Children on Playgrounds

A Review of "What's Out There"

Abstract

This paper reviews and critiques the empirical literature on children's playground behavior. There are two objectives to the paper. First, variables which have main and interactive effects on children's playground behavior are described. Second, relations between children's behavior and social competence measures are discussed. Tentative results suggest certain playground behaviors may serve a social affiliation function for children, especially boys. Suggestions are made for future research to identify causal relations.