ABSTRACT
This chapter is an exploration of how play has been advanced as a way of increasing productivity and achieving progress. We provide an historical account as to how children’s playing became an object of academic study in the late 19th century and trace literature endorsing children’s play as a foundation for their emotional and social well-being. We discuss how play has been both instrumentalised and advanced to foster optimal psychological, social and cognitive abilities, to develop physical strength and to produce good citizens, and we examine how the notion of play as productive and efficient emerged. Highlighting the movement that advocated play as a way to improve physical health and strength, we show how discussions and early studies about play have shaped where, with whom, when and with what goals children are encouraged to play today. Relevant is that this work collectively forms the basis for contemporary concerns about decreases in play, and the interventions to protect and promote it. This chapter examines the way children’s play is increasingly set to a schedule, circumscribed, timed and goal-directed, and how play is advanced in the development of particular kinds of citizens, in this case, active and healthy children.
