PRISM Journal PRISM Early View (2023) Playing social justice: How do early childhood teachers enact the right to play through resistance and subversion?

Abstract

In this paper we narrate how playful pedagogies can resist the single story of formalised learning discourses in early childhood education and care. According to Wood (2015), play is fundamental to learning and established in international literature. In addition, through international treaties, children have the right to play (OHCHR, 1989). Yet, in contemporary outcomes-driven policy, formalised teaching has become normalised. Play is thus marginalised and positioned as a privilege, rather than as a right. Here, we position play in relation to democracy, equity, and social justice, by storying how two teachers facilitate the right to play, and we argue this is a fruitful sub-context for resistance. From this perspective, teachers' resistances do not just enable play, they embody and enact representative and democratic justice. First, the teachers in our study story representative forms of social justice in moral and ethical terms. They describe making play happen as an embodiment of 'being the right thing'. Second, teachers enact democratic forms of social justice through resistance actions. Such actions are positioned as moral acts described as 'doing the right thing' but carry risks as they attract scrutiny that entangles an emotional vulnerability. Adopting alternative resistance positions shifts play beyond a privilege and creates spaces for social justice where time, space, and materiality have a role. We call on teachers, educators, and policymakers to deepen their critical awareness of the narrowness of a single story of learning and the rich relationships between rights and play agendas. We assert that teachers' resistances can enable playful pedagogies, and act as hopeful storytelling of social justice as serious play.

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PRISM Journal
PRISM Early View (2023)
https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.article714 1 © 2023 PRISM, ISSN: 2514-5347
Playing social justice: How do early childhood
teachers enact the right to play through
resistance and subversion?
Jo Albin-Clark,1 Nathan Archer2
1 Faculty of Education, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK (albinj@edgehill.ac.uk)
2 International Montessori Institute, Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University, UK
(n.j.archer@leedsbeckett.ac.uk)
Received: 18/08/2022
Accepted for publication: 25/09/2023
Published: 26/09/2023
Abstract
In this paper we narrate how playful pedagogies can resist the single story of formalised
learning discourses in early childhood education and care. According to Wood (2015),
play is fundamental to learning and established in international literature. In addition,
through international treaties, children have the right to play (OHCHR, 1989). Yet, in
contemporary outcomes-driven policy, formalised teaching has become normalised.
Play is thus marginalised and positioned as a privilege, rather than as a right. Here, we
position play in relation to democracy, equity, and social justice, by storying how two
teachers facilitate the right to play, and we argue this is a fruitful sub-context for
resistance. From this perspective, teachers’ resistances do not just enable play, they
embody and enact representative and democratic justice.
First, the teachers in our study story representative forms of social justice in moral and
ethical terms. They describe making play happen as an embodiment of ‘being the right
thing’. Second, teachers enact democratic forms of social justice through resistance
actions. Such actions are positioned as moral acts described as ‘doing the right thing’ but
carry risks as they attract scrutiny that entangles an emotional vulnerability. Adopting
alternative resistance positions shifts play beyond a privilege and creates spaces for
social justice where time, space, and materiality have a role. We call on teachers,
educators, and policymakers to deepen their critical awareness of the narrowness of a
single story of learning and the rich relationships between rights and play agendas. We
assert that teachers’ resistances can enable playful pedagogies, and act as hopeful
storytelling of social justice as serious play.
Keywords: Right to play; social justice; early childhood education and care; resistance and subversion

PRISM Journal
PRISM (2023)
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1. Introduction
Play is eroding
Young children’s entitlement to play in their
educational experience is undergoing erosion
(Lewis, 2017). In fact, children have been deprived
of self-initiated play for decades (Gray, 2020). It is
argued that, after the impact of global Covid 19
lockdowns, play matters because it aids social and
emotional recovery (Dodd et al, 2019). In play,
children learn through exploration and thus develop
knowledge about the world they inhabit (Souto-
Manning, 2017). On a broader scale, new forms of
relational ethics between children and the more-
than-human world are required when we consider
the unfolding environmental challenges (Taylor and
Pacini-Ketchabaw, 2019). When play is seen
through theories such as common worlds
1
, children
can be understood as living in a shared world rather
than simply as part of societies (Blaise et al., 2020).
Therefore, it is a matter of urgency that the
entitlement to play in Article 31 of the United
Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
(UNCRC) is not further neglected (Office for the High
Commissioner for Human Rights OHCHR, 1989;
Brooker and Woodhead, 2013).
Whilst a long tradition of international research
positions play as essential to early learning (Wood,
2015), there are tensions in translating play into
classroom practice. Scholars such as Moyles (2015)
found that playful pedagogies can defy the
orderliness of curricula. Furthermore,
accountability bodies frame teaching within
standards agendas that can side-line child-initiated
play (Wood, 2019). Thus, play occupies a contested
curriculum space where there is tension between
conceptions of early learning as ‘multimodal, multi-
sensory, and active, viewed holistically rather than
in a linear or compartmentalised way’ (Fairchild and
Kay, 2021, p. 1).
1
‘‘Common worlds' is a conceptual framework
developed to reconceptualise inclusion in early
childhood communities. Common worlds take account
of children's relations with all the others in their worlds -
The right to play and social justice
The position we take in this paper is that the right
to play is not just important to children’s learning,
but also fundamental to childhood itself (Brooker
and Woodhead, 2013; Sahlberg and Doyle, 2019).
Furthermore, because play is a right of children and
essential for their growth, it becomes a matter of
social justice that requires protection and defence
(Nicholson and Wisneski, 2017; OHCHR, 1989;
Souto-Manning, 2017). Play does essential work to
support children’s growing capabilities as learners
and their physical and mental development
(Brooker and Woodhead, 2013). Additionally, play
matters because it is a biological imperative that
does wider essential work for human flourishing in
supporting children to navigate friendships, solve
problems, and learn how to take control (Sahlberg
and Doyle, 2019). Thus, not only does play support
learning and personal development, but children
also directly experience matters of justice in their
play through learning to assert themselves and
about what is fair for themselves and others
(Nicholson and Wisneski, 2017; Souto-Manning,
2017).
Through play, children learn about their agency
and capabilities to; ‘rehearse and enact change, by
asking questions, developing community, and
standing up for fairness – which will later be
(re)named justice’ (Souto-Manning, 2017, p. 787).
Scholars such as Nicholson and Wisneski (2017)
assert that play requires protection and defence
because: ‘Without play, we are taking away their
most natural and therapeutic context to endure
(and resist, subvert, and reassemble) the injustices
we expose them to’ (Nicholson and Wisneski, 2017,
p. 789). Therefore, a central premise of our study is
the essential relationship between play and social
justice, and an interest in how teachers seek ways
to enable children’s entitlement and right to play.
Whilst it remains the case that children have
the right to play (OHCHR, 1989; Souto-
including the more-than-human others.’ (Taylor and
Giugni, 2012, p.108)

