Play as Progress (Sutton-Smith)

Play as progress, drawing on the work of Brian Sutton-Smith, is a particular way of looking at this ludic phenomenon that asserts young animals (including children) adapt, learn and develop through their play. This perspective suggests that play has value, not for its own sake, but as a way of promoting other useful functions for child development. The belief in progression or advancement through play is a cherished ideal that maintains considerable status for understanding play, and influences the ways in which adults seek to organize and structure children's play experiences. Increasingly, this dominant discourse is being questioned as an adult interpretation of behavior that often fails to appreciate the unique design features of play and indeed children's own expressions of the value of their play experiences.

The seven rhetorics presented by Sutton-Smith in The Ambiguity of Play each draw on a particular viewpoint to argue, justify and privilege their theory over other perspectives, and as such they possibly say as much about [Page 535]the positions adopted by the respective proponents as an understanding of play itself.

Play as progress represents a dominant discourse that owes a considerable debt to biology and developmental psychology with the notion of universal and predictable movement through the stages of childhood to achieve adulthood. A central feature of this position is the distinction between “child” (weak, innocent and incompetent) and “adult” (mature, autonomous), a separation that is also carried over into appreciating the difference between child and adult play

“Play as progress” is based on a position that understands and values children's play as a function for the development of skills that are useful in the “real” world; play has an adaptive function beyond the immediate experience of playing that assists in successful advancement through the stages of childhood. From this perspective, play contributes to preparing children to become an adult through some “pay-off,” outcome or adaptive value.

Drawing on both animal and human studies, this discourse seeks to establish a connection between forms of playing and the enhancement of non-play related behaviors. The function of play is to promote the development of physical, cognitive social and emotional skills. Thus, for example, biologists have proposed that animal play fighting and chasing games add to repertoires for hunting and prey avoidance. Yet, this would suggest that these forms of play behavior replicate the real world skills necessary for survival, something that is challenged through studies that suggest the design features of animal chase and rough and tumble games may actually run counter to basic survival skills.

The rhetoric of play as progress represents a very powerful expression of the value of children's play as a socializing process and becomes a tool or instrument to be used to aid and accelerate the developmental project; ensuring children grow up “properly.” This particular stance has gained dominance as the way of accounting for and interpreting children's play, finding its natural expression in the phrase play and learning.