‘I don’t think that it’s play. Because we have to play’. Norwegian six-year-old children’s understandings of play when they start in primary school

Abstract

This article aims to explore how Norwegian six-year-old children talk about and show their understandings of play when they have just started primary school. The research design is a focused ethnographic fieldwork, reporting on participant observations and group interviews with children in the first year of primary school, and interpreted through a thematic analysis. The analysis indicates that the children consider play as important to the transition process and their everyday school life. They express and show their understandings of play in various ways, thematized as freedom of choice, resistance, and community. The article suggests that children’s joint play can be understood as an underlife in school and introduces the term playful (re)production as a theoretical approach for exploring children’s understandings of play. The study raises awareness of the role play has for children’s well-being, agency, and relationships with peers in the transition process and in general activities in school.