The first of its kind, this book offers ethnomethodological and conversation analytic studies of the social organization and situated local production of children's play and games. Departing from the approach common to educational practice, which asks what play might be for rather than what it is, Children's Play and Games focuses on how play is produced by its participants, advancing the view that since children themselves have the methods and resources to build and produce their play and games, analysts ought to concentrate on describing this methodology with reference to naturalistic data. With each chapter employing a framework and methodology from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to explore in detail a range of different instances of children's play and games, authors explore children's play and games, not in order to evaluate the games or theorise about their importance, but to understand them as organized accomplishments in themselves and to describe the methods which children use to achieve them. Including previously unpublished work of Harold Garfinkel, alongside leading research from scholars in the UK, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand this book will appeal to sociologists with interests in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, adult-child interaction and children's play, as well as those working in the fields of early years' development.

Author Biography

Carly Butler is Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at LoughboroughUniversity, UK and author of Talk and Social Interaction in the Playground. Susan Danby is Professor in the Department of Education at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.