Education, Faculty of
Medicine, Faculty of
Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of
Pediatrics, Department of
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Michelle E. E. Bauer, Ildikó G. Kovacs & Ian Pike (19 Aug 2024): Monkey bars and medical masks: a photo-voice study of children’s playground safety in British Columbia, Canada, Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning
B.C. Injury Research and Prevention Unit
Bauer, Michelle E. E.
Kovacs, Ildikó G.
Pike, Ian, 1958-
Children’s perspectives on their outdoor play safety can provide unique insight into what activities and environments are injurious for them. In this study, we conducted photo-elicitation interviews with 13 children (7 girls, 6 boys) from low- to mid-income communities who were between the ages of 9- to 13-years-old. The goal of the study was to examine their perspectives of outdoor play safety around urban playgrounds over a two- week period while they participated in day camp activities. Our thematic content analysis resulted in three themes: (1) fear of falling; (2) illness prevention; and (3) need for excitement. Our findings suggest children’s perception of safe play may be shaped by exposure to sanitary practices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, findings demonstrate chil-dren can experience tensions in participating in desirable play that is exciting, novel, and challenging, while fearing they could fall from higher structures that afford them with these opportunities.
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttps://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=raol20Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor LearningISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/raol20Monkey bars and medical masks: a photo-voicestudy of children’s playground safety in BritishColumbia, CanadaMichelle E. E. Bauer, Ildikó G. Kovacs & Ian PikeTo cite this article: Michelle E. E. Bauer, Ildikó G. Kovacs & Ian Pike (19 Aug 2024):Monkey bars and medical masks: a photo-voice study of children’s playground safety inBritish Columbia, Canada, Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, DOI:10.1080/14729679.2024.2393133To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2024.2393133© 2024 The Author(s). Published by InformaUK Limited, trading as Taylor & FrancisGroup.Published online: 19 Aug 2024.Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark dataMonkey bars and medical masks: a photo-voice study of children’s playground safety in British Columbia, CanadaMichelle E. E. Bauer a, Ildikó G. Kovacs b and Ian Pike caDepartment of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Vancouver, Canada; bDepartment of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; cDepartment of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CanadaABSTRACTChildren’s perspectives on their outdoor play safety can provide unique insight into what activities and environments are injurious for them. In this study, we conducted photo-elicitation interviews with 13 children (7 girls, 6 boys) from low- to mid-income communities who were between the ages of 9- to 13-years-old. The goal of the study was to examine their perspectives of outdoor play safety around urban playgrounds over a two- week period while they participated in day camp activities. Our thematic content analysis resulted in three themes: (1) fear of falling; (2) illness prevention; and (3) need for excitement. Our findings suggest children’s perception of safe play may be shaped by exposure to sanitary practices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, findings demonstrate chil-dren can experience tensions in participating in desirable play that is exciting, novel, and challenging, while fearing they could fall from higher structures that afford them with these opportunities.ARTICLE HISTORY Received 26 February 2024 Accepted 30 July 2024 KEYWORDS Outdoors; risk; childhood; play; playgroundIntroductionWhile children’s outdoor play has historically consisted of unsupervised time with friends in natural environments (Valentine & McKendrck, 1997), in recent decades, it has largely taken place in adult- structured and -supervised environments such as playgrounds (Brunelle et al., 2016; Valentine, 2017). Researchers have posited that the era of free-range childhood, characterized by children’s sponta-neous and self-guided activities, may have ended (Kyttä et al., 2015). As a consequence, researchers fear children may have fewer opportunities to benefit from outdoor play that allows them to take healthy risks, where they can challenge themselves and experience excitement (Ball et al., 2019; Brussoni et al., 2015; Sandseter et al., 2017), while developing competency towards identifying and coping with safety threats (Gull et al., 2018; Lavrysen et al., 2017). Problematically, this can mean that children have fewer affordances for dynamic play where they are introduced to novel situations affording rich sensory experiences, and which encourage them to engage their cognitive and physical skills to overcome obstacles (Lavrysen et al., 2017; Sandseter et al., 2023). These experiences are developmentally important for children, as they are known to bolster children’s muscle strength and coordination as they jump, swing, and navigate uncertain terrain (Gurholt & Sanderud, 2016; Herrington & Brussoni, 2015), and they can positively shape children’s critical thinking and problem- solving capacities (Carr et al., 2017; Flannigan & Dietze, 2017).CONTACT Michelle E. E. Bauer Michelle.Bauer@bcchr.ca Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, 4500 Oak Street, Vancouver , BCV6H3V4, CanadaJOURNAL OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION AND OUTDOOR LEARNING https://doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2024.2393133© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.In response to the declines in children’s outdoor play and the restrictions to their risk-taking opportunities, researchers have encouraged the ongoing involvement of children in research to identify their safety and play needs, and to advocate for their rights to have voice and agency on topics concerning them (Jansson, 2015; Norðdahl & Einarsdóttir, 2015; Sahrakhiz et al., 2018). Children have a long history of having their voices excluded in safety and play research, and in developed nations, childhood has been societally positioned as a time of fragility and frailty, with adults perceiving children as in need of their supervision and guidance against safety threats (Clark & Dumas, 2020; Niehues et al., 2015). Adults can reinforce children’s dependency on their supervision and guidance when they gatekeep activities and environments