Recess Battles

As children wrestle with culture through their games, recess itself has become a battleground for the control of childrenÂ's time. Based on dozens of interviews and the observation of over a thousand children in a racially integrated, working-class public school,Recess Battlesis a moving reflection of urban childhood at the turn of the millennium. The book debunks myths about recess violence and challenges the notion that schoolyard play is a waste of time. The author videotaped and recorded children of the Mill School in Philadelphia from 1991 to 2004 and asked them to offer comments as they watched themselves at play. These sessions inRecess Battlesraise questions about adult power and the changing frames of class, race, ethnicity, and gender. The grown-upsÂ' clear misunderstanding of the complexity of childrenÂ's play is contrasted with the richness of the childrenÂ's folk traditions.Recess Battlesis an ethnographic study of lighthearted games, a celebratory presentation of childrenÂ's folklore and its conflicts, and a philosophical text concerning the ironies of everyday childhood. Rooted in video micro-ethnography and the traditions of theorists such as Bourdieu, Willis, and Bateson,Recess Battlesis written for a lay audience with extensive academic footnotes. International scholar Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith contributes a foreword, and the children themselves illustrate the text with black and white paintings.