Politicizing Children's ' s Play A Community Photovoice Process to Transform a School Playground

Importance: Contextual elements at school playgrounds compromise the right to play. An occupation-based social transformation project to foster occupational justice in play at a school playground was conducted. Objective: To better understand barriers to and facilitators of children's participation in occupations at the school playground to co-create actions that enable play. Design: A participatory methodology-Photovoice-was used. The research consisted of four phases: involving the community in the research design, community-led data generation and analysis, discussion of findings to increase the community's awareness, and a community agenda for changing the playground. Setting: Public primary school playground in northwest Spain. Participants: All children (n n = 450, ages 3-12 yr), families (n n = 12), and teachers (n n = 15) participated. A thematic analysis of visual, textual, and oral material was conducted, including member checking. Results: The study revealed several barriers to play, including the short recess duration, poor floor (surface) conditions, jail-like atmosphere, and violence. However, participants identified an ad hoc lending games system and playground murals advocating for children's rights as facilitators. These findings have direct implications for improving the play environment. Conclusions and Relevance: Conflicting priorities between children's and adults' desires and needs for the playground were unveiled, displaying the relevance of invisible contexts (i.e., social or institutional contexts) in shaping play opportunities. A critical occupational stance combined with a participatory and playful methodology generated space to unveil these conflicting priorities, reconcile agendas, raise awareness, and propose collective actions to transform the playground.