in which children play, such as when they restrict where and for how long children are allowed to roam independently outdoors (Riazi et al., 2021), and when they use digital tracking applications to monitor children’s whereabouts (Riazi & Faulkner, 2018). Problematically, the belief that children should be dependent on adults for their protection from safety threats can strip children of their agency to decide for themselves what is threatening and how to navigate it according to their personal competency and needs (Brunelle et al., 2016; Lavrysen et al., 2017). Researchers have posited that working with children in safety and play scholarship can help identify potentially injurious activities and environments for them (Janik, 2023; Waite et al., 2013). The inclusion of child perspectives in health scholarship more broadly is especially needed given the recent intensification of child protection and adult demands on children for safety practices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The enforcement of medical mask wearing, social distancing, and ‘bubbled’ family play in Canada, where children were not permitted by adults to play with children in other households, may intensify child awareness of illness and ‘unsafe’ conditions for their health and well-being (Shaikh & Likhite, 2020). Further, exposure to safety protocols throughout the COVID-19 pandemic could contribute to the normalization of illness prevention procedures for children when exposed to out-of-home environments and activities (Li et al., 2021). Thus, it is possible that child perspectives on playground safety today compared to a pre-COVID era in Canada may reflect a strong inclination towards illness prevention practices.It is important to examine children’s perspectives on outdoor play safety in the environments they are known to frequent for play, and that are known to provide developmentally beneficial oppor-tunities for them, such as neighborhood playgrounds. The benefits playgrounds can provide to children are well documented: playgrounds can afford children with spaces and equipment that bolster the likelihood they will want to be physically active (Nielsen et al., 2012) and they can motivate children to spend time with friends and develop social skills (Amholt et al., 2022). Further, playgrounds, more than other outdoor play environments such as forests and streets, can be perceived by parents as a trusted and safer alternative for play due to the line-of-sight they typically provide parents to supervise their children, as well as the equipment construction designed for play (Pitsikali & Parnell, 2019). Playgrounds in urban neighborhoods, where there is a minimum popula-tion density of 400 people per square kilometre (Statistics Canada, 2019), can provide a designated space for play outdoors that may otherwise be unavailable due to motor vehicle traffic, commercia-lization of streets and buildings, and limited natural and green space (Winder, 2023). Not all children, however, reap the benefits that urban playgrounds can afford for their development. Playgrounds in low- and mid-income communities can instead represent a ‘landscape of inequity’ (Rigolon, 2016, p. 1) when children must navigate heavily trafficked streets with poor pedestrian infrastructure to access them, and/or when playground equipment is in disrepair or hazardous and could cause children to experience an injury. Findings from research in Australian low-income communities, for example, demonstrated that playgrounds in low-SES compared to high-SES communities can offer less shade for children which could subject them more to sunburns (Macpherson et al., 2010), while researchers such as Cradock et al. (2005) posited that, even with high perceptions of walkability in low- to mid-income communities, the play equipment children can access and can be broken and pose a safety threat to them (French et al., 2017). Exploring children’s perspectives on play and safety in urban playgrounds is thus paramount. To this end, in this study, we address the question, ‘What are children’s perspectives on their outdoor play safety in and around urban playgrounds?’2 M. E. E. BAUER ET AL.Theoretical approachTo inform our approach to this study, we employ tenets of social theory (Adam et al., 2000). Adams (2014) contends that children are highly relational and social beings, who can shape their behaviours and values around what they witness others experiencing and the information communicated to them. Childhood, for many children, can be perceived as a time for exploring the outdoor world and having freedom to choose how to behave while outdoors; however, it can also be perceived as a time to practice safety protocols to avoid being injured, so that they can become healthy adults. Adams (2014) summarizes how children can feel by suggesting child-hood is a time where they are ‘innocent and in need of protection at the same time as being out of control’ (p. 164). We thus use social theory to more critically examine how children’s perspec-tives on, and photographs of their outdoor play safety, may illuminate tensions they experience as both wanting to protect themselves from experiencing an injury, while also wanting to have fun and spend time with peers away from adult protocols for their behaviours. We further contemplate how children’s perspectives on, and photographs of their outdoor play safety, may be shaped by social and societal expectations of them to be injury conscious given recent intensifications in child risk-aversion in developed nations (Brussoni et al., 2015; Sandseter et al., 2020).We utilize the strengths of social theory to examine the language the children use relative to their experiences (Fairclough, 2000). To do this, we critically examine how the words, phrases, and ideas within the children’s perspectives and photographs illuminate their safety concerns and play pre-ferences. The use of social theory complemented our use of photo-voice in this research, as it provided a means to explore how safety, injury, and illness information and practices may be represented within photographs the children produced (Shaw, 2021). Photo-voice with children can help researchers understand children’s interpretations of their surroundings and their experi-ences, as children are provided with pre-established time to decide for themselves what image(s) is/ are important to capture relative to the topic (Shaw, 2021). The practice of choosing which features, structures, environments, people, and places more broadly, are important to represent can support children in feeling that they are taking an active and independent part in the research process (Abma & Schrijver, 2020). To this end, we were able to examine