Risky play in early childhood education and care settings: A scoping review

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a scoping review aiming to examine the extent, range and nature of the current international research literature on children's risky play in the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) context. Based on the in‐depth review of 80 papers, seven main themes were identified from the research: Outdoor play provision; child risky play behaviours; benefits of risky play for children's learning and development; environmental affordances for risky play; educators' beliefs and practices; influence of the regulatory environment on opportunities for risky play; and implications for policy and practice. The review identifies a number of key gaps in the existing research, including a lack of studies including both educator and parent perspectives on risky play, studies focusing on the role of regulatory documents or licensing/quality assessors' perspectives, cross‐cultural studies, studies investigating environmental affordances for indoor risky play and the need for more large‐scale and longitudinal studies.

Rationale for this study: The past two decades have seen a growing international research focus on risky play. Whilst the research has contributed to understanding children's engagement in risky play and identified social and environmental factors that facilitate or constrain its provision, to date there has been no attempt to systematically synthesise this body of knowledge.

Why the new findings matter: The evidence from the studies analysed for this scoping review demonstrates that risk‐taking is a natural part of children's play and that risky play supports children's holistic development. The synthesis of the findings from the 80 articles analysed identifies the importance of opportunities for risky play in early childhood educational contexts and for policy and curriculum documents to support this type of play.

Implications for educational researchers: The review identified key gaps in the research, identifying a need for larger and longitudinal studies to advance risky play provision in ECEC, including research that draws on the experiences and perspectives from more diverse geographical and cultural contexts.