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Manning, 2017), this depends on an adult view
of children as capable holders of rights (Cassidy
et al., 2022). When play is positioned as a
privilege, it runs the risk of generating more
inequities as play opportunities are repressed
in the drive for standardisation (Souto-
Manning, 2017, pp. 785-787). When play is
positioned as a right, it can be seen in relation
to democracy, equity, and social justice,
because children relate to the world around
them through their play (Nicholson and
Wisneski, 2017).
Consequently, social justice and equity in
early childhood education and care (ECEC) are
directly related to play, yet enacting play
remains full of tension (Archer and Albin-Clark,
2022; Shimpi and Nicholson, 2014). Multiple
ideologies are associated with how social
justice is enacted (Atkins and Duckworth,
2019). Subsequently, play is a characteristic of
educational and social justice but remains
challenging in a contested policy space
(Nielson, 2019; Wong, 2013).
2. Aims of the paper
As accountability agendas cause educators
to seek practices that resist dominant
narratives (Moss, 2017), we enquire how the
marginalisation of play circumvents ‘rules of
the game’ (Duckworth, 2016, p.8). Our aim is
to illuminate how teachers resist formalisation
discourses to foreground the right to play.
Through this, we problematise the inventive
strategies that sidestep policy technologies,
that Osgood (2021) argues ‘contributes to the
public good through practices of worldly
justice’ (p. 171). Illuminating how resistances
disrupt policy demands can exemplify
pedagogical decision making in pushback
movements (Archer and Albin-Clark, 2022).
Resistance has been researched in ECEC
(Moss, 2017; 2019), but less is known about
how resistance and subversions are enacted
(Archer, 2021). Furthermore, Nicholson et al.
(2020) posit that leadership of social justice is
not explicit or critically examined in ECEC.
Thus, we exemplify how resistances that
foreground the right to play are experienced.
From there we trouble how far that has the
potential to be framed as a playfully serious
enactment of both educational and social
justice.
Firstly, we scope the literature on children’s
right to play, how play relates to democracy
and equity, then how educational resistances
are framed. Then we discuss our
methodological framing through different
theoretical perspectives. Finally, we offer two
overlapping positions on the implications of
resistances that promote the right to play as
social justice in motion.
3. Review of the literature
The right to play
Children’s right to play is recognised in the
global treaty of UNCRC (OHCHR, 1989; Lewis,
2017). Significantly, the right to play is an
innovative component because it acts as a
gateway to other rights related to health and
broader development (Davey and Lundy,
2011). Even though play is strongly associated
with many domains of learning and
development, governments do not take it
seriously and the status of play has suffered
(Brooker and Woodhead, 2013). Because play
is in the control of children, it troubles how
curriculum content is taught (Wood and
Hedges, 2016). In contemporary outcomes-
driven policy, adult-led formalised teaching
models present a normalisation of
‘schoolification’, in attempts to make children
‘school ready’ at the expense of child-initiated
play (Grieshaber and Ryan, 2018). Additionally,
play is disappearing from children’s home lives,
as parents feel the pull of structured time and
high achievements (Sahlberg and Doyle, 2019).
Consequently, play is effectively withheld from
children (Murray et al., 2019).

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Whilst children value their capacity to be
autonomous in their play, Colliver and Doel-
Mackaway (2021) state that this can be in
tension with how adults both define and
interpret play. Payà Rico and Bantulà Janot
(2021) go further: ‘Policies cannot be
developed in favour of children where play is
ignored’ (p. 279). As the value and status of
play is repressed within practice and research
itself, it repeatedly needs to be reasserted
(Archer and Albin-Clark, 2022; Rentzou et al.,
2018). Subsequently, when play is taken
seriously and considered essential to broader
domains, then time and space for children’s
play comes to the fore in policy making (Voce,
2015).
Arguably, as ECEC moves towards increasing
formalisation in the policy context of England,
play is marginalised within accountability
narratives (Cameron and Moss, 2020). Over
time, as play has been diminished in education,
a significant objective has not been realised as
achievement gaps between different socio-
economic groups remain largely unchanged
(Sahlberg and Doyle, 2019). As play is pushed
towards the periphery, it is repackaged as ‘if
time’ (Galbraith, 2022), conditional on children
first completing adult-led tasks. Tensions that
marginalise play derive from the prescriptive
nature of early education curricula (Anning,
2015). Further moves away from play are at
risk of creating pedagogies of ‘schoolification’
where numeracy and literacy are
foregrounded, and there is ‘a narrow arid
utterly predictable undertaking, devoid of
creativity, excitement, wonder and joy’
(Robert-Holmes and Moss, 2020, p.137).
Play and social justice
Play and social justice are related to each
other because of the important functions play
has for children’s overall learning, growth, and
personal development. Children learn about
what it means to belong and be included
through play (Wood, 2007). , directly connects
the right to play and children’s capabilities:
‘By ensuring that children have the
right to play, we ensure that they
engage in learning that unleashes their
infinite potential and capacity – to learn,
to grow, to get along, and to strive for
fairness and justice.’
Nicholson and Wisneski (2017) concur that
play supports children’s construction of
meaning in the world but go further; in
asserting that play is also a form of
intervention which can redress the negative
consequences of poverty and other inequities.
However, Wood (2007) argues that an
uncritical commitment to the efficacy of play
can…
‘militate against equality of
opportunity and equal access to
curriculum provision because some
children’s choices, needs and interests
are privileged over others’ (p. 314).
This suggests that it is paramount to apply a
critically reflexive teacher role to the inclusivity
of play. An exemplification of the association
between social justice and ECEC can be seen in
the history of free kindergartens in the
Australian city of Sydney, that were set up to
support families in poverty (Wong, 2013). The
kindergartens were designed as a socially just
endeavour in: ‘facilitating greater equity in the
distribution of resources, challenging
oppressive practices, supporting moral
development, and enacting children’s rights’
(Wong, 2013, p. 313).
Cameron and Moss (2020) associate the
values of ECEC with notions of equality,
democracy, and diversity. Moreover, the
discourses that are chosen to view play are an
ethical act as they foreground various
assumptions (Shimpi and Nicholson, 2014).
Nicholson and Wisneski (2017) identify that a
vital role of teacher educators is to position
social justice as interconnected with:
‘liberation, voice, equality, justice’ (p. 789).