how social and societal safety and injury perspectives (e.g. adults being responsible for designing safe and developmentally friendly play-ground equipment) may shape or be captured within the children’s photographs. We also examined how others were positioned within the discussions and images (e.g. exploring why they captured an image of a friend sitting on the top of a high structure and told the first author ‘they could fall,’ and when they described the ways in which playground features could be improved to bolster feelings of safety). We evaluated how their play experiences were visually represented (e.g. natural features perceived as safe and represented through an image of a tree).MethodsThis study is part of a larger research project for The University of British Columbia, which was established in partnership with the Society for Children & Youth of BC and Thriving Kids Care Society, to explore children’s perspectives on their outdoor play, safety, and injuries. For more information on the larger study purposes, please see Bauer and Pike (2022). Research was approved by the University of British Columbia’s ethics board. As part of a two-week day camp curriculum at Thriving Kids Care Society, the first author was invited to interview the children during their free play time outdoors at three playgrounds less than a five-minute walk away from the camp. This invitation was extended by the director of Thriving Kids Care Society, who wished to complement educational curriculum during the safety themed weeks for the children with insight from local injury prevention researchers.JOURNAL OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION AND OUTDOOR LEARNING 3Participant demographicsWhile specific demographic information for each child is not available due to privacy of camp attendees, all of the participating children were between the ages of 9- and 13-years-old and resided in low- to mid-income neighbourhoods within transport distance from the day camp situated in Victoria-Fraserview, the community in which the camp and research took place. Victoria-Fraserview is an urban region in metropolitan Vancouver with the majority of residents proficient in speaking and understanding English, and a large proportion of residents speaking and understanding Mandarin. All children who attended the camp throughout the two weeks were asked if they wished to participate. Parent/guardian signatures and permissions were required for the children to parti-cipate. Of 20 camp attendees over a two-week period, 13 children (7 girls and 6 boys) participated. Some children did not wish to participate in the study and some children did but did not have a parent/guardian signature to participate. These children’s perspectives were not included in the study; however, these children were presented with opportunities to participate in photo-capturing exercises as a camp activity. Children were not explicitly asked why they were not participating to respect their right to privacy. Children and parents/guardians who indicated that they would like to be contacted after data collection took place were asked by the first author through email if they wanted to choose a pseudonym to include for the participating child if quotes from the child were used in manuscript development. Only one child and their parent/guardian wished to do so.Protocols and proceduresFour times per week for two weeks, the first author participated in camp activities with the children, including during their indoor educational sessions. Some of these activities involved speaking with them and camp staff about local injury prevention knowledge and statistics and sitting with camp staff when the children played on computers, colored, or shared stories. During outdoor time scheduled as part of daily activities, the first author walked with camp staff and the children to and from the playgrounds. The data was collected through unstructured photo-elicitation interviews (Clark-Ibáñez, 2004), which took place at multiple locations, including during the walks to and from the playgrounds and during line-ups (i.e. when children prepared to walk to-and-from playgrounds by lining up as a group in single file or side-by-side, applying sun lotion, and filling their water bottles), and at playgrounds behind or near public community schools. These interviews consisted of open-ended conversations with the children about the photographs they captured. The questions asked during the interviews related to the study topics (e.g. safety and injury); however, the format and phrasing of the questions changed for each child depending on what was captured (e.g. ’I see you took a photo of a climbing wall, why did you take that photo?’). The playgrounds had similar features consisting of sport courts (e.g. basketball nets and pavement), a grassy field, a few trees (less than 5), playground equipment (e.g. towers with monkey bars) with a climbing wall, bike storage areas, baby and older children swings, curvy and straight slides, wood chip surfaces, water fountains, and benches. One of the spaces had a stand-alone zip-line installed for children to swing on that did not lift children high above the ground (<2.5 feet from the ground for the smallest child observed on it by the first author).Photo-elicitation interviewsPhoto-elicitation interviews were selected as an appropriate method of data collection after con-versations with partners in the Society for Children & Youth of BC and the director of the camp. This method was considered more appropriate for facilitating naturally occurring and flexible conversa-tions with children about their social worlds compared to other methods, such as structured and semi-structured interviews (Clark-Ibáñez, 2004; Cooper, 2017). Further, this method provided a means to explore how children’s playground safety perspectives may relate to or be shaped by 4 M. E. E. BAUER ET AL.natural or man-made environmental features that guide their mobility, behaviour, and play choices (Hernawati & Meylani, 2023). The children had opportunities throughout this time to use an iPad to take photographs relating to prompts for the study. The camp staff identified that prompts were necessary to include in order to help guide children in taking photographs of specific themes related to the study goals. The prompts provided to the children were to take photographs of spaces, structures, features, objects, and environments that (1) could be dangerous; (2) promoted safety; (3) could cause them an injury; (4) were fun; and (5) could improve the space for play. The children were provided prompts at the start of the walk to the playgrounds from the main camp entrance and at the entrance of each playground before the free play time was allotted by the camp staff. Children were told they could approach the staff or researcher at any time to ask for clarification about the prompts or to discuss the study and their use of the iPads for photo-capturing. All of the participating children chose to use the iPads to take photographs. Prompts were supported through guiding information provided to each child upon taking an iPad. For example, when children had questions about what a ‘dangerous’ activity was considered to be by the researcher, the researcher would reply with, ‘Anything you consider it to be! Sometimes, people think it’s something that scares them, or something that is fun to them. You get to decide what it means to you.’ Children provided responses to probing questions about their photographs and perspectives when they showed the photographs to the researcher. Probing question examples asked to children included, ‘Why do you think that is something that could cause an injury?,’ ‘What about that makes it dangerous?,’ and ‘What would make it more fun?’ The interviews typically lasted between 10–30 minutes (as decided by the interest of the child).AnalysisTo analyze the data collected, we employed a thematic content analysis and completed steps to meaningfully identify themes as discussed by Vaismoradi et al. (2016). Our process of theme identification thus encompassed four stages: (1) initialization (e.g. comparing meaning in transcript excerpts and photographs); (2) construction (e.g. labelling the themes); (3) rectification (e.g. compar-ing the themes to broader knowledge on safe and dangerous play; and (4) finalization (e.g. under-standing how the themes relate to the overall portrait of the topic and what can contribute to new knowledge). We defined and evaluated theme as an organization of a group of codes with shared similarities within the interview and photograph content (Vaismoradi et al., 2013). For example, the theme of illness prevention being represented within interviews as medical masks being important for reducing the spread of viruses and feeling the play environment was safer, and a medical mask being captured in a photograph as a representation of safe play. To employ steps to this analysis, we first defined how we would categorize the data (Vaismoradi et al., 2016). We defined categories as groups of specific interest targets (e.g. injury, fear) that have clear and aligned connections to the study topic (i.e. safe outdoor play). Within our definitions of categories, we provided space to engage with tensions in participant perspectives and experiences. For example, we considered how the category of fear of falling may represent or not represent all children in our study by considering the differences in perspectives. Overall, our categories reflected consensus among the children on a given topic related to playground safety; however, within each category, we considered the scope of these perspectives and experiences. Further, we defined categories as those with the capability of organizing groups of codes found across the interview and photograph content (e.g. preventing falls). After familiarizing ourselves with these definitions, we familiarized ourselves with the photographs and transcript content by reading, re-reading, and comparing photographs and interviews. As part of this process, we reflected on how the features of each photograph related to the overall category defined (e.g. how fear of falling may be reflected in photographs captured from the perspective of a child high up on a playground structure). Further, we considered how these features were captured across the participant photographs. After considering how our first identified codes related to the topic, we discussed what these codes represented in terms of themes. We JOURNAL OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION AND OUTDOOR LEARNING 5developed initial themes that were descriptive and provided nuances to the children’s experiences within the topic (e.g. injury and illness prevention) and then revisited the themes to determine how best to provide nuanced meaning for them (e.g. fear of falling).ResultsAs a result of our analyses, we identified three themes: (1) fear of falling; (2) illness prevention; and (3) need for excitement.Fear of fallingWhen children described and took photographs of what they considered unsafe or potentially injurious play, all of the children captured environments or activities that could cause them to fall. This was because all of the children perceived ‘safe’ play as relating to the absence of injury, pain, and fear, while they considered ‘risk’ in play to represent a potential for injury to occur during exciting activities. Along this continuum, they associated ‘dangerous’ play with activities or environments that could cause them to withdraw from play completely due to an injury requiring adult interven-tion (e.g. falling on their head). They were concerned that a fall could cause them to experience pain, bruises, bleeding, broken bones, and more permanent or long-lasting damage. For example, Bryan drew attention to litter as potentially injury-inducing. He explained that it was important to ‘get rid of garbage and litter because we could step on it and hit our head on rocks [if we trip and fall].’ Although the children expressed they enjoyed the risk involved in climbing structures, where they benefitted from using their physical skills to maneuver equipment (e.g. climbing ladders) or features (e.g. tree branches) in ways that tested their competencies to grip, reach, and balance, the children were concerned by interacting with high structures or equipment that could cause them to lose stability and tumble, where they could not foresee a drop point or the edges to a structure. Examples they provided of activities and features in playgrounds that could cause them to fall and experience an injury were scaling climbing walls, climbing to the top of playground towers, walking across the top of monkey bars, swinging high and fast, and climbing branches in tall trees. The children positioned these experiences as either risky or dangerous depending on the individual skill of the child involved in play and the perception of likelihood that the fall would result in a very painful injury. To this end, children perceived as having more challenges attempting to climb a structure, who were engaged in activities associated with a high likelihood of falling, were perceived as engaged in more dangerous play. When Seb described what he finds dangerous, he said,If you jump off at the wrong time, like when you jump off when you’re high and fall on the cement . . . [if the floor is cement] you could break a bone, or break more bones . . . One time I fell off and my pinky bled . . . Trees [are] dangerous. . . the branches aren’t that stable for you to climb on.When responding to a prompt about dangerous play, Kylie described a time when she was injured from a fall and explained, ‘I was on the swing and then I fell down and I had a bad injury on my chin. And then I had to go to the children’s hospital.’ At one of the playgrounds, all of the children drew the researcher’s attention to the dangers of climbing and hanging from a bike rack that was in the shape of a big fish. Seb pointed at this structure and said, ‘If you were hanging upside down like this [on the bars] and then falling down—boink!’ The children said the structure looked fun to climb, despite knowing it was not designed for the purposes of playing on it, and they believed a fall from these bars could cause a head injury (Figure 1, ‘Bike rack in shape of fish,’ taken by Meghan). In this photograph and others captured of dangerous and injurious play, ground elements consisting of hard surfaces (e.g. cement, pavement, bricks, and gravel) were extensively featured beneath or around hard surfaces, with metal climbing features being featured more than other materials such as plastic and wood (Figure 2, ‘Swinging handles,’ taken by Sami). Further, the featured scope of the structures captured (e.g. width, length, shape) included the height of the structure to the ground (e.g. the 6 M. E. E. BAUER ET AL.distance between metal bars from which to hang and hard surface). Head injuries were described in detail by children as resulting from play that was not safe. Halle said, ‘Once, I fell off the playground and I went unconscious. I was playing grounders [a chasing game with friends] and I fell off the pole and hit my head.’ She believed that if monkey bars are shaped in ways that are deceiving (e.g. they look like they do not twist), children could experience a fall by playing on them. She explained,A lot of people, they know how to do monkey bars, but not that well. And they try to go on [them]. [It’s dangerous if] it doesn’t look like [the bars are] going to twist. So, if somebody goes on and then suddenly it starts twisting – [they can] fall, fall, fall.Meghan also drew attention to how certain structures or equipment could result in a greater likelihood of a child experiencing a fall. She described how she enjoys playing on a bridge connect-ing a slide and a tower that she and her friends run across on a playground; however, she believed the flooring of the rope bridge could cause a fall-related injury, because the material used for the bridge has gaps between the ropes. She explained,If you go through it, sometimes you could like kind of twist your foot on it . . . [The rope is] pretty narrow . . . I know that some people would go on top [of the railings instead to get across]. They could fall off.Michael took a photograph of his view from the top of a climbing feature and discussed the potential for a child to experience a fall from that height (Figure 3, ‘View from top of railing,’ taken by Michael).The children felt that play was safer when there were features or structures in place to mitigate the likelihood of them falling. When Nicholas was asked how to make the play spaces safer, he replied,I’d put a gate and bars to keep you from falling [around taller equipment] . . . Safety protocol sign. Chains because they help you hold on to a swing or a first aid kit in case you get hurt.Figure 1. Bike rack in shape of fish,’ taken by Meghan.JOURNAL OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION AND OUTDOOR LEARNING 7Meghan discussed what she and her friends perceived as safe at the play spaces they frequented. She explained,We find the slide is pretty safe. There’s not much danger to it. And you just slide down and basically that’s it. There’s nothing dangerous about it, I don’t think. I think it’s safe because there’s a railing on the side. It’s not like there’s nothing on the side to prevent them [from falling].The children thus perceived dangerous and potentially injurious play to consist of interacting with structures that could cause them to fall down and experience pain, head injuries, or hospitalizations, and dangerous and injurious play were largely represented through the capturing of metal climbing bars or playground structures (e.g. plastic towers) that were higher than their reach. The photo-graphs taken of dangerous and injurious features and environments thus represented play where there were a lack or scarcity of guardrails, soft surfaces, or netting that could prevent them from experiencing injury or pain as a result of a fall.Illness preventionWhen discussing their need for safety, the children’s discussions focused on the prevention practices they have towards illness. The playgrounds were perceived as safer when they afforded opportu-nities for them to engage in practices that would prevent them becoming ill before, during, or after they played, such as affording hand-washing or mask wearing opportunities to stop the spread of viruses and germs, sun screen to prevent sunburn and sun-related sickness, water fountains and bottle refilling stations so they would not get dehydrated, and having access to first aid kits. For example, Nicholas said that he felt safer during play when there was ‘[Access to] sun screen because it [can be] really hot outside.’ When prompted to take photographs of safe play in playgrounds, they commonly took photographs of medical masks, sun lotion containers, First Aid kits, and water bottles Figure 2. ‘Swinging handles,’ taken by Sami.8 M. E. E. BAUER ET AL.(Figure 4, ‘First Aid kit,’ taken by Amelia). When Bryan was asked what made him feel safe during play, he replied, ‘The mask because it keeps the germs away’ (Figure 5, ‘Medical mask,’ taken by Bryan). Similarly, Jonni described safe play as having access to ‘hand sanitizer because washing your hands keeps germs away.’ Children were especially deterred from playing in spaces they perceived as ‘dirty,’ such as when the grass and pavement were littered with a pair of discarded socks, soiled medical masks, or when the walls and fences were saturated with graffiti, with areas perceived as highly dirty considered to be more dangerous compared to areas where illness prevention practices were easily accessed. In the photographs capturing equipment that could prevent illness from occurring (e.g. water bottles and sun lotion), the equipment was typically the only object featured and was captured at a close range, with less importance placed on the background of the image or the related context and environment. The children tended to capture images of the equipment that was already stationary (e.g. was placed on a surface before they engaged in the photo-capturing exercise) or they made stationary for the purposes of the photograph (e.g. they decided to place it on a table). The stationary placement of the equipment was likely due to the objects being smaller and easier to handle to stage for the photograph.Water bottle refilling stations and water features were especially desirable to the children to prevent themselves from getting ill from dehydration and to cool themselves down when they were feeling too hot in the sun. For example, when Nicholas described ways to make play spaces safer, he replied, ‘First, you need water because you could get dehydrated. Second is a bench [to rest if you’re hot].’ Kylie said, ‘I would like the school to make the shower thing [to spray water at us]. It would be cool if there was a water bottle rack so you could put it there as you’re playing.’ Similarly, Beatrice stated, ‘I feel like there should be water fountains at playgrounds because when I don’t bring my water bottle, I get really thirsty.’ Of the three playgrounds, only one provided access to water fountains (Figure 6, ‘Water fountain,’ taken by Paul), a large water feature children could run through, Figure 3. ‘View from top of railing,’ taken by Michael.JOURNAL OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION AND OUTDOOR LEARNING 9and washrooms, and the children felt these features bolstered the safety of the playground. The children’s discussions and photographs of features and structures in playgrounds that prevent them from being dehydrated, burned by the sun, and exhausted demonstrate their association with safe and desirable play as play that bolsters their overall sense of well-being and healthfulness.Need for excitementThere was consensus among the children that there was a need to balance safety with oppor-tunities to play with and on dynamic features that elicit feelings of excitement. This exciting play was not associated with being unsafe or causing them pain or fear but was positioned as providing more challenge, thrill, and fun than safe play afforded, and was more closely asso-ciated with risky play. Excitement could be experienced by playing with and on features that were tailored to varying skill levels they had so that they could individually choose when and how to push their physical and cognitive capacities to challenge themselves. The majority of the children believed, for example, that playgrounds that only offer equipment for children of a specific age range (e.g. children below the age of 9) were boring. Kylie drew attention to the need for playgrounds to accommodate the needs of older children like herself to be more exciting:Most playgrounds I see nowadays have things for younger kids and they’re smaller and have things you could play with with your fingers. I think it would be more fun if there were more landscape structures. [There’s this company] that makes playgrounds - really big playgrounds with lots of big twisty slides and they have these hoops that you have to go through them without touching. It’s really fun. It would be really fun if they put a zipline [in all play spaces] because that’s something I really like. I especially like the ones where there’s actually a seat, because it feels like a roller coaster. And I like the wind pushing into my face. It would be fun for me.Figure 4. ‘First Aid kit,’ taken by Amelia.10 M. E. E. BAUER ET AL.Mireille distinguished between safe, unsafe, and exciting play by explaining that exciting play provided her with a feeling of control within an activity while simultaneously being challen-ging. She discussed how she tries to avoid play that makes her feel that she doesn’t have control:[I don’t like when] my stomach feels like it’s moving up and down. [My friends and I] call them the ‘airies.’ It’s like that on highways too. On the high way it feels even worst because I can’t stop it, we have to keep driving . . . I like [the zipline] when I can get off whenever I want. With the swings I want to go really high and then [the] higher it gets the longer it takes for it to stop so I get scared when that happens.The children associated exciting play with the use of dynamic and novel structures and equipment where they could test their physical skills. When Mireille explained what she would like to experience in every playground she said,Something different than just slides and climbing structures. I think they should have something more exciting. Like a see-saw. Something unusual that each playground has that’s different from the others.Some children indicated that when they do not feel there are opportunities to interact with dynamic features in play spaces, they create their own opportunities to experience excitement that can border on feeling the play is unsafe. Lianne discussed the potential differences between her own viewpoints on climbing trees compared to those of her parents:[My parents think] climbing a tree [is unsafe]. Because they think I could fall. But personally, I think it’s fun. [My friend and I,] we never [got seriously injured] – we got scraped a bit, a tiny cut, with the branches and the huge tree, like 20 feet tall. My parents saw that – they said ‘come on get down - are you hurt? Get down, get down!’ They think it’s scary for me . . . Personally, me, [something I’m] afraid of while playing would be a really, really high thing that could add risk of me falling down. Like right up there on the top [points to the tip of the tower roof connecting to the slide] it’s pretty scary, but I do it anyway for fun! But it’s actually pretty scary.Figure 5. ‘Medical mask,’ taken by Bryan.JOURNAL OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION AND OUTDOOR LEARNING 11SoyaSauce took a photograph of a tree that she likes to climb with her friends (Figure 7, ‘Tree,’ taken by SoyaSauce). When Lianne was asked if she thinks it’s important for play to be exciting, she replied,Yes, very important. That structure, that tiny climbing thing, it’s not really fun. You can just walk it. What I do is, see that curve, like curving up? I go on top of it and go on top of the house. The roof. That’s kind of more [real and not fake] climbing.Nicholas took a photograph of a climbing feature that was discussed by the children as being exciting (Figure 8, ‘Climbing feature,’ taken by George). Similar to the other photographs children captured of desirable play, dynamic features that afforded children with opportunities to swing, jump, and climb were featured (Figure 9, ‘Ladder,’ taken by Bryan), demonstrating the need children had for play on features and structures with which they could choose to test their physical (e.g. using their motor skills to grip and then swing their bodies from) and