., 2017, p. 542). Critical and participatory methodologies are identified as essential to enacting occupation-based social transformation (Farias et al., 2016; Rudman, 2021). In line with the PAR epistemological assumptions and research process structure, we also used a Photovoice methodology to “(1) enable people to record and reflect their community’s strengths and concerns; (2) to promote critical dialogue and knowledge . . . through large and small group discussion of photographs; and (3) to reach policymakers” (Wang & Burris, 1997, p. 370). This critical and participatory design (Farias et al., 2016) contributes to problematizing the context and its role in shaping occupational opportunities—in this case, opportunities for play at the school playground (Farias et al., 2016; Liebenberg, 2018). Moreover, Photovoice was chosen because diverse childhood studies reported its strengths in engaging and involving children as active participants, fostering democratic participation and empowerment in a fun and creative way that allows flexibility and empathy (Abma & Schrijver, 2020; Berinstein & Magalhaes, 2009; Butschi & Hedderich, 2021).

The study was conducted at a public school in Galicia, Spain, in a town with 36,075 inhabitants (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2019). We prioritized the participation of the community as a strategy to enact change during PAR. In this study, we understood the school community as the key stakeholders: children, families, teachers, and staff. Therefore, we invited all students (n = 450 children, ages 3–12 yr), their families, teachers (n = 34), and staff (i.e., janitorial, cleaning, and administrative staff; n = 5).¹ Their participation varied during the different phases (described in the next section). The school day goes from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (lunch time), with a 30-min recess (11:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m.) when students use the playground. There are two independent playgrounds: one for children ages 3 to 6 yr (n = 200) and the other for those ages 7 to 12 yr (n = 250).

Although the project is still active today, with different actions aimed at improving the playground, in this article we report the process before the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): Phases 1 to 4 of the PAR (Table 1) and only for the playground used by children ages 7 to 12.

A collaborative agreement between the school and the university was established. A pilot experience using Photovoice was carried out with 25 children ages 7 to 8 yr in collaboration with their teacher. Insights from the research team, children, and teachers were used in the tentative design that was then presented to all of the teachers (n = 34) in one meeting and in an open meeting with families (n = 13). The study design (i.e., Photovoice activities) and ways to participate (e.g., incorporation of a virtual element for families to participate remotely) were negotiated in situ. According to Spanish law, consent was negotiated locally with the school community. The project was approved by the school board. Informed consent for children’s participation was requested from families or guardians through the communication channels used at the school: newsletters and a specific mobile application for students’ families. This information reminded families and guardians of what the project involved, the invitation for all to participate, the activities and products expected, and their use. Then, each activity required ongoing consent by the participants (e.g., checking whether they wanted to participate in each task, explaining the aim of the project as many times as necessary according to their age, and allowing children to not participate when desired).

We used Photovoice for data generation and analysis, as well as for awareness raising. The process was initiated by children in each classroom (20–25 students/classroom). Their teacher was present (strategy for raising awareness) but did not facilitate the research activities (to avoid teachers’ opinions mediating children’s reactions and prioritize children’s perspectives). Table 2 displays the structure of the activities for children and teachers. The research question was operationalized with two questions: What do you like doing (or seeing happen) at the playground? What do you not like doing (or seeing happen) at the playground?

We invited children to engage in pretend play as if they were journalists. Subgroups of 4 or 5 children discussed their answers to the questions and decided how to take a picture to convey their responses to the world. They visited the playground to take pictures of what they liked and disliked. Later, each subgroup shared their answers while projecting their pictures using the classroom computer and projector. Students were asked to summarize the key idea of each picture on a paper tag for the external audience. A week later, hard copies of the pictures (printed out by the research team) and an explanatory tag for each image (written by the children) were glued together onto a plastic canvas. Children decided how and where to assemble the information. After discussing what they did not like doing or seeing happen at the playground, students voted on which elements should be transformed first. Students stood up simultaneously and individually stuck the stickers on two images, two stickers on the thing they disliked doing or seeing happen and wanted to see transformed as soon as possible (i.e., their first priority for change) and one for their second priority for change. Having identified the most urgent needs for transformation (those images that received the most votes), students were asked to draw alternatives (ideas and desires for the playground and how to make them happen) in their subgroups. Finally, their drawings, with ideas, were glued to the canvas to create a mural (Figure 1).

