Characteristics of indoor rough-and-tumble play (R&T) with physical contact between players in preschool.

The purpose of this study is to identify and categorise diverse characteristics of rough-and-tumble play (R&T) with physical contact between children playing at daycare centres (barnehagen).

The study shows how children demonstrate many different R&T characteristics in which there is physical contact between the playing children. The author finds that tumbling should be viewed as a specific category of children's R&T, next to wrestling for superior position (e.g. throwing, shoving or pushing each other) and fragmentary wrestling (e.g. hitting, kicking or grabbing each other).

The study concludes that the different types of physical contact between the children bear witness to the fact that R&T is a type of play developed when the children become older; from tumbling and fragmentary wrestling to wrestling for superior position. This development of the types of R&T is explained as a consequence of children's development from pre-operational to specific operational levels of play, and can be related to categories recognised by a high level of coordination, and to categories recognised by a high level of competition.

The study was carried out at a Norwegian daycare centre, and a total of 32 children aged 3-5 years were observed and filmed during indoor free play for a period of four weeks. The daycare centre was selected because the institution shows special interest in, and tolerates and supports, indoor R&T in its pedagogical practice. Video sequences of 188 R&T situations were transcribed and analysed on the basis of a qualitative, abductive

Storli, R. (2013). Characteristics of indoor rough-and-tumble play (R&T) with physical contact between players in preschool. Nordic Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 6 (16), 1-15.