About a year ago I was invited to a Christmas family gathering where two young nephews performed a magic show. During one particular performance, one of the 'magicians' used his coat as a magician's cloth to misdirect our attention from the sleight-of-hand taking place beneath. While this use of props is nothing spectacular or unusual, what it demonstrates is that children will use any type of object in support of their play. More importantly, however, the object will often be a representation of something real and tangible that suits the play theme, in this case a magic show.
Symbolic representation, while not exclusive to the human species, is predominantly a human characteristic that we have been engaged in for thousands of years. It can be identified in structural effigies such as statues, monuments and gravestones; works of art, including paintings, architecture, and music; language, both written, spoken and non-verbal forms; personal, social, cultural and global identity, ie bodily ornaments, flags, anthems, religions, foods and cultural dress; and institutional symbolism, for example product branding or company logos.
Symbolic play, therefore, is a particularly complex phenomenon. It is more than just object representation, for example a stick representing a gun in games of war or a piece of string wrapped around a finger representing a ring. Symbolic play operates on many levels, from the object to the abstract, from a personal to a global identity, from internal feelings to expressed actions. Playworkers need to be mindful of this complexity when planning or facilitating play and should have regard for other play types and much wider social and cultural issues that could be underpinning the play theme.
For the most part, playworkers will be observing and facilitating children's play on the symbolic representation level typically found during thematic or object play, that is providing numerous props that can be used in a symbolic fashion, for example the cardboard box-cum-car, cum-house, cum-time-machine, cum-whatever! Or those props that support imaginative, fantasy and dramatic play, such as the witch's broomstick, or a length of rope representing a giant sea snake.
Furthermore, playworkers may be required to negotiate and support symbolic play which challenges authority or cultural norms, for example Becky Beal's research (see recommended reading) suggests that skateboarding challenges what is considered 'normal' or appropriate social behaviour within a society. In this case, skateboarding is symbolic of young people's own social identity as a specific group, whereby the 'sport-like-play' is intrinsically motivating and to some extent non-reliant on competition and often without authority figures overseeing it. It is a form of play which challenges the idealism of formalised sports; sports which are primarily governed by adults and reliant on competitive codes and rules.
Supporting symbolic play
It goes without saying that the play environment has to be richly resourced in props and 'loose parts' that are freely accessible to children. Props should be diverse in shape and form, colour and shade, texture and size, each having the capacity to be used as a representation of objects not normally accessible, either because they are typically dangerous or something of a rarity. Or they should be able to support symbolic abstractions, such as emotions, feelings, thoughts and intentions, or spiritual and moral symbolism, such as hearts for love, doves for peace, skull and cross-bones for death, or a cross, star, etc, for a particular faith.
In addition to 'propping' the play environment, this play type relies on the playworker's ability to support exploration of symbolic forms of playing - the playworker's capacity to engage in the play scenario so as to demonstrate it is safe to play in this way; that children who want to play symbolically but do not because of fear of being criticised by other players can see that the playful adult is willing to engage in such play and therefore they become symbolic in themselves as being a role model. For example, the exploration through play of cross-gendered roles, whereby a boy may want to play out a female role, or a girl may want to play out an heroic role - most 'heroes' are stereotypically male orientated.
Recommended reading
* Hughes B, A Playworker's Taxonomy of Play Types. London: PLAYLINK, 2002.
* Beal B, Symbolic Inversion in the Subculture of Skateboarding. Play and Culture Studies, vol 1. Greenwich: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1998.
Philip Waters is a playwork co-ordinator, trainer and researcher in Cornwall.
