An Urban Schoolyard as a Place for Play: Ethnographic Study of the Ecology of a Schoolyard

The focus of this study is how urban children used a schoolyard as a place for play during recess period. My investIgation attempts to understand first and second grade students' use of a schoolyard during recess. However, I did not know what kinds of play activities I was likely to discover in this specific setting. From the schoolyard literature, I learned that there were limited generalizations that could be drawn concerning children's activities in the yard, and that similaritIes among yards were minimal because of their physical layout and the children s own individuality. The present study was undertaken as a contribution to improving schoolyard environments for children's play.