The same questions were sent to the teachers (via email) and families (via the school app). Adults were invited to take pictures on their own time and write a brief explanation of each photo. Answers and pictures were sent via email to the research team, and a meeting was later held to discuss their individual perceptions. This asynchronous and virtual participation was designed to address adults’ requests in Phase 1. During the face-to-face meeting, 12 teachers and eight families participated by providing pictures and engaging in the discussions. We replicated the voting and drawing process that the children had done (Table 2). When this meeting took place, all children had finished the Photovoice activities. Adults constantly referred to what they had heard from children’s perspectives, either at school (teachers) or at home (families).

Once data were generated, three actions were carried out. First, a website was created (https://www.transformandopatios.org/), where all the data were made public anonymously. Families could follow the process remotely as requested in Phase 1, granting ongoing consent and mobilizing and raising awareness in the community. The website also served as a dialogue platform. Second, participants were asked to review the website to check all the data generated as a member-checking strategy. Children went through the website information during class time with their teachers. The teachers reported back to the research team, if needed. Children directly approached the research team to expand on the information shared by teachers (e.g., if pictures were missing). Adults could also contact the research team via email to provide the information they considered pertinent, as part of the member-checking process.

Third, the research team began a qualitative analysis. Principles of thematic analysis were adapted (Vaismoradi et al., 2013), using ATLAS.ti (Version 7) software to identify barriers to and facilitators of play at the playground. We used children’s written explanations of their pictures (paper tags) for coding, along with the photographs as a visual example. We used transcripts of the research team’s participant observation notes to contextualize the written explanations and pictures. The same strategy was used for the data generated by adults. We looked for similarities and differences to cluster the codes in possible themes. The themes were revised, going back to the raw data to keep the emerging categories contextualized and anchored. Then, children provided another level of review and member check of emerging themes. We prepared a PowerPoint presentation with preliminary themes, including photographs and explanations. This material was shown to each classroom, and we initiated a conversation about children’s opinions regarding our interpretations. Their opinions informed the final themes.

The transformation ideas (depicted in the drawings) for the priorities that received the most votes across the different classrooms (calculated by the mean number of stickers assigned to the images) were summarized by the research team. During the presentation, three or four transformation ideas for each priority were shown to the children. These were voted on in situ using Plickers^® (https://get.plickers.com/), an application that allows people to vote instantly by using a mobile phone to scan individual cards given to each person. The results were immediately projected using the classroom projector and observed.

The process and results of Phases 2 and 3 were presented by the research team to the school community in three open meetings in which families participated (34 adults and 4 children). Some teachers and children were present and spontaneously assisted the research team by sharing their experience. After the presentation, participants discussed the findings and were invited to think about actions to transform the playground according to the findings. Finally, two actions were designed.

Unraveling invisible contexts conveys the themes that emerged during Phases 2 and 3, covering elements that shape play opportunities and ideas for transformation. Community-led actions summarizes the Phase 4 outcomes. With a PAR design, findings from one phase or subphase consistently fed into the next.

Four themes illustrate barriers to participation in occupations at the playground: time, floor, atmosphere, and violence. These barriers coexisted with facilitators of play, which condensed into two themes: wall paintings and a lending games system.

“We don’t like the recess time; it is too short.” Children strongly identified the duration of recess (Figure 2) as not being long enough for them to do everything they wanted and needed to do: exiting the building, eating their snack, finding their friends to play with, negotiating what to do, queuing to get playing materials, and, finally, playing briefly. “There should be more time to talk and to play” (Phase 2a). Many teachers became aware of how limited the time was for playing when they listened to children’s data generation activities (in Phase 2b). Nevertheless, adults explained that it felt impossible to expand the time while complying with academic aims and policies. They are held responsible for academic content delivery hours (Phase 2b). During the meeting (Phase 2b), expanding the length of recess was discarded by adults because of the educational board rules.

There was an uncontested consensus among children (Phase 2a) that the playground surface (or floor in their own words) negatively affected play (Figure 2). “We don’t like the floor because it hurts a lot; you can slip when it rains, and [it] has holes and very sharp stones” and many “children have fallen over and hurt themselves” (Phase 2a). Children explained that they were very concerned about running and playing tag and often avoided games involving movement or played them differently. Moreover, they noted, “We don’t like the lack of green” and “that there is no natural grass.” As an alternative, children suggested having green spaces and more nature (see examples of drawings in Figure 1).

Despite being surprised, teachers and families quickly incorporated this issue into their discussions (Phase 2b). Teachers explained that the cement and gravel floor has not been repaired since the school was built in the 1980s, and disputes between the local and regional governments about which body should fund renovations of the school playground led to this situation. The physical contexts, which could easily be seen, were shaped by invisible elements. For instance, the current (visible) conditions of the floor are rooted in a political dispute among different government administrations.