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Social justice in ECEC has multiple meanings,
and Kessler and Swandener (2020) find Nancy
Fraser’s conception of social justice as three-
dimensional domains of recognition,
redistribution, and representation to be useful.
Representative and democratic forms of
justice are pertinent in enabling children to
access their rights (Kessler and Swandener,
2020).
However, having the right to play
recognised is not necessarily mobilised by
ECEC access (Press et al., 2021). Little access to
play is a social justice issue because it can
hinder children’s social, emotional, and
cognitive growth, according to Kroll (2017). In
a study of children from immigrant families in
Arizona, social justice is bound with the safety
to move and play (Maldonado, Swadener, and
Khaleesi, 2020). The right to play with non-
restrictive whole-body movement is crucial for
minoritised children. This is because their
movements are disciplined and perceived as a
threat outside of education (Maldonado,
Swadener and Khaleesi, 2020). When children
are continually told ‘we don’t have time to
play’, essential embodied experiences of
movement and touch become limited (Sapon-
Shevin, 2020, p. 133). An ECEC social justice
curriculum involves nurturing children who can
physically play, move, connect, and touch in
loving and caring cultures (Sapon-Shevin,
2020).
The right to play needs both protection and
defence. As Nicholson and Wisneski (2017)
argue, play is a form of therapy to ‘resist,
subvert, and reassemble’ the future injustices
that children will encounter (p. 789). Then
again, children’s real life play experiences are
explicitly entangled with consideration for the
world that children will inherit and share with
more-than-humans (Pacini-Ketchabaw and
Kummen, 2016). Osgood (2021) takes up
posthuman and feminist materialist theories
to look at how ECEC educators challenge social
injustices. An important way of noticing social
injustices, according to Osgood, is to attend to
how practices are interconnected with adults,
young children and materials, animals, things,
and more-than-human elements of spaces.
This requires an attentiveness to what is
important to young children by: ‘scaling down,
researching and thinking with minor players
outside of the main game’ (Taylor 2020, p.
340). Taking the needs of young children
seriously from the perspective of educational
justice, Nielsen (2019) concluded that play
becomes something ‘we owe each other’ (p.
465).
Although play and social justice are closely
associated (Nicholson and Wisneski, 2017;
Wong, 2013; Wood, 2007) play is non-
innocent. Play can reify deeply rooted
inequities related to race, sex, and class
(Nicholson and Wisneski, 2017). Souto-
Manning et al. (2019) maintain that education
reproduces inequalities for minority groups.
Play cultures require reflective and reflexive
practices and attending to what might be
unseen and undervalued (Nolan and Lamb,
2019, p. 218). Teachers being reflective about
play practices require the redevelopment of
both pedagogy and curriculum that attends to
the history, voice, and experience of children
in context (Agarwal-Rangnath, 2021, p. 197).
Play cultures that feature agency and
autonomy are wedded to discourses that
mobilise the right for children to have their
voice heard. Article 12 of the UNCRC (OHCHR,
1989) articulates the requirement for children
to express their thoughts and opinions. For our
youngest children, eliciting and facilitating
voice needs to account for context and the
individual child (Wall et al., 2019). Indeed,
educators’ capacities to nurture slower
listening cultures where voices can emerge are
at risk within systems driven by measurement
(Clark, 2020). Ball (2021) asserts that ECEC is
suffused with neoliberal modalities of,
‘visibility, accountability, transparency,
measurement, calculation, comparison,
evaluation, ratings, ranking, indicators,

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metrics, and indices’ that influence
interactions, decision making and are
eventually imbued in the values that
teachers instil in children’ (p. xvi).
It is the case that listening to children’s
voices requires a sophistication that
encompasses children’s ideas, thoughts, and
feelings (Robinson, 2021). Hence, the ethical
imperative of enabling play that can nurture
listening and voice are repositioned as a
serious responsibility of and for educators
(Souto-Manning, 2017).
In summary, the right to play does
fundamental work (Brooker and Woodhead,
2013; Sahlberg and Doyle, 2019). Not only
does it operate as a gateway for children in
accessing other rights related to health and
voice (Davey and Lundy, 2011; Robinson,
2021), it nurtures learning and the capacity to
get along with others in community to navigate
injustices (Nicholson and Wisneski, 2017).
Further, we concur that play supports
children’s construction of meaning in the
world (Nicholson and Wisneski, 2017); play
enables voice (Wall et al., 2019), and play
empowers children’s agency to resist injustices
(Sapon-Shevin, 2020). Because of this, our
position is that play is a matter of social justice
(Souto-Manning, 2017), and, for that reason,
needs policymakers and teachers to protect its
entitlement. In short, play cannot be ignored.
Early childhood education and resistance
There is, according to Moss (2019), an: ‘early
childhood resistance movement’, composed of
multiple individuals adopting a range of
perspectives, theories, and narratives – one
which: ‘occupies many different spaces finding
expression in many different forums’ (p. 23).
This resistance movement is characterised as
including those who choose to adopt
alternative paradigmatic positions to challenge
the dominant neoliberal discourses which
proliferate (Moss 2019). Such a movement,
whilst not formally co-ordinated, is united in its
challenge to the status quo, in its rejection of
multiple assumptions about children and the
work of early childhood education:
‘…it serves the valuable function of
sustaining those who want to refuse the
identity or subjectivity that the
dominant discourse… seeks to impose
on early childhood education and those
who work in it’ (Moss, 2019, p. 20).
ECEC resistance studies is a small but
growing body of research. Often predicated on
the contestability of neoliberal demands (Moss
2014), there is increasing interest in the
possibilities for resistance and refusal by early
educators (Archer, 2021; Albin-Clark and
Archer, 2022; Roberts-Holmes and Moss,
2021). Much of this resistance scholarship
takes an explicit social justice position, with
reconceptualist writers having increasingly
called for greater advocacy and social activism
in terms of both policy and practice (e.g., Bloch
et al., 2018). Mevawalla and Archer (2022)
detail studies in which activist-practitioners
and activist-scholars support agency and social
change for children, families, communities,
and fellow practitioners (e.g., Cannella et al.,
2016; Yelland and Frantz-Bentley, 2018).
The resistances detailed in the studies
reviewed by Mevawalla and Archer take
numerous forms. Both small and large-scale
actions can produce sites for hopeful and
flourishing pedagogies that can shift from
marginalisation to more active politicised
resistance (Albin-Clark and Archer, 2021).
However, small actions and implicit activisms
appear to proliferate in ECEC in which
everyday places for resistance are spaces
where marginalised agencies and voices can be
amplified (Horton and Kraftl, 2009; Albin-Clark,
2018). Additionally, less visible pockets of
resistance highlight actions taken ‘under the
radar’ to respond to policy demands (Archer
and Albin-Clark, 2022). Indeed, rather than
‘waiting for the revolution’, there is suggestion
of moves by educators towards resistance and

