Early Childhood Education Environments: Affordances for Risk-Taking and Physical Activity in Play

Abstract

Many international studies have highlighted reduced opportunities for young children’s risk-taking and associated physical activity in home, neighbourhood, and early childhood education contexts. At the same time parents and educators express positive attitudes towards children’s engagement in challenging, physically active play. In the early childhood education context, the mismatch between expressed intentions of educators and what happens in the outdoor environment is attributable to a number of factors, including the difficulties that educators experience in theorising about the outdoors. In this chapter we examine the current status of physically active play in Early Childhood Education settings. We then consider contemporary approaches to affordance theory, with a particular emphasis on the contributions of E.J. Gibson, J.J. Gibson, Heft and Kyttä. We argue that affordance theory provides an important approach for active play research and pedagogy.