Adults proposed polishing and painting the floor as a more realistic option that would not entail maintenance work or damage children’s clothes (e.g., mud when it rains; Phase 2b) instead of creating green space with nature elements (children’s ideas in Phase 2a).

Other invisible barriers strongly identified by the children were the “jail atmosphere” and “violence” at the playground. Some children described the atmosphere in this way: “It [the playground] seems like a jail because we cannot do anything except running and it gets boring” (Figure 2). They explained that there were too “many forbidden things [they would like to do]”—using the grandstands to play, climbing, and using certain spaces—and teachers would not allow them. Thus, the possibilities of the playground appeared limited; “we would like to have more permissions [to do things]” (Phase 2a). Teachers and families (Phase 2b) dismissed these messages because they prioritized safety (avoiding physical harm or contact with people from outside the school). For example, the grandstand prohibition was justified because of the risk of falling. Teachers also expressed their concern about families’ legal complaints if children were hurt.

Similarly, “violence” (Figure 2) was related to fights or conflicts between children in which physical harm is inflicted. Children had faced or witnessed such scenes during recess, and they rejected them: “We don’t like fights; we like equality; everybody has the right to play.” This behavior was also painful because “[the fights] make you lose friends.” Teachers and families (Phase 2b) shared that they were aware of this issue and would not go deeper into it in this project because a conflict mediation program led by the school board had started to tackle these fights.

As facilitators of play, students identified the wall paintings that decorated some of the school’s external walls and faced the playground (Figure 2). Children aesthetically liked them and conveyed that they positively facilitated play because they reminded them that “everyone has the right to play” and “nobody deserves to get hit and nobody should hit” (Phase 2a). Teachers and families (Phase 2b) highlighted the need to paint the walls with new elements because it looked “outdated and sad.”

The ad hoc lending games system initiative (Figure 2) was identified as a powerful facilitator of play. This initiative consists of lending playing materials that are made available to children. Students (ages 11–12 yr) volunteer to manage the loans (e.g., ropes, racquets, board games). Children emphasized how positive this system is for them because “there are many games available,” “we can choose [the playing materials],” “we can play more varied games,” “[we do] not get bored,” “we have fun,” and “it creates new moments and helps us to be closer” (Phase 2a).

The discussions held in the meetings (Phase 4) led to planning two actions to be carried out by teachers and families. First, volunteers would organize a fun activity to paint the walls facing the playground with motifs that promote values of inclusion and participation. This action would tackle the violence theme using a facilitator identified by children: wall paintings. More people (other families and the wider community; e.g., extended families or politicians) were to be invited to showcase the project and raise awareness about children’s right to play. Painting the playground was planned as a collective advocacy occupation that would enact change. Second, representatives from the school and families planned to carry out advocacy actions with the political institutions in charge of maintaining the school’s spaces to improve the playground floor. These actions were stopped as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, school closure, subsequent confinements, and strict physical distancing measures for schools in Spain.²

This study aimed to better understand barriers to and facilitators of participation in occupations at the school playground to plan actions that may transform the playground to enable play. The study allowed for prioritizing children in research as well as situating children’s occupational struggles for play at school playgrounds, that is, politicizing participation in play. Together, these layers of insight illustrate how an occupation-based social transformation process could be carried out at schools.

In a scoping review, Morgenthaler et al. (2023) addressed children’s play experiences to understand the environmental qualities that foster play in school and community playgrounds. These authors concluded that integrating children’s perspectives should be prioritized in playground provision, design, and evaluation. They also emphasized that adults’ perspectives should be incorporated while maintaining children as the center of the process. Children’s voices must be consistently heard (Article 12; UNCRC, 1989) and included when researching play, as scholars have maintained (e.g., Barron, 2021; Jansens et al., 2023; Lynch & Moore, 2016).

We contend that this project addressed both concerns by inviting children not only to be heard but also to play a leading role. Children were the first group to generate and analyze data (Phase 2a). This allowed space for them to express themselves without being mediated by adults’ perceptions and for teachers and families to consider children’s perspectives when generating data (Phase 2b) and subsequent activities. This strategy supported the articulation of multiple perspectives, ensuring that children’s voices were given precedence. In parallel, it also promoted raising awareness of children’s needs and wishes for their playground. For instance, during Phase 2b, adults frequently referred back to what the children had expressed (regarding play barriers, facilitators, transformation priorities, and alternatives for their playground), as well as in Phase 4, when actions for transformation were begun to integrate the insights drawn from Phase 2a (e.g., wall paintings as facilitators, violence as a barrier, tackling floor issues).