cognitive (e.g. assessing how far to swing, reach, or climb, while simultaneously forming strategies to mitigate the likelihood of them falling) competencies.DiscussionThe findings from this research have implications for the state of knowledge on children’s outdoor play safety in two ways: first, by reinforcing children’s capabilities of assessing their competency to identify safety threats and manage play-related injury risk; and second, by demonstrating children have a keen awareness for how adults shape playgrounds for them through the design of features, structures, and environments.The acknowledgement of children as active decision-makers and negotiators of their own safety and injury prevention is not novel; findings from research globally have demonstrated children’s Figure 6. ‘Water fountain,’ taken by Paul.12 M. E. E. BAUER ET AL.Figure 7. ‘Tree,’ taken by SoyaSauce.Figure 8. ‘Climbing feature,’ taken by George.JOURNAL OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION AND OUTDOOR LEARNING 13health consciousness, and their capacities to change their behaviours so as to improve their health and the health of those around them (Davó-Blanes & La Parra, 2013; Wakes & Beukes, 2012). Findings from our research support the notion that children are health- and risk-conscious in the ways that they assess their surroundings and evaluate whether or not an activity or environment could cause themselves or others to experience an injury. The children in our study actively took steps to avoid being injured during their play by assessing, for example, whether or not their use of climbing equipment could result in them falling, and they avoided play they determined could injure themselves or peers. Their discussions and the photographs they captured suggest that they have a strong inclination for wanting to experience excitement by interacting with dynamic and novel features (e.g. zip lines) that are unique to each play space, while also feeling that these features had proper safeguards in place, such as gates and bars, that would prevent them from falling. The importance children placed on having safeguards to prevent themselves from experiencing a fall may reflect the prioritization of children’s safety in developed nations, where although adults believe excitement and challenge can benefit children’s development, they may only support this play if they perceive it as not resulting in children experiencing serious injuries (Brussoni et al., 2015; Harper & Obee, 2021; Jelleyman et al., 2019).A wealth of research demonstrates the tensions in promoting exciting play for children while keeping them safe from perceived threats (Harper & Obee, 2021; Jelleyman et al., 2019). Societal tensions of wanting children to be safe and active were reflected in the children’s discussions and photographic content, which demonstrated their awareness of play that could cause them to be ill or experience an injury while they simultaneously sought opportunities to have fun, challenge their physical capabilities, and experience excitement. These tensions were present when they negotiated playing in ways that were not permitted by adults (e.g. playing in a tree with a friend when their mother told them to get down), and when they wanted to climb structures and features at the playground that they identified as exciting and potentially fall-inducing, such as climbing walls and Figure 9. ‘Ladder,’ taken by Bryan.14 M. E. E. BAUER ET AL.monkey bars. They navigated these tensions by assessing their own and their peers’ skills relative to an obstacle to determine whether or not they would experience an injury as a result of the activity. For example, in children’s discussions of potentially injurious structures and equipment on play-grounds, they would frequently discuss how deceiving elements (e.g. monkey bars that twist but look as if they remain the same and gaps between planks in climbing equipment) could cause other children to fall and be injured. They demonstrated an awareness for children having unique physical and cognitive skill sets that could shape whether or not the child was successful in navigating an obstacle safely.The children expressed a strong desire to feel in control of their play activities, including when they would be able to start and stop their activities easily on playground equipment such as swings. They believed play was safer when they had time before their activity to familiarize themselves with the playground features, to identify potential obstacles or challenges that they may need to navigate during play, and to determine whether or not they could be injured as a result of their attempts to navigate the challenge they perceived. It was unsurprising that the children wished to have control over when they started and stopped their activities and interactions with play features, and that they wanted time to assess the safety of their surroundings. R. C. Moore (2017) argued children can learn about their world through self-led experimentation and interactions with dynamic features and environments during play, and that this experimentation can take place through controlled decision- making concerning which play features are and are not desirable. Savina (2014) posited that children undergo conscious processes of self-regulation during play that involve internal dialogues about how to respond to the world for optimal benefits, including assessing what behaviours will result in feelings of happiness and what environments will afford them with opportunities to hone their physical skills. These processes of self-regulation involve children exercising effortful control by resisting their engagement in activities that they perceive as exciting to instead spend time contemplating if these activities could result in them feeling fearful, concerned, or anxious (Carr et al., 2017; Kochanska et al., 2000).Results from our study demonstrate that children attempt to mitigate the likelihood that they could experience an injury or become ill when they are engaged in play around or at their neighbourhood playgrounds. As children in our study were between the ages of 9- to 13-years- old, we posit that the children’s positioning of ‘safe’ play as involving the affordance to exercise illness and not just injury prevention practices may have been shaped by their engagement in safety practices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, children spent less time engaged in physical activity outdoors (McCormack et al., 2020; S. A. Moore et al., 2020), and they were exposed to public discourses positioning ‘safe’ play as involving activities with families away from peers and in environments where hygienic practices such as hand-washing and mask