The Ambiguity of Play
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £10.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Ambiguity of Play for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £10.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Brian Sutton-Smith presents a lively, contemplative and challenging theoretical discussion of the "category of diverse learnings"...that make up play...Sutton-Smith presents a variety of play dimensions that cause disturbance of theoretical certainty and bring together hitherto unconnected ideas on play in the tradition of creativity. The book explores its chosen rhetorics in a scholarly and yet undeniably accessible way. The material included is multi-faceted and multi-layered drawing on theories across the centuries and presenting a case for a new look at play. Play is taken beyond the rhetoric of progress leaving the reader alive and alert to the possibilities of play that transcend generations and cultures. -- Jill Williams British Journal of Educational Studies This book provides a comprehensive analysis of extant theory and research on the subject of play in children and adults in a variety of cultural contexts with relevant comparisons to play in nonhuman species. The work is thorough and well referenced and provides new insights on a classic topic in children's social development. The primary issue addressed is the ambiguous nature of play. Although we have a sense of what constitutes play, when asked to define it, explain its function, or even identify players, its paradoxical nature becomes apparent--it is and is not what it appears to be. Does and does not have a function, is and is not the purview of children. Child Development Abstracts & Bibliography
Product Description
Every child knows what it means to play, but the rest of us can merely speculate. Is it a kind of adaptation, teaching us skills, inducting us into certain communities? Is it power, pursued in games of prowess? Fate, deployed in games of chance? Daydreaming, enacted in art? Or is it just frivolity? Brian Sutton-Smith, a proponent of play theory, considers each possibility as it has been proposed, elaborated, and debated in disciplines from biology, psychology, and education to metaphysics, mathematics, and sociology. Sutton-Smith focuses on play theories rooted in seven distinct rhetorics - the ancient discourses of fate, power, communal identity, and frivolity and the modern discourses of progress, the imaginary, and the self. In an analysis that moves from the question of play in child development to the implications of play for the Western work ethic, he explores the values, historical sources, and interests that have dictated the terms and forms of play put forth in each discourse's objective theory. This work reveals more distinctions and disjunctions than affinities, with one striking exception: however different their descriptions and interpretations of play, each rhetoric reveals a quirkiness, redundancy, and flexibility. In light of this, Sutton-Smith suggests that play might provide a model of the variability that allows for natural selection. As a form of mental feedback, play might nullify the rigidity that sets in after successful adaption, thus reinforcing animal and human variability. Further, he shows how these discourses, despite their differences, might offer the components for a new social science of play.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
We all play occasionally, and we all know what playing feels like. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
We all play occasionally, and we all know what playing feels like. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Serious scholarship on the not-so-serious topic of play
30 Mar 2000
Format:Hardcover
In a novel approach to an understanding of the everyday phenomenon that we call "play," Professor Sutton-Smith tackles this slippery subject by analyzing the persuasive techniques that researchers use to define play. "We all play occasionally, and we all know what playing feels like. But when it comes to making theoretical statements about what play is, we fall into silliness," claims Sutton-Smith. In his attempt to bring some coherence to past scholarship of the ambiguous field of play studies, Sutton-Smith not only challenges conventional definitions of play but manages somehow to succintly summarize all major and minor theorists in a mere 231 pages. The text is laced with numerous examples to support Sutton-Smith's contention that all theories of play to date fall into one of seven rhetorical categories. He clearly points to the problem of consensus on the definition of play in a field that is divided among different disciplines each claiming that its own kind of play is the one that is central to the phenomenon. Although the book is not directed to a popular audience, it is an excellent text for classroom use in many academic disciplines.
1 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Child development must read
7 Sep 2008
Format:Paperback
This is a great read and a must for anyone outside the feild of childrens play. I say that as everyone in the field know this man's work and reputation.
Anyone working with kids should learn to evaluate their own work and position within the field. This book will help you do that.
Mind you if you don't regularly learn from working with children, you are definetly doing something wrong!
Anyone working with kids should learn to evaluate their own work and position within the field. This book will help you do that.
Mind you if you don't regularly learn from working with children, you are definetly doing something wrong!
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Psychology & Psychiatry > Social & Developmental Psychology > Child & Developmental
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Academic Sociology
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Education Studies
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Sociology > Family & Social Groups > Marriage & Family
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