Our findings resonate with interdisciplinary research that focused on listening to children’s experiences of play in playgrounds. For instance, Phases 2 and 3 illustrate that children would like to have more time to play freely, the opportunity to choose (i.e., lending games system), and have fun and connect with their friends in a secure environment (i.e., without violence). Similarly, Morgenthaler et al.’s (2023) analysis of 51 studies addressing outdoor play experiences (including playgrounds) reported that children’s desires include diverse play experiences, “mak[ing] our own choices about what to play” (p. 10) and “feeling welcome and safe” (p. 12), among others. Also, McQuade et al. (2015) reported barriers such as not having enough time to play or the limited opportunities of playing on the school playground.

We aimed to better understand occupations at the school playground, which allowed us to situate play among several other activities children need to do during the 30-min recess. This occupational perspective allowed us to reveal conflicting agendas (e.g., time or “forbidden things” as barriers). Teachers’ own pressures in the educational system seemed to jeopardize the alternatives to expand children’s play time. More tensions were apparent when children voiced concerns about violence at the playground, and adults separated this issue from the project in Phase 2b and shifted the responsibility to the mediation program. Nevertheless, in Phase 4, adult participants remembered this issue and agreed to create a new wall painting that would convey values of inclusion. We understood this change to be part of the raising awareness process. Other tensions were evident regarding what adults understood as safety rules (e.g., not climbing) but what for some children resonated as unreasonable prohibitions and limitations to their play that created, together with the surface (floor) issues, limitations to play opportunities. Opportunities to decide, choose, and increase diversity in play, such as the ad hoc lending games system, were perceived as empowering by the children, as reported in previous studies (Morgenthaler et al., 2023). Similarly, the wall paintings that remind children of their rights are strong play facilitators. These political tensions illustrate a nuanced understanding of how play barriers and facilitators are rooted in the interaction of coexisting physical, social, political, and institutional contexts. This coexistence shapes children’s opportunities for meaningful play. Thus, changes to the physical context (e.g., having more green space or nature) should be adopted in combination with changes to the social, institutional, and cultural contexts (e.g., adults’ perception of risk and readdressing inconveniences such as getting mud on clothes), shifting to a conception of children as rights holders and of play as a right.

Using a critical occupational lens (Benjamin-Thomas & Rudman, 2018) was crucial to unveil these invisible contexts (social, institutional), oppressions (adults’ institutional pressures over children’s right to play), and resistance to the oppressions (e.g., lending games initiative) in daily occupations. The interplay between oppression and resistance in daily occupations has previously been labeled occupational struggles (Rivas-Quarneti et al., 2018). We contend that this study provides insights into children’s occupational struggles for play at the school playground. Moreover, it provides examples of how to unveil these complex interactions as well as enact occupation-based social transformation throughout the process, striving for occupational justice (Hocking & Townsend, 2015) in play.

In this project, politicizing (Rudman, 2021) children’s play entailed prioritizing children to better understand play in the school context and using a critical occupational lens to reveal children’s occupational struggles for play. This might inspire further reflection on how to balance the clear benefits of universal schooling (e.g., preventing occupational injustices such as no participation in education) with the threats to play in this context, especially when invisible contexts (social, political, etc.)—such as adults’ agenda—might be one key barrier (Brooker & Woodhead, 2013).

Understanding play as a right and using a critical occupational stance afforded space for an occupation-based transformative project that politicizes children’s play and strives for occupational justice. This study has the following implications for occupational therapists working in education, practice, research, and governance. Occupational therapists

• ▪ should reflect on the impact of invisible contexts (e.g., social or institutional) when addressing play—specifically, on how adult-centric implicit systems generate agendas conflicting with children’s rights.

• ▪ increase awareness of the key role of invisible contexts in evaluation, intervention, and outcomes of occupation-based approaches.

• ▪ explore alternative and creative pathways to listen to children’s voices. For instance, as a participatory methodology, Photovoice was key to creating the space for children to be listened.

• ▪ identify how core skills in the profession (e.g., activity analysis and adaptation as carried out in data generation and analysis) can foster participation by different stakeholders (children, families, teachers).

• ▪ be inspired to take a leading role in community socially transformative projects through occupation.

This article describes a successful occupation-based socially transformative project in which the school community worked to foster occupational justice in play at their school’s playground. A critical occupational stance, combined with a participatory methodology, allowed us to unveil conflicting priorities, reconcile agendas, raise awareness, and afford collective actions to transform the playground and work toward fulfilling children’s right to play.

We extend our sincerest gratitude to the entire school community (children, families, and teachers) whose unwavering participation has been the heart of this project.