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‘narrativisation’ in local contexts (O’Loughlin,
2018, pp. 68-80). As such, educator resistances
are not always large-scale, collective, or
mobilised, but are often expressed through a
dispersed network of actors. Individual actions
include ‘micro resistances’ which are often
local, ‘quiet’ and less visible (Archer, 2021).
Motivations for everyday resistance in ECEC
are often grounded in ethical practice driven
by commitment to deconstruct taken-for-
granted assumptions and reconstruct practices
(Fenech et al., 2010). Such resistance manifests
when critically informed educators transform
or reshape their world through their actions
and disrupt singular notions of the educator’s
role and identity. Leafgren (2018) frames this
as ‘disobedient’ professionals engaging in
‘radical non-compliance’ (p. 187). Whilst there
is diversity within this resistance movement,
there appears little literature which draws on
empirical data in analysing and interrogating
how this resistance manifests in an early
childhood context. Such a gap in
understanding highlighted a space to further
explore this topic through the analysis of data
gathered in the authors’ studies.
4. Method
We came together as researchers with two
cases from separate studies (Albin-Clark, 2021;
2022c; Archer, 2020; 2021). What is common
to both case studies is a shared interest in how
ECEC educators make sense of their
experiences and enact forms of resistance. Our
research practices draw from two ontological
positions. We weave forms of interpretative
narrative inquiry and posthuman, feminist
materialist and ethico-onto-epistemologies
(Fox and Alldred, 2017) that also encompass
the non-human and more-than-human world.
In this paper, we employ narrative forms of
inquiry as a lens to view and inform both the
research processes and analysis. In the spirit of
experimenting with methodological processes,
we take inspiration from Koro-Ljungberg et
al.’s calls for:
‘…porous, fluid, and brut
methodological practices as a way to
adhere to movements of the unrefined
and leaky nature of childhood as well as
methodology’ (2020, p. 277).
The studies led by Albin-Clark (2018; 2021;
2022a) put to work posthuman, feminist
materialist theories to illuminate the agencies
of documentation practices (Strom et al.,
2020). Such theories bring attention to the
material-discursive relationalities between
play, resistance, and social justice (Lenz
Taguchi, 2010). Through Barad’s (2007) theory
of agency as something co-produced intra-
actively (rather than interactively) between
the human and non-human, the
documentation of children’s play looks beyond
the child and teacher. With this viewpoint, the
narrative account of play includes a wider
interpretation of what constitutes narrative
voice and takes account of imagery and
sensory data (Pink, 2015). As the theoretical
positioning looks beyond the human, the
enquiry considers other elements beyond
language (Mazzei and Jackson, 2017, p. 1090).
The studies led by Archer (2020, 2021) draw
on third space theory. Third space theory
commonly rejects modernist binaries,
including conventional agency/structure
dualisms, and explores hybrid spaces between
such binaries. A dictionary of critical theory
defines third space as: ‘A creative space
between the discourse or position of the ruling
subject and the discourse or position of the
subaltern subject’ (Buchanan, 2010, p. 468).
Previous research recognises the formation
of professional identities in education as a site
of struggle (Ball, 2003). However, Wang (2004)
perceives third space in generative terms, one
of ‘infinite possibilities’ (p. ix) and such
transformational potential offers an
affirmative perspective on this hybridity.
Indeed, third space would appear to be often

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described in terms of its productive power.
However, it is contended that third space is
also potentially a space of conflict, of
‘disruptive in-betweenness’ (Bhabha, 1994, p.
37). In the study by Archer (2020; 2021), third
space is interpreted theoretically and
conceptually as a space in which professional
identities are (re)formed; in a space where
institutional discourses meet personal
narratives. Therefore, narrative inquiry is
central to the ways we have thought with our
respective case studies. Additionally, both
studies involved institutional ethical approval
(University of Sheffield); ensuring compliance
with data security and storage. Participant
consent was gained and their anonymity,
confidentiality, and right to withdraw were
assured.
Narrative inquiry
‘…[T]elling stories is the primary way
we express what we know and who we
are… letting the story become larger
than an individual experience or an
individual life’ (Jeong-ee, 2016, p. 9).
The narrative turn(s) in the social sciences,
and specifically education research, challenged
traditional positivist paradigms that perceived
the nature of knowledge as objective, based on
universal laws and verifiable through reason
and logic. Narrative inquiry as an expression of
constructivism and interpretivism emphasises
the importance of particularity of narratives
(Bruner, 1990; Clandinin and Connelly, 2000).
Narratives are rooted in specific contexts,
socially constructed within a specific
sociocultural and historical moment. Following
Osgood’s call for further space to ‘hear the
stories’ (2012, p. 154) of early educators, this
research seeks to contribute to this field of
study into the experiences of those working in
early childhood.
Many stories
Stories are multiple, and, although there is
always more than one story, certain stories
come to dominate. The power of dominant
stories or dominant discourses (Foucault,
1991) means certain stories wield greater
influence and become known as master
narratives or power discourses. Presented as
natural, unquestionable, and inevitable, these
dominant discourses seek to impose what
Unger (2005) terms the ‘dictatorship of no
alternatives’. Bruner cautions against the
‘tyranny of a single story’ (2002, p. 103). This
sentiment is echoed by Adichie in her talk at
TED.com (2009) ‘The danger of a single story’
in which she suggests:
‘The single story creates stereotypes, and
the problem with stereotypes is not that they
are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They
make one story become the only story.’
In contemporary ECEC research, Moss
(2017; 2019) points to the power of dominant
discourses through ‘privileged channels of
communication’ (p. 6) and ‘in this way, through
such reinforcement, a story gathers
momentum and influence, becoming the
story…’ (pp. 6-7). Inspired by such writing,
these narrative inquiries intend to respect the
multiple narratives of numerous early
educators, as a counterbalance to the singular
(if seemingly shifting) policy narrative which
arguably marginalises play. In addition, we
experiment with bringing the non-human and
more-than-human relationality as part of the
multiplicity of storying.
Narratives and social justice
We approached the respective inquiries
with an awareness of links between narratives
and the potential for social justice. Whilst the
studies were not primarily driven by advocacy,
we would argue for the possibility that
narratives of lives lived may also speak truth to
power and may call into question the power of

