ABSTRACT
It can be said that within the children’s game lies an entire cosmos. For Jean Piaget, the study of marbles uncovered the wrestlings of the moral judgments of the child. For Brian Sutton-Smith, the flexibility of children’s games revealed play itself as a process of invention and reversal. For John McDowell, the riddle texts unfolded an array of themes reflecting that of the children’s lives as a whole. (Piaget 1965; Sutton-Smith 1976b; McDowell 1979). This paper will examine the complex world of double dutch jump rope as practiced and performed by third- through fifth-grade girls in an urban, public, working-class, racially integrated elementary school yard in Pennsylvania. It will be argued here that the study of the game reveals complex, overlapping cultural worlds, and that if we can attune our eyes to the game beyond the basic game text, that the potential meaning of such study goes beyond the collection of interesting rhymes.
