Emancipating play: dis/abled children, development and deconstruction

This paper reflects critically on the meaning of play, especially as it relates to disabled children and their experiences. We explore the close alliance of play to cognitive and social development, particularly in the case of psychologies of development, and reveal a dominant discourse of the disab...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Disability & society 2010-06, Vol.25 (4), p.499-512
Main Authors: Goodley, Dan, Runswick-Cole, Katherine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Caregivers
Child Development
Child Psychology
Childhood
Children
Children with disabilities
Cognitive Development
Deconstruction
Development
Developmental Psychology
Disabilities
Disability
Disabled children
Handicapped
Human Body
Interpersonal Relationship
Meaning
Mothers
Normalization (Disabilities)
Oppression
Parent Child Relationship
Parent-child relations
Parents
People with disabilities
Psychology
Resistance (Psychology)
Social Bias
Social Development
Social Justice
Social theory
Sociology
Sociology of culture
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Summary:This paper reflects critically on the meaning of play, especially as it relates to disabled children and their experiences. We explore the close alliance of play to cognitive and social development, particularly in the case of psychologies of development, and reveal a dominant discourse of the disabled child as a non-playing object that requires professional therapeutic intervention. We argue that this pathologisation of play on the part of disabled children is closely tied to normalisation of childhood, in which non-normal bodies are increasingly expected to be governed and corrected not only by professionals but also by parents/carers. In order to rescue more enabling visions of the disabled child and their play we turn to three perspectives - the new sociology of childhood; social oppression theories of disability; critical developmental psychology. These resources, we suggest, allow us to reconfigure what we mean by play and disability in a contemporary climate that celebrates competition and marketisation over the intrinsic potentialities of all children. We argue that how we conceive play will per se undermine or promote forms of inclusive research, policy and practice.
ISSN:0968-7599
1360-0508
DOI:10.1080/09687591003755914