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dominant discourses (and potentially
oppressive meta-narratives) and their
relationships to lived experiences.
The studies led by Albin-Clark (2021; 2022)
involved empirical data creation with the
documentation practices of teachers working
in one school, located in north-west England,
in an area of high social disadvantage, and a
largely mono-cultural population. The
documentation of play is from one participant,
Michelle (pseudonym), an experienced
teacher of three and four-year-old children,
with a senior management position – as Early
Years curriculum lead. Instead of data
collection, an experimental approach was
adopted with data creation. This involved
seeing the interview as an intraview (Kuntz and
Presnall, 2012; Petersen, 2014), to take
account of visual and sensory approaches
(Pink, 2015). Along with the documentation,
the more-than-human world of physical
movements, the embodied human
relationships and the materials, spaces, and
location were considered along with narrative
to ‘mess with images and text to keep meaning
on the move’ (Taylor and Gannon, 2018, p.
468).
The study led by Archer (2021) involved
empirical data collection through life story
interviews (n=16) with early childhood
educators from across England. These data
were synthesised and analysed using a Critical
Narrative Analysis framework (Rudman and
Aldrich, 2017). This framework deploys an
analytical process to interlink discourses and
narratives based on considering how a
participant positions themself within the
narrative and how these ways of positioning
relate to subjectivities constructed through
policy (Laliberte-Rudman and Aldrich, 2017, p.
475). This paper draws on data from a story by
Sophie (pseudonym).
What interested us in approaching this topic
was not necessarily expressions of explicitly
political perspectives (although these may, of
course, have been present), but how individual
narratives can reveal power dynamics which:
‘often function as the unsaid ligaments that
hold stories together’ (Andrews, 2020, p. 277).
This perspective of the interplay of power,
agency and subjectivities guided the research
which also entangled the more-than-human at
play.
5. Data Stories
‘Got to find a way to be the right thing and do
the right thing’
Our first data story (Albin-Clark, 2019)
examined the documentation of children who
were hanging and swinging in outdoor play.
There are four elements in the data story that
included a written description of the play with
photographs (Figure 1). The documentation
was then uploaded to Tapestry, which is a
proprietary on-line system that creates
observations and tracks curricula milestones.
In addition, the data story included an
intraview of the discussion of the
documentation with capture of the sensory,
non-verbal, and emotional more-than-human
elements.
What the documentation illustrates are the
benefits of play to later formalised skills
associated with writing, and a policy context
that requires tracking of learning progress. As
part of the documentation, Michelle’s
commentary brought attention to gross motor
skills and how they acted as precursors to later
fine motor skills involved in pencil grip for
writing. Along with defence of play, Michelle
was cognisant of how play supported multiple
domains of learning, from the social (Kroll,
2017), to the right to play through large
unrestricted physical movements (Maldonado,
Swadener, and Khaleesi, 2020). Here, play is
recognised as innovative in its capacity to act
as a gateway for other rights that combine
health and the right to education (Davey and
Lundy, 2011). Particularly frustrated non-

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verbal responses, such as raised voice, non-
verbal gestures, and changes in tone, swirled
around the emotional toll of warding off
regulatory scrutiny (e.g., ‘annoying’, ‘drive me
nuts’, ‘disgruntled’). With the protection and
defence of play came the emotions involved in
ensuring the right to play was not withheld
(Archer and Albin-Clark, 2022; Murray,
Swadener and Smith, 2019; Nicholson and
Wisneski, 2017).
Figure 1. Michelle’s Documentation
Whilst Michelle positions play as a serious
endeavour, she anticipated how non-
compliance (Leafgren, 2018) to normalised
practices might attract scrutiny. The need to
justify informal learning echoes how the status
of play has suffered (Brooker and Woodhead,
2013). To prepare herself for scrutiny,
Michelle created documentation of ‘imaginary
children’ – rather than named children – so
Michelle’s documentation
Michelle’s written commentary on the
documentation
‘This week lots of us were interested in hanging
and swinging, this is great exercise and really helps to
develop core strength which in turn helps with the
development of writing later on. XX and XX started
the idea of dangling from the beam of the little shed
with XX joining too, xx followed on using the same
idea. Meanwhile XX were using a piece of fabric over
the branch of a tree to dangle and swing. We tested
its strength first (with Mrs XX dangling from it!) and
we had to watch carefully to look for signs of the
branch breaking, we had a great time with XX saying
‘It’s like I’m flying’.
Michelle and Jo intraview discussing the
documentation
‘In accountability, well you know one of the
things that drive me nuts is there nobody in
the school really cares what you do. Until such
a time as Ofsted are in.’
[Voice getting louder, speaking quickly,
urgently].
‘This is annoying me, really I'm feeling a bit
disgruntled…So I was like ok you want to know
what we do about phonics? I'll show you what
we do about phonics…’ [shaking head,
speaking as if in confrontation.]
‘So this is our imaginary child called phonics.
...This is what phonics looks like ...Well nobody
asked me again.’ [hand gestures,
exasperation.]
‘You got to play the game haven't you…Got
to find a way to be the right thing and do the
right thing, haven't you. We've got great
writing. We have got 53% summer birthdays
this year and the handwriting is lovely, going
up. But it's lovely because we've done it in the
right way. Do you know what I mean?’ [asking
question to me.]