wearing were commonplace and encouraged (Chang et al., 2022; Tambling et al., 2021). We argue children’s illness prevention needs are important to address given global rises in childhood sedentary activity (Dunton et al., 2020; Kourti et al., 2021), and inequalities in children’s exposure to and harm from communicable diseases and unsanitary environments (Medgyesi et al., 2018; Samadzadeh, 2023). We further argue affording children with opportunities to engage in illness prevention practices near or at their local neighbourhood playgrounds, such as through the inclusion of bathroom hand-washing facilities and water bottle refilling stations, may make children feel more comfortable engaging in play with peers at playgrounds, mitigate the likelihood of them being exposed to viruses, and afford them with dynamic healthful development opportunities (Lavrysen et al., 2017; Sandseter et al., 2023). Importantly, we argue that it is necessary to provide children with opportunities to have control over when and how they engage in illness and injury prevention practices.We posit that when the children in our study felt they could exercise control over their play, such as through practices to prevent dehydration, apply sun lotion, and dispose of litter, play activities and the playground features and environments in which these activities were housed were perceived as safer and were more desirable to the children. Feeling in control of their play reassured the children that they would be able to reassess their JOURNAL OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION AND OUTDOOR LEARNING 15participation in activities or environments and stop their play if needed, such as in cases where they feel the play is no longer safe to experience (e.g. they cannot get down from a swing and are feeling sick or are afraid to fall and experience an injury). Thus, we posit that when children desire play with novel and dynamic features, they also seek these experiences in ways that are controllable to them (i.e. where they feel they have agency in managing the amount of participation they provide to the activity, and where they have the ability to withdraw their participation when they feel uncomfortable or uncertain about their well-being). Indeed, we suggest it may be the controllable and ‘safe’ nature of exciting play that provides rich developmental benefits for children, as they may be more likely to seek and sustain their engagement in play that requires them to jump, swing, balance, run, and climb, in new and invigorating ways that test their physical and cognitive skills.ConclusionWhile it is known that outdoor play is beneficial for children’s development, there is little under-standing for what safety threats children identify, and the strategies they use to prevent injuries from occurring. In this research, children shared their perspectives on outdoor play safety at urban play-grounds. These findings have important implications for how we think about a future for play space design that balances children’s safety with opportunities for them to experience challenge and excitement—namely, by identifying the need for playgrounds to provide children with environments and features where they can practice good sanitation and hygiene in clean environments, where children’s fear of falling is addressed through installment of railings and the incorporation of soft surfaces, and where children can interact with features and structures that provide them with opportunities to test their physical and cognitive skills while offering them control over their activity. We believe children’s engagement in safety practices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic shaped their perspectives on and attitudes towards ‘safe’ play as involving affordances for hand-washing and mask- wearing and resulted in a heightened awareness of potential virus and germ transmissions through interactions with unsanitary playground features. While these findings present important considera-tions for a future for exciting and safe play for children, we also posit that there is a need to address societal risk-aversion more broadly that can prevent children from feeling that they can challenge themselves and seek exciting play opportunities. We argue it is imperative to engage with more concentrated efforts in policy and research to advocate for children’s right to represent themselves and their communities by having their voices heard in civic and social discourses. This is because children can provide researchers with valuable insight into their risk awareness and assessment as they maneuver playground features and environments and utilise their spaces for play purposes.AcknowledgmentsWe would like to thank Vincent Chan from the Thriving Kids Care Society for their invitation to work with them.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).FundingThis work was supported by the first author’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada post-doctoral fellowship award under award number [#756-2021-0278].16 M. E. E. BAUER ET AL.Notes on contributorsDr. Michelle E. E. Bauer is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. She conducts research at the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit, and her research interests are in the areas of play, injury, and safety.Ildikó G. Kovacs is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Education, and she is a child & youth friendly communities program lead and planner at The Society for Children & Youth of BC, where she conducts research to understand social, environmental, and cultural factors shaping child and youth outdoor play, safety, health, and resilience.Dr. Ian Pike is the Co-Director for The Community Against Preventable Injuries, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, at the University of British Columbia, and a researcher at the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit. His research concentrates on the intersections of injury prevention and surveillance, family health, and evidence-based prevention strategies.ORCIDMichelle E. E. Bauer http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3732-0449Ildikó G. Kovacs http://orcid.org/0009-0000-2549-5829Ian Pike http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6860-7760ReferencesAbma, T. A., & Schrijver, J. 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Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Faculty
Postdoctoral
Graduate
Outdoors
risk
childhood
play
playground
Children and youth (0-19)
Injury policy and prevention
Monkey bars and medical masks : a photo-voice study of children’s playground safety in British Columbia, Canada
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