ABSTRACT
Just as policy/ideology impacts on children’s spaces, so children too can have an impact on the grounds they are given. Lewin (1931, 1935) emphasised that spaces are not just physical but also psychological. Such a concept of interaction in which the child has agency, and space can be understood as physical, perceived and conceived, but may also be regained and lived (Lefebvre, 1974/1991), opens the door to postmodern and posthumanist understandings, in which children can select and acquire spaces for play (or do spaces select them?). Such an intra-active perception is contrary to systemic macrosystemic striations often perceived in Bronfenbrenner’s model when seen as nested controlling influences on children and their spaces operating ‘top-down’. In taking this interactive/intra-active perspective, we can consider where children are expected to play, where they choose to play, and what the landscapes and materials offer to children – and perhaps ultimately, to policy decisions and ideological understandings.
