greater free play time in Germany than in the UK? If so, why? Are - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Do young children have significantly greater free play time in Germany than in the UK? If so, why? Are the reasons relevant to policy considerations towards increasing free play for children in the UK?

‘Raum für Kinderspiel’

• Space for Children to Play -

is a recent German research project based on view that while schooling and structure sports can meet some childhood developmental needs,

• ptimal child development necessitates
• pportunities for children to interact with each
• ther freely using their imaginations and

creativities, without adult interference, in order to develop essential autonomy.

Renz-Polster: “One can learn Pythagorus’ theorem or to play the violin later in life. What cannot be established later are fundamental life skills, such as self confidence, getting on with others and resilience: These are things that one can't be taught. They are things which children develop through play. ….. Play is the business objective of childhood. Up until puberty children instinctively do purposeless stuff and play to their limits,… Our aim must be to support children in building up their fundamental life skills.” (Interview for Badische Zeitung, Dec 2013)

Types of childhood

“Autonomous childhood” means that children often play outside their home without supervision for long periods of time, that they are seldom looked after in a child care facility in the afternoon and they often participate in extracurricular activities, such as sports, clubs or music. “Heteronomous childhood” provides little or no opportunity for children to act independently and describes children rarely having

• pportunities to play outside without adult supervision, often being

in organised child care after school, and with little or no participation in extracurricular activities.

Data collected

for Raum für Kinderspiel study

 Observations from workshop tours with children in their

neighbourhoods, recording children’s comments and opinions

• n their play environments.

 Evaluation of residential areas in terms of quality of ‘action

space’ for children, (relatively free of dangers, accessible for children, interesting and opportunity for interaction with other children).

 Questionnaires completed by parents covering neighbourhood,

social climate, play facilities, family size, housing, education, toys and electronic entertainment equipment, immigration background, ages, children’s play patterns including contemporary time-record of their children’s outdoor play over three school days, specifying whether with or without adult

• supervision. Over 5000 responses.

Criteria for the assessment of action space quality (“Freiburger Soziotopen Test”, FST) (Blinkert 1993).

Key findings of Raum für Kinderspiel: Table showing amount of time children played outside without supervision and quality of ‘action space’

16 41 60 82 90 108 74% 31% 25% 10% 6% 2% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 20 40 60 80 100 120 very poor poor sufficient fair good excellent per cent minutes per day scale "quality of action space" playing outside without supervision (minutes per day) Children who never play outside without supervision (per cent)

Quality of action space and resources of the family

The quality of the 'action space' available to children correlates with the economic and cultural resources of their families, so that children from socially and materially deprived homes have significantly less

• pportunity to develop their autonomy

through the 'latent curriculum' of free play than children from more affluent homes: 'street childhood' has become a sign of wealth rather than poverty. ‘Raum für Kinderspiel’ German Research

40 81 94 109 116 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 very poor poor average good very good quality of action space resources of family

Quality of action space and resources

• f family

Autonomous childhood – age and quality of action space (Raum für Kinderspiel German research)

very bad, bad average good, very good 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 5 years 6 and 7 years 8 and 9 years 51 61 78 71 82 114 99 115 134 quality of action space autonomous childhood (average scale values)

Selected questions from the UK preliminary comparative research

Overall Comparison: Average number of minutes played outside per day without supervision aged 5 - 9 UK 36 Germany 67 Quality of residential environment for children bad medium good UK 8 24 35 Germany 36 46 52 Average number of minutes played outside per day without supervision aged 5

Preliminary Comparison Germany - UK

9 years old UK 9 years old DE 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 bad medium good 23 48 57

90 99 94

Minutes per day outside without supervision condition of environment

Parents’ attitudes towards children’s safety / risk in play: UK – Germany comparison

Parents were asked:

What are the results?

‘Lisa´s Dilemma’ - difference between German parents and parents in UK

Least risk averse …………..……………..... ... .. Most risk averse

15 31 14 21 20 6 13 12 19 51 10 20 30 40 50 60 no, definitely not no, probably not don´t know, perhaps yes, maybe yes, for sure Percent agreement with Lisa`s father Germany UK

Preliminary comparative UK / Germany findings: Strong evidence of significant difference in amount of children’s free play time. Striking difference in parental attitudes towards risk and play. Next Steps: Research to find out why; to identify relevance of legal and policy differences which are relevant towards reclaiming and asserting children’s right to play.