Introduction: investing in the early years. 1. Psychology of freedom: Understanding children. Benefits of play. Free play at kindergarten. I play and I grow at playcentre. Teaching mothers and motherly teachers. Playway at school. Permissive messages to mothers. Parent campaigns -- 2. Psychology of disorder: (Dys)functional families. Working mothers and maternal deprivation. The backyard growth of childcare. Regulating childcare. Blaming mothers. Illegitimate solutions -- 3. Getting ahead: The problem with education for Maori children. Sylvia-Ashton Warner: the little ones . Maori children at preschool. Combating disadvantage with a head start. Revolution in learning. Te Kohanga: a chance to be equal Pt. 2. Challenge and constraint 1960s-1980s. 4. Politics of early childhood: The end of the feminine mystique. Children have rights too. Who gets to preschool? Liberating preschoolers. National constituency for early childhood. The year of the child: the world of the child -- 5. Demanding childcare: Campaign tactics. Attachment and separation. Activism and advocacy. Working women. Story of a recommendation -- 6. Working with children: Rocking the cradle. Career at playcentre. Brought to mind in family daycare. To teach in kindergarten. To work in childcare -- 7. Indigenous rights and minority issues: Maori self-determination. Te Kohanga Reo: outside the mainstream. Kura Kaupapa: transition to school. Early childhood responses. Pacific Islands early childhood centres Pt. 3. State interest and devolution 1980s-1990s. 8. Winds of reform: Political shifts. Against the odds. A foot in the door. Implementing before five. National directions. Parents as first teachers. The kindergarten flagship -- 9. Measures of quality: Quality discources. Who gets to preschool now? Weaving TE Whariki. Qualified to teach. After before five. Psychology of freedom -- Psychology of disorder -- Getting ahead -- Politics of early childhood -- Demanding childcare -- Working with children -- Indigenous rights & minority issues -- Winds of reform -- Measures of quality.

Playground Politics is the first book to look at the neglected middle years of childhood—from kindergarten to junior high—and to help parents understand the enormous emotional challenges these children are facing. In witty, vivid stories, Dr. Greenspan brings to life the major emotional milestones of these years, when children move from the shelter of the family to the harsh rivalries of ”playground politics,” and toward an independent self image. His empathy for the turmoil children bring home from school, and for the parents who try to help, is deep and reassuring.

Politics in the Playground is a lively account of early childhood education and care in postwar New Zealand. The provision of care and education for young New Zealand children expanded significantly after 1945. Whereas some 2,000 children were attending f

Galen Cranz surveys the rise of the park system from 1850 to the present through 4 stages - the pleasure ground, the reform park, the recreation facility and the open space system.

Digital Playgrounds explores the key developments, trends, debates, and controversies that have shaped children’s commercial digital play spaces over the past two decades. It argues that children’s online playgrounds, virtual worlds, and connected games are much more than mere sources of fun and diversion – they serve as the sites of complex negotiations of power between children, parents, developers, politicians, and other actors with a stake in determining what, how, and where children’s play unfolds. Through an innovative, transdisciplinary framework combining science and technology studies, critical communication studies, and children’s cultural studies, Digital Playgrounds focuses on the contents and contexts of actual technological artefacts as a necessary entry point for understanding the meanings and politics of children’s digital play. The discussion draws on several research studies on a wide range of digital playgrounds designed and marketed to children aged six to twelve years, revealing how various problematic tendencies prevent most digital play spaces from effectively supporting children’s culture, rights, and – ironically – play. Digital Playgrounds lays the groundwork for a critical reconsideration of how existing approaches might be used in the development of new regulation, as well as best practices for the industries involved in making children’s digital play spaces. In so doing, it argues that children’s online play spaces be reimagined as a crucial new form of public sphere in which children’s rights and digital citizenship must be prioritized.

A social history of cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia's ethnically diverse port cities, seen within the global context of the interwar era.

"Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play. Their songs and dance numbers served to advance the drama and reveal character, a sharp break from the past and the template on which all future musicals would be built. [This is a portrait of that creative partnership]"--Amazon.com

Pulitzer Prize Finalist Winner of the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize Winner of the Sharon Harris Book Award Finalist, Jefferson Davis Award of the American Civil War Museum Arlington National Cemetery is one of America’s most sacred shrines, a destination for millions who tour its grounds to honor the men and women of the armed forces who serve and sacrifice. It commemorates their heroism, yet it has always been a place of struggle over the meaning of honor and love of country. Once a showcase plantation, Arlington was transformed by the Civil War, first into a settlement for the once enslaved, and then into a memorial for Union dead. Later wars broadened its significance, as did the creation of its iconic monument to universal military sacrifice: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As Arlington took its place at the center of the American story, inclusion within its gates became a prerequisite for claims to national belonging. This deeply moving book reminds us that many brave patriots who fought for America abroad struggled to be recognized at home, and that remembering the past and reckoning with it do not always go hand in hand. “Perhaps it is cliché to observe that in the cities of the dead we find meaning for the living. But, as McElya has so gracefully shown, such a cliché is certainly fitting of Arlington.” —American Historical Review “A wonderful history of Arlington National Cemetery, detailing the political and emotional background to this high-profile burial ground.” —Choice

Who of us cannot remember the pain and humiliation of being rejected by our classmates? However thick-skinned or immune to such assaults we may become as adults, the memory of those early exclusions is as palpable to each of us today as it is common to human experience. We remember the uncertainty of separating from our home and entering school as strangers and, more than the relief of making friends, we recall the cruel moments of our own isolation as well as those children we knew were destined to remain strangers. In this book Vivian Paley employs a unique strategy to probe the moral dimensions of the classroom. She departs from her previous work by extending her analysis to children through the fifth grade, all the while weaving remarkable fairy tale into her narrative description. Paley introduces a new rule—“You can’t say you can’t play”—to her kindergarten classroom and solicits the opinions of older children regarding the fairness of such a rule. We hear from those who are rejected as well as those who do the rejecting. One child, objecting to the rule, says, “It will be fairer, but how are we going to have any fun?” Another child defends the principle of classroom bosses as a more benign way of excluding the unwanted. In a brilliant twist, Paley mixes fantasy and reality, and introduces a new voice into the debate: Magpie, a magical bird, who brings lonely people to a place where a full share of the sun is rightfully theirs. Myth and morality begin to proclaim the same message and the schoolhouse will be the crucible in which the new order is tried. A struggle ensues and even the Magpie stories cannot avoid the scrutiny of this merciless pack of social philosophers who will not be easily caught in a morality tale. You Can’t Say You Can’t Play speaks to some of our most deeply held beliefs. Is exclusivity part of human nature? Can we legislate fairness and still nurture creativity and individuality? Can children be freed from the habit of rejection? These are some of the questions. The answers are to be found in the words of Paley’s schoolchildren and in the wisdom of their teacher who respectfully listens to them.

Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children’s Literature offers multifaceted reflection on interdependences between children and adults as they engage in play in literary texts and in real life. This volume brings together international children’s literature scholars who each look at children’s texts as key vehicles of intergenerational play reflecting ideologies of childhood and as objects with which children and adults interact physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Each chapter applies a distinct theoretical approach to selected children’s texts, including individual and social play, constructive play, or play deprivation. This collection of essays constitutes a timely voice in the current discussion about the importance of children’s play and adults’ contribution to it vis-à-vis the increasing limitations of opportunities for children’s playful time in contemporary societies.