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they can be reused, in subsequent years, when
questioned by school subject co-ordinators in
an imagined future:
‘In accountability, well, you know one
of the things that drive me nuts is there’s
nobody in the school really cares what
you do. Until such a time as Ofsted are
in’ (Michelle).
Through visualising child-initiated, whole
body, physical play, instead of more informal
approaches, Michelle rejected pedagogies of
‘schoolification’ (Roberts-Holmes and Moss,
2021). With unconventional materials, and the
risky nature of outdoor play, Michelle
celebrated children’s play ideas that could
have been marginalised. Such actions model
practice and play values that; ‘resist, subvert,
and reassemble’, which could enable children
to mitigate future injustices (Nicholson and
Wisneski, 2017, p. 789).
Because outdoor play is associated with
child-initiated play (Maynard et al., 2013),
Michelle’s documentation takes children's
viewpoints through their non-verbal and
physical cues. Such forms of listening
represent a sophisticated conceptualisation of
child voice that can support children’s right to
have their views taken seriously (Robinson,
2021).
The right to play as an act of social justice
shimmered through one particular set of
statements:
‘You got to play the game haven't you…Got
to find a way to be the right thing and do the
right thing, haven't you. We've got great
writing, we have got 53% summer birthdays
this year and the handwriting is lovely, going
up. But it's lovely because we've done it in the
right way, do you know what I mean?’
(Michelle).
Here, Michelle is prescient of the tensions
inherent in a contested policy space by
articulating assessment as a game to be played
(Albin-Clark, 2021; Fairchild and Kay, 2020;
Basford and Bath, 2014). Within the phrase
‘But it's lovely because we've done it in the
right way, do you know what I mean?’
(Michelle), ‘right’ can be read in multiple ways.
‘Right’ is connected to the right to play; a form
of compliance; or as a moral signifier of actions
that align with values associated with the non-
negotiation of play. This echoed Souto-
Manning's (2017) declaration that, if play is
withheld from children, it is tantamount to
denying their right to childhood itself.
‘I knew I was doing the right thing’
The second data story (Archer, 2020) is
derived from an interview with Sophie. Newly
Qualified Teacher Sophie had recently joined a
school (in the South of England) to lead the
Reception class.
Sophie described finding her pedagogical
decisions criticised by some school colleagues.
Her plans for prioritising loose parts play
outdoors were met with disapproval, but,
nonetheless, these views remained important
to her. However, whilst Sophie’s actions in
arguing for these resources demonstrate her
agency, tenacity and bravery in her
convictions, she also identified the
repercussions of this, in terms of feeling
isolated:
‘It was an emotional time as well
because I knew I was doing the right
thing, but it can be very lonely in a one
form entry school. The tyres and
drainpipes are back though!’ (Sophie).
Sophie’s narrative, in which she contested
the school culture on what was deemed
appropriate resources, is a further example of
ethical practice as a resistance. Sophie’s beliefs
in the loose parts provision outdoors, and her
insistence on the pedagogical affordances of
these resources, were met with disapproval by
colleagues. Despite these micro level

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pressures, Sophie retained a sense of what she
believed was ethical practice:
Interviewer: So, advocating for play
sounds as if it has been a big part of your
story here. So where did the motivation
for that come from?
Figure 2. Sophie’s Documentation
Sophie (Reception Teacher) describes
the challenge of introducing ‘loose
parts’2 outdoor play.
‘…When I arrived I was brought in to
change my classroom, to bring play into
the class, it wasn’t revolutionary as EYFS
has been around for a long time. I didn’t
think my ideas were different from what
many other practitioners are doing, but
in my school it was not understood.
‘So I had to teach my TAs [teaching assistants]
who were on board. The teacher that had been
working in Reception felt extremely
uncomfortable and I took lots of advice from the
Early years team at the local authority and they
said ‘just keep focussing on what good early
years practice is.
‘But then I received this feedback from the
teacher: ‘If that is good early years practice,
what was I doing?!’ I brought in tyres and
drainpipes and was told to take them away by
the office staff, and it was a real challenge. But
actually, there were times when I was taken into
the head’s office and was told ‘you are doing a
great job, don’t worry about this person, that
person’. TAs who weren’t even in my class had
an opinion on what I was doing and that the
children wouldn’t learn as well…’.
Sophie: I knew I was right! All of my training,
experience, and belief system is about play. Children
not sitting at tables with identical books...Everything
I changed, the office staff had something to say about
it, the TAs had something to say about it. And that
was wearing, it for these opportunities as a right for
all was hard, but I had to stick to my guns because
that was what I had been brought in to do.
Interviewer: So what sustained you through that
period?
Sophie: I’m quite stubborn! I think just in my
beliefs. I really believe in play and outdoor learning. I
know I’m not perfect, but I am always learning…
2
‘Loose parts’ are simple, everyday objects. These
resources are open-ended; children may use them in
Sophie draws on her ‘belief system’ and
maintains a commitment to her planned outdoor
provision. She resists the critique from colleagues
and expresses responsibility children. Sophie
challenged demands on her practice with an
ethical response. This narrative demonstrates the
power of ‘no’, as a ‘resistance-based
professionalism’ (Fenech et al., 2010, p. 89). As
Fenech et al. (2010) comment:
‘…resistance is grounded in ethical
practice that is driven by an intentional
commitment to continually deconstruct
taken-for-granted truths and
reconstruct practices’ (p. 92).
many ways and combine with other loose parts through
imagination and creativity.

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Such resistance to school culture and
managerial demands is based in ethical
practice operating beyond external demands
and reflects analysis by Leafgren (2018) whose
‘disobedient’ professionals engage in ‘radical
noncompliance’. Leafgren calls for
‘reimagining school spaces as spaces of joy,
generosity, and justice; of creative
maladjustments in the face of mundane
mandates’ (p. 187). Such a finding also
resonates with an earlier study of early
childhood educators in New Zealand (Warren,
2014) which concludes: ‘critical
professionalism and a critical ecology depend
on teachers’ self-efficacy to assert social
justice values and beliefs....’ (p. 134).
6. Discussion
The right to play and social justice are
implicitly and explicitly woven through both
narratives, as discussed above. Explicitly,
children’s right to whole body movements in a
physical and emotionally safe environment
became visible, and Maldonado et al., (2020)
assert this is bound with social justice.
However, what is also at work are hidden and
implicit actions that involve recognising,
embodying, observing, facilitating, protecting,
and documenting play with ‘being’ and ‘doing’
the ‘right thing’ (Archer and Albin-Clark, 2022).
The word and meaning of ‘right’ loomed large
in both narratives. As such, the right to play is
something a teacher embodies and actions.
Hence, social justice is exemplified through
ECEC pedagogical leadership that Nicholson et
al. (2020) claim is lacking in research.
In the discussion we take two overlapping
positions that exemplify representative and
democratic justice entangled with children’s
access to rights (Kessler and Swandener,
2020). Firstly, we propose that teachers create
representative forms of social justice in
promoting the right to play by making play
happen and articulate this as essential to their
professional embodiment as ‘being the right
thing’. Secondly, teachers manifest democratic
forms of social justice through resistance
actions of ‘doing the right thing’ where
movements of social justice become visible
through an emotional vulnerability to scrutiny.
Position 1: Being the right thing by making
play happen as a representative form of
justice
Our first position is that teachers who
foreground the right to play mobilise
representative forms of justice (Kessler and
Swandener, 2020). Because children make
decisions in play, their ideas, thoughts, and
points of view are represented. Facilitating the
right to play seems to be integral to
professional identities and has moral, and
ethical, dimensions for both narratives. It is
especially interesting that the phrase ‘being
the right thing’ appeared in both narratives.
Such language echoes Sapon-Shevin (2020)
findings that an ECEC social justice curriculum
involves playful physical movements. We
argue that making play happens in lively
relationships between children, space, time,
and things. It involves attending to what
interests and motivates children, exemplified
in Michelle taking her children’s risky physical
play respectfully and Sophie’s determination
to bring play into practice as a newly qualified
teacher.
At times, making play happen can be hidden
and resistances framed as implicit activisms
(Horton and Kraftl, 2009) and small-scale
(Albin-Clark and Archer 2021; Archer, 2021).
Yet, play went beyond the modest. Therefore,
we build on the work of Horton and Kraftl
(2009) to offer exemplification of movements
from implicit activism to what is a more explicit
activism. In positioning resistance to
formalisation, our discussion tells alternatives
to the single story (Adichie, 2009). When play
becomes large in scale and outdoors, it
becomes more visible. We argue this is an

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explicit activism that characterises the right to
play as an act of social justice (Nicholson and
Wisneski, 2017).
In addition, the right to play as an act of
social justice involves low-cost, open-ended,
and sustainable materials. This is seen in
Michelle’s and Sophie’s schools: through
access to outdoor spaces, with materials such
as drainpipes, bread crates, and lengths of
fabric. As well as being sustainable, the
outdoor environment can encourage whole
body play that embraces spontaneous, child-
led experiences. As such, making the right to
play happen can be seen as unconventional in
approach, location, and materials. This can be
contrary to school cultures where formalised
practices are assigned greater value. Access to
large scale movements is prescient as children
may have experienced limited access to
outdoors during Covid-19 lockdowns.
Furthermore, the freedom to move can be
related to social justice when some children’s
movements are policed outside schooling
(Souto-Manning, 2017).
Thus, making play happen involves space,
time, and a whole host of materials (Albin-
Clark, 2022b). Drawing from posthuman and
feminist materialist theories the non-human
actants come into view (Lenz Taguchi, 2010).
The human world of children and teachers
acted in relation to the non-human world of
the tree branch, the stretched fabric,
drainpipes, tyres, unencumbered space, time
made for child-initiated play, the camera, and
the material of the documentation. With
posthuman and feminist materialist
theoretical lens, space and materials can be
understood as performative agents (Albin-
Clark, 2021). The relationality in-between the
human and non-human world are all at work
and at play in ‘being the right thing’.
Position 2: Doing the right thing in making
play happen as a democratic form of social
justice
Our second position illustrates democratic
forms of social justice in making play happen
through enacting resistance movements of
‘doing the right thing’. Democratic behaviours
are associated with democratic forms of social
justice (Kessler and Swandener, 2020), and
both teachers’ non-compliance to more
formalised learning exemplifies such
behaviours. They resist and are a ‘disobedient’
professional (Leafgren, 2018) in order to
enable children’s access to their right to play.
When play becomes visible, it invites
scrutiny and questioning from colleagues that
troubles the value and status of play (Brooker
and Woodhead, 2013). When play is queried, it
suggests play is a privilege rather than a right
of children (Souto-Manning, 2017). This might
be related to the fact that outdoor play does
not always resemble normalised teaching.
Grieshaber and Ryan (2018) posit that
‘schoolification’ marginalises child-initiated
play. Play on a large scale cannot be hidden
behind classroom doors. In play, learning is
related to richer domains of learning, directed
by children, and can involve large-scale whole-
body movements that are inherently
unpredictable, messy, and spontaneous. Such
models of learning where control is in
children’s hands trouble the predictability of
how the content of curricula is related to
teaching (Wood and Hedges, 2016).
Scrutiny of the right to play brought
vulnerability to Sophie and Michelle. Doing the
‘right thing’ involves ethical motivations for
deconstructing taken for granted practices
(Fenech et al., 2010) through resistances and
those efforts enfold an emotional toll.
Emotions can have a role to play in mobilising
activisms (Albin-Clark, 2018; 2020; Archer,
2021). Both teachers navigate an unwelcome
terrain of emotional labour that suggests some
of the tensions involved in acts of social justice.
Both teachers are resisting more
conventional discourses associated with
learning in the way they put the material world

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to work. If we soften the gaze to the
relationality in-between the human and non-
human, it becomes possible to sense the
material-discursive at work. Theorists such as
Barad (2007) consider that discursive
practices, materiality, and matter of the world
are in relation, rather than separate from each
other (cited in Levy et al., 2016). So, in both
narratives, the materiality bound up with
making play happen can be associated with
discourses that value play (Chesworth, 2019).
In this way, the materials or ‘stuff’ of play
becomes part of making play happen (Archer,
2022b).
Moreover, the outdoor play experiences
that both teachers created support social
justice through resistance practices by
challenging and being non-compliant. When
learning is framed as playful, active, outdoor,
and child-directed, it challenges formalised
learning (Cameron and Moss, 2020). Wong
(2013) argues that ECEC is well placed to
support social justice by challenging practices
and enabling children to access their rights.
Secondly, allowing children to access their
right to play by forms of non-compliance
characterises what Leafgren (2018) terms the
‘disobedient’ professional.
As such, Michelle and Sophie both resist and
subvert pressures, scrutiny, and colleague
expectations to make play happen, and
demonstrate how play is implicated with
concerns of justice (Nicholson and Wisneski,
2017). In doing so, it is possible to see how
social justice is alive and well, in how teachers
resist and subvert. In essence, we extend and
exemplify Kessler and Swandener (2020)
associations with ECEC and social justice by
asserting that teachers enact and embody the
right to play as representative and democratic
social justice movements.
7. Implications
In our study we draw on the two data stories
to position the right to play as representative
and democratic forms of educational justice
(Kessler and Swandener, 2020; Nielsen, 2019).
Furthermore, the ways in which both teachers
took seriously the need to protect children’s
access to play and the equitable provision of
resources, suggests how fundamental play is
positioned in their practice (Brooker and
Woodhead, 2013; Sahlberg and Doyle, 2019).
In addition, the defence of children’s play
illuminates how imperative play is deemed by
ECEC teachers, in ways that Nicholson and
Wisneski (2017) assert can act as a
fundamental way to endure injustices. In
exploring teacher subversions to formalised
learning, we offer articulations of how ECEC
resistances are enacted that directly mobilise
the right to play as an act of social justice
(Archer, 2021; Moss, 2017, 2019). We argue
that, because both teachers were critically
reflexive in their play practices, they enabled
children’s right to play.
In summary, we need to further
problematise the implications and risks of
mobilising play (Shimpi and Nicholson, 2014).
Making play happen needs a critical awareness
of the relationship between rights and play
agendas and the tensions involved navigating
the value of play in the complexity of ECEC
(Wong, 2013). Saying ‘no’ to play’s
marginalisation brings teachers into a
professionalism founded on resistance
(Fenech et al, 2010). Professionality and ethics
conflate when the duty to encourage play is
upheld (Souto-Manning, 2017). Both teachers
pushed back to exert control by positioning
children as capable holders of rights (Cassidy et
al., 2022). But scrutiny brings emotional costs
(Albin-Clark, 2018) when implicit activism
(Horton and Kraftl, 2009) becomes explicit. The
visibility of resistance movements in our
teacher narratives moved beyond the small-
scale (Albin-Clark, 2020; Albin-Clark and
Archer, 2021; Archer, 2021; Archer and Archer,

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2022). Enacting and embodying the right to
play in more visible ways becomes more
problematic in practice, illustrating the
multiple ideologies of social justice (Atkins and
Duckworth, 2019).
Making play happen involves outdoor, large-
scale physical activity in our narratives.
Managing such play can be time-consuming,
resource heavy and needs inventive
timetables, access, space, and staffing – all
daunting prospects in a pervading culture that
does not take play seriously (Brooker and
Woodhead, 2013). The scale and visibility of
play attracts attention in heavily contested
policy spaces (Fairchild and Kay, 2021). Thus, it
requires articulation of how play benefits
learning through curriculum frames, which is
complex when the concept is suffused with
ambiguities. Additionally, play lacks coherence
in curriculum policy and is vulnerable to
accountability narratives (Colliver and Doel-
Mackaway, 2021).
Making play happen not only facilitates
children’s right to play, but also recognises the
vitality and invitation of the more-than-human
world of time, space, and materials (Albin-
Clark, 2022b). Time and space for play can
nurture slower pedagogies (Clark, 2018).
Observing and supporting child-led play can
enculture sophisticated understandings of
how a child's voice is expressed. Listening in
these broader frames contributes towards
Article 12 of the UNCRC that acknowledges the
entitlement of children to have their views
taken seriously (Robinson, 2021). Playful
explorations can catalyse children’s theorising
and knowledge of the world that they inhabit
and will inherit (Souto-Manning, 2017). It
matters that children are viewed as living in a
shared world (Blaise et al. 2020). Through play,
children learn how to be resistant and this
matters in future worlds rife with inequity
(Nicholson and Wisneski, 2017).
Our conclusion is that play is not a privilege,
but a right enshrined in the UNCRC as
expressed by scholars such as Souto-Manning
(2017). Lack of access to play is a social justice
issue as it impedes social, emotional, and
cognitive skills (Kroll, 2017). Play remains an
urgent concern, it cannot afford to be further
neglected and marginalised as ‘if time’
(Brooker and Woodhead, 2013; Galbraith,
2022). Play is less present in children's homes
as parents feel the draw of organised time
(Sahlberg and Doyle, 2019). To withhold play
denies children their childhood, and play is
needed more than ever with recent pandemic
lockdowns (Dodd et al, 2021; Souto-Manning,
2017).
Now is the time to acknowledge and amplify
resistances that promote the right to play. But
there are risks involved with non-compliance
being a ‘disobedient’ professional (Leafgren,
2018) that trouble how curriculum content is
taught (Wood and Hedges, 2016). We need
more than one story of learning; single stories
are only ever partial (Adichie, 2009). ECEC
resistance movements need occupation and
expression (Moss, 2019). Stories require telling
from the ‘minor players outside of the main
game’ (Taylor 2020, p.340). Voices of teachers,
children, and families must be added into
resistance spaces to counteract a ‘dictatorship
of no alternatives’ (Unger, 2005, p. 1). Telling
hopeful stories of play offers counter-
narratives to the normalisation of
‘schoolification’ (Grieshaber and Ryan, 2018).
We encourage educators to network with
other ‘disobedient’ professionals (Leafgren,
2018). Adopting alternative resistance
positions can shift the perspective of play as
more than a privilege and in doing so create
transformational spaces where game rules are
no longer accepted (Duckworth, 2016). The
more-than-human world of materials, space
and time are agentive in play and therefore our
resistance movements need to be mindful of
their contribution (Albin-Clark, 2022b). From
this position, teachers’ resistances and
subversions do not just enable playful
pedagogies, they embody and enact

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representative and democratic justice (Kessler
and Swandener, 2020; Nielsen, 2019).
Moreover, children’s access to and inclusion in
play is positioned as a moral imperative by
both teachers, which suggests how seriously
the right to play is positioned (Nicholson and
Wisneski, 2017; Wood, 2007). Social justice
needs serious play.
8. Disclosure statement
There are no conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
9. Acknowledgments
With sincere thanks to the teachers who
participated in the studies for sharing their time
and experiences.
11. Open